This guidance report offers early years professionals seven practical evidence-based recommendations to provide every child--but particularly those from disadvantaged homes--with a high quality and well-rounded grounding in early literacy, language and communication. One recommendation focuses on the importance of high quality interactions between…

Authored by two passionate psychologists and educators, "Book Smart: How to Develop and Support Successful, Motivated Readers" is a how-to guide rich with stories, lessons, activities, and ideas aimed at supporting reading development and addressing the broad range of interpersonal, social, emotional, and motivational skills that can be…

Learning disability is a classification that includes several disorders in which a person has difficulty learning in a typical manner. Depending on the type and severity of the disability, interventions may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success. Some interventions can be quite simplistic, while others are…

With this inaugural edition of "Evidence for Education," NICHCY launches a new publication series exploring the best evidence-based practices education has to offer. "Strategy Instruction" is a powerful student-centered approach to teaching that is backed by years of quality research. In fact, strategic approaches to learning…

To promote and facilitate family involvement in children's education, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement has consolidated its "Learning Partners" series into one booklet. This booklet consists of several two-page activity guides in a variety of learning areas. Each guide lists general things parents…

This new addition to the Knowledge Essentials series, "Kindergarten Success," shows parents how to enrich their children's classroom learning and take an active role in their kindergartners' educations by exploring: (1) What your children are learning at school and the educational standards to expect in math, language arts, science, and social…

"Specific Learning Disability" is by far the largest category of conditions served in special education. Unfortunately, few parents (and educators) really understand what learning disabilities are. Many erroneously believe it is a "politically correct" term for "mildly mentally retarded" or "dull normal." Further, while most laypeople have heard…

This article outlines several strategies which parents can use both to encourage their children to write and to enhance the children's enthusiasm for writing. (IAH)

For parents of young children, this packet offers ideas of things to do at home to help in the development of children's reading and writing. The packet discusses how children learn and how parents can help; shows the stages a child goes through in learning to write; offers ideas for activities parents and children can do together; explains how…

Intended for parents, this book offers straightforward directions on how to guide children in constructing a composition. It also helps parents review and clarify compositions that their children have already written. The book gives a developmental perspective to children's performance and includes sample compositions from actual classroom writing…

Focusing on the crucial area of early literacy, this book provides an easy-to-understand guide to inclusion for pre-school practitioners. Ready to Read and Write in the Early Years has been put together from course notes and materials used by the authors in their work with preschool practitioners. It includes: (1) How to establish strong…

Cooperative learning is a teaching strategy in which small teams, each with students of different levels of ability, use a variety of learning activities to improve their understanding of a subject. Typical cooperative learning strategies used in grades 2 through 12 involve student teams in which students: (1) work on group projects that emphasize…

This brochure offers parents tips on helping their children connect writing with reading. It begins by noting that preschool children often want to scribble on paper, scribbles which sometimes represent a story. It suggests making space in the home for literacy, and encouraging early efforts. The brochure then offers four brief activities for…

Designed for workshops or college courses focusing on professional development and inservice teacher training, this book presents over 200 reproducibles (including transparencies, brochures, and fact sheets) to help parents and administrators understand how reading and writing flourish in whole language classrooms. The book addresses the need to…

The "Clipboard Connection" is a methodology to facilitate the rapid circulation of relevant pre-existing materials from Chapter 1 Technical Assistance Centers (TACs) to their clients, teachers of educationally disadvantaged children in resource centers. Each "Clipboard Connection" consists of a lead sheet summarizing the…