Genuine intellectual and other pre-academic skills and abilities are as important as social skills for children's smooth transition into kindergarten and continued school success. Head Start was originally conceived to prepare preschoolers from disadvantaged backgrounds to succeed in elementary school. Now that the program has earned renewed…

Suggestions for helping communities achieve the first National Education Goal--by the year 2000, all children will start school ready to learn--are presented in this document. The ways in which readiness is developed and what communities can do to support families are described. Examples are provided of 13 community projects that are preparing…

The authors investigated whether the constructs measured by the Kindergarten Screening Inventory (KSI) were the same for males and females and for Anglo American, Negro American and Mexican American ethnic groups. Results indicate they are very similar. (Author)

This study attempted to refine the assessment of the effectance of four-year-old children through observation of their play. Two scales were developed; the first scale defined organization, involvement, and interpersonal responsiveness in play while the second operationally defined psychosexual content of play. The results confirmed the validity…

This paper examines research studies that have concluded that elementary school children can learn more difficult and abstract social studies concepts than are taught in the traditional social studies curriculum. Research studies that focus on constraints on cognition, the use of embedded concepts, and understanding knowledge restructuring and…

This study investigated the use of the developmental level of kindergarten children's art work as a predictor of readiness for first grade. The sample consisted of 55 children (33 girls and 22 boys) in three kindergarten classes. All were over 5 years of age and had not attended kindergarten before. The kindergarten screening measure used a…

A study examined the relationship between sex differences and the development of reading proficiency, specifically investigating if sex differences related to achievement on measures of silent reading comprehension, sight vocabulary, recognition of vocabulary in context, and use of structural analysis in word recognition taken separately or in…

Unproven beliefs about the process of reading and its instruction and about the effects of maturation and social structure on learning have obscured the question of what children know about how to read. An alternate conceptualization proposes that to learn to read children must obtain experience in three reading contexts: the use of print and its…

This research addresses the actual goals and intentions from which students plan and organize their work in a course of study. Representations can either facilitate or hinder learning and problem solutions. Several salient aspects of adult students' representational systems and how they influenced university study were examined in two studies. The…

Explores causes of nonlearning in young children, the problems of mechanical, unimaginative learning, and the differences between precocity and maturity. (ED)

In order to enhance the understanding of visual literacy, one of its constituents, visual learning (VL), is examined in terms of underlying assumptions, hypothesized behaviors, and implications of both assumptions and behaviors. Assumptions are: (1) VL encompasses all changes in behavior arising from the individual's responses to visual…

Descriptions of ten reading, mathematics and readiness programs chosen for statewide dissemination in South Carolina are presented in this document. The programs were selected following a study funded by Title I and conducted to serve 127,702 children in local South Carolina school districts. Each was found to provide solutions to critical…

An external evaluation was conducted of the Picturepages television work-along program in Kentucky. The program consisted of 100 televised lessons and booklets, and was given to 237 preschool children. The lessons presented "games" which were designed to develop cognitive concepts and skills. Both process and outcome evaluations were…

This report examines the procedures employed in the Home Start Program, which offered prekindergarten readiness enrichment for economically disadvantaged children, ages two through five. The program focused on regular visits to the home by paraprofessional home workers, and took into account parental needs as well as the multifaceted development…