Noting that parents are children's most important teachers, this guide provides parents and children with weekly activities for all parts of the year that are intended to enhance children's eagerness to learn. The suggested activities, carefully chosen by Medina County, Ohio, kindergarten teachers, were designed to reinforce skills introduced in…

The Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP) of the state of Washington is a family-focused program designed to help 4-year-old children from low-income families succeed in the public education system. The ECEAP is comprised of four interactive components that relate to education, parent involvement, health and nutrition, and…

This guide is intended to encourage parent participation as schools move toward more inclusive programs for children and youth with disabilities. The guide covers: the importance of "person first" terminology to refer to people with disabilities; what parents want for their children; parent participation under the Individuals with…

While Europe is experiencing new transnationalism based on technical economic links, European preschool education is not as accommodating to multicultural growth as economic growth has been. In many schools, children are forced to learn and interact in a language foreign to them. This break with their mother tongue is also a break with maternal…

Dramatic changes in the economic and political structure of the Czech Republic in recent years have challenged schools to transform themselves from closed institutions into open organizations that collaborate with families and communities. This study explored the questions: (1) Are changes in school/family relations really occurring? (2) What are…

One important aspect of family involvement that has been consistently overlooked is the need to prepare teachers for intensive work with families and communities. This study investigated professional development and teacher education in the hope of providing a framework for developing more comprehensive approaches for family involvement in…

This guide is intended to help those providing services to infants and young children with special needs to work more effectively and collegially with family members at the program and policy level. The guide stresses the benefits and barriers to family participation in advisory activities and offers guidelines for promoting family participation.…

This final report describes activities and achievements of a Texas project to facilitate inclusive programming for preschool and primary children with disabilities using the High/Scope approach, which provides for developmentally appropriate programming for young children with and without disabilities. The project focused on capacity building…

The High School and Family Partnership Project began in 1991 with two urban, two suburban, and two rural high schools in Maryland to learn more about whether basic theories, frameworks, and practices of family, student, and community involvement are appropriate at the high school level; how schools can develop and implement such practices; and how…

In November 1991, teams of elementary school and community members from 11 communities in Massachusetts met to discuss the formation of compacts, or informal agreements describing educational goals and outlining responsibilities, to strengthen the role of families in education: this paper provides a summary of that conference. The first of five…

This set of forms is part of Project STEPS (Sequenced Transition to Education in the Public Schools). They are intended to assist communities develop and use a formalized process for assessing the current status of transition within their community and for interagency planning related to the development of a community-wide transition team. The…

The study described in this report was intended to provide researchers with comprehensive, longitudinal baseline data on average children and their families. The study focused on positive growth and development by identifying a national sample of children and families for researchers to study. The children were examined in five main areas: (1)…

Increasing parent involvement in the Pacific region requires an understanding of the traditional system of Pacific education. While historically Pacific education involved parents and community members as children's first teachers, the American model of education virtually ignores this tradition. The school assumes the entire responsibility for…

Increased attention to adolescent health and well-being has been stimulated by rising mortality rates and high morbidity rates among adolescents. Several national inquiries have found that the responses of medical and other service systems do not adequately meet the health-related needs of adolescents and that a different approach, involving…

Science is everywhere and should be learned inside as well as outside of the science classroom. This document provides a list of science resources to help parents bring the scientist out in their child. The article includes information on the following topics: (1) Sources of Science Activities; (2) Reading, Television, and Video Resources in…