A practicum was designed to utilize various techniques to: (1) improve the involvement of parents and volunteers in the education of fourth grade students; (2) help the students develop a more positive attitude toward self, school, home, and community; and (3) increase students' school attendance rate and participation in school and community…

Literacy development was studied among 38 4-year-olds in Head Start on the Lummi Indian Reservation. Data consisted of observations during weekly visits throughout the school year, student writing samples, records of "pretend reading," responses to environmental print, and checklists assessing written language displays in the classrooms.…

To explore the complexities of communication with Asian and Pacific Islander (API) children and their families, this digest describes the overt and covert dimensions of the various API cultures, and discusses API's socioeconomic background and the life experiences that affect their communication behavior. The general ethnic groups in the API…

A practicum was designed to give third-grade teachers a way to incorporate into the standard school day ongoing assessment techniques. The teachers used portfolios of the 140 children's work as an important, tangible and readily accessible record. The development and presentation of eight monthly workshops and ongoing classroom demonstration and…

Designs for Change is a multiracial research and advocacy group with a commitment to understanding why large urban school systems fail and what can be done about it. After 5 years of study, Designs for Change reached the conclusion that parent organizing and advocacy would not be sufficient to change the problems of Chicago (Illinois) schools…

This annotated bibliography describes studies and reports on issues related to family literacy in multiple contexts. With the exception of five entries, it is limited to programs and studies in the United States. Materials include conceptual discussions, bibliographies, and studies that use experimental, ethnographic, and program evaluative…

Region C Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and Region 3 Rural Technical Assistance Center (R-TAC) provide Chapter I support and technical assistance to state and local education agencies in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Region C encompasses a mix of urban centers and rural…

For over 25 years, the Manhattan Country School, a private school for kindergarten through grade 8, has made intense and successful efforts to maintain a racially and ethnically diverse student population and staff, partly through building an awareness of human diversity into its curriculum and instruction. Recent interest in multicultural…

This newsletter issue emphasizes the ways in which adolescence and its associated stages provide windows of opportunity for programmatic intervention and prevention strategies. Articles in the newsletter include the following: (1) "Developing Support Programs for Families with Adolescents"; (2) "Communicating with Your…

This paper describes LEARNing Visions, a K-12 intervention program for at-risk youth in Jackson County, Tennessee, involving a partnership between the schools, local businesses, Tennessee Technological University, and Visions Five (a private company). Jackson County is characterized by an undereducated population, a high employment rate, and a low…

This paper discusses the founding of the Reggio Emilia preschool system in Reggio, Italy, in 1945 and its development through the 1950s to the present. Since the schools themselves were actually founded and constructed by parents in the aftermath of World War II, the Reggio Emilia approach has always emphasized parent involvement in every facet of…

The rural Warren County (Tennessee) School System created an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program in 1987 to meet the needs of Japanese and Hispanic students. The program reflects a "total approach" that involves students, parents, teachers, and community members interacting with the ESOL staff to meet student and…

This paper describes the development of Turkish Children and Mothers, a project designed to help 5-year-old preschoolers in the Ruhr Valley of Germany develop linguistic, motor, cognitive, and social abilities. The paper also describes various aspects of the project, including those that relate to maternal involvement, educational facilities, the…

The purpose of Part 151 of the regulations of the New York Commissioner of Education is to carry out the legislative intent to provide financial assistance to school districts. This assistance is provided for the operation of experimental prekindergarten programs for children with educational needs associated with poverty. Section 2 of Part 151…

This report describes and evaluates Project SAIL, a collaborative project of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and the New York City Board of Education. It is an ungraded primary unit for children from ages five through eight located at Public School 41, District 23 in Brooklyn. The project stresses school-based planning and shared…