Offers a perspective, grounded in theory and practice, on issues of readiness and education during the preschool and kindergarten years. Stresses the role of adult involvement in children's learning, and emphasizes preschool as an essential time for building cognitive skills. Illustrates with images drawn from practice in Korean early-childhood…

Concepts from the field of psychoanalytic psychology, with its emphasis on unconscious personal and interpersonal processes, are applied to the practice of second-language teaching, including the "learning alliance" driven by teacher's and students' mutual commitment to the task, issues of "holding," boundary maintenance, idealization,…

Examines public library services to young children and their families and the possible effects of those services on preschool learning. Topics include library-community partnerships to promote literacy; readiness to learn; and children at risk for difficulties in acquiring literacy, including socioeconomic factors and ethnic and language…

Compared the beliefs of preschool teachers, kindergarten teachers, and parents regarding children's school readiness in one mostly Hispanic and Black high-need urban school district. Found that parents held remarkably similar beliefs, regardless of ethnicity or education. Parents rated all classroom-related readiness resources such as…

One possible source of variation in children's mathematical abilities upon entry to school may be the social support of early number skills children receive in the home. In the present study, we explored parental support of preschoolers' counting in the context of an everyday activity and whether parental ability to provide aid is influenced by…

The following article gives a brief account of some empirical research done in the 1980s in the UK by the present author with his colleague, Ibrahim Abdel-Ghany of Minia University, Egypt. At the time both researchers were working at the University of East Anglia at Norwich, England. This work is partly based on empirical arguments, and on…

First grade is a special place where children learn many things, and learning is increased when home and school work together in a friendly partnership. This guide provides parents and children weekly home activities through the year to enhance children's eagerness to learn. Suggested activities--which were carefully chosen by representative…

This Master's research project involved implementation of a program to increase learning readiness skills of children entering kindergarten. The target population was pre-kindergarten students in a changing urban community in northern Illinois. The problem of lack of readiness skills for learning was documented through teacher tests and…

This paper focuses on the implications of the Level 1 Technology curriculum for children in Australia. In theory, the outcomes in the curriculum profile could provide useful learning experiences. However, undue emphasis is placed on the designing, making, and appraising components, which have the potential to push young children beyond their state…

This study examined the feasibility of teaching phonemic manipulation skills (auditory rhyming, blending, or segmenting) to preschool children with disabilities. Forty-seven children, 4-6 years old, enrolled in a special education preschool, were randomly assigned to receive training in one of three categories of phonemic manipulation tasks…

This report describes a model academic improvement program for 18 third graders with low achievement. Data from a questionnaire filled out by four teachers and from observations by the teachers revealed that students targeted for the program demonstrated low learning readiness skills, which resulted in less than desirable behavior, study skills,…

This publication presents a summary of South Carolina's use of funds provided by Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act as an educational resource for educationally deprived children from 1985 to 1989, and identifies projects exhibiting the greatest gains in student achievement during fiscal year 1989. The report consists of…

In 1986, the Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and Development was contracted to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the California State University's (CSU) Summer Bridge and Intensive Learning Experience (ILE) programs. These new remedial/developmental programs are designed to provide basic skills instruction, orientation, and…

Only a fraction of one percent of elementary school children in the United States are enrolled in the study of a foreign language, yet the United States must compete in a multilingual world market. American educators must reevaluate the means by which they prepare future citizens for productive living in an ever-shrinking global society. Piaget,…

Perceptual-motor activities are being recognized as possible contributors to the general readiness of children for learning through the development of perceptual-motor abilities. The contribution of perceptual-motor activities to specific perceptual readiness skills is being reexamined. Readiness programs are generally designed to help children to…