In its nine chapters, this summary provides a preview of Connecticut's forthcoming "A Guide to Program Development for Kindergarten, Part 1." Chapter 1 reviews historical antecedents, including Froebel's influence, kindergarten in the United States before 1900, European influences in the early 20th century, American influences, the kindergarten debate, and recent history. Chapter 2 discusses maturationist, behaviorist, and interactionist theoretical models and their influence on kindergarten programing, as well as the developmental stages and diverse understandings of kindergarten children which teachers must take into account. Chapter 3 offers guiding principles for a high quality kindergarten, including a list of the teacher's roles and related competencies and strategies. Chapter 4 describes kindergarten children's emotional and social development. Particular attention is given to sources of stress on kindergarten children and ways to handle stressed children. Chapter 5 describes the integrated curriculum, activity centers, unification of learning through a theme, interactive learning, contributions of play to growth, curriculum areas, and teaching of thinking skills. Chapter 6 focuses on the organization of the kindergarten. Chapter 7 describes ways of building a home-school-community partnership. Chapter 8 discusses the child's transition from preschool to kindergarten. Chapter 9 deals with program planning and evaluation. (RH)