Learning is not limited to a certain age group or a formal study environment. However, the first eight years, and particularly the first three years, are the most important because the effects of the care and attention provided to the child during this period will continue throughout his/her life. A child's early learning processes develop his/her…

Research Findings: A total of 72 Head Start children (M age = 53.26 months, SD = 5.07) were randomly assigned to 4 conditions. Some were taught the oddity principle (choosing the object that differs from others in a group) and seriation (ordering objects on a dimension and inserting new objects into such orders), which are forms of thinking that…

Educators need accurate assessments of preschool cognitive growth to guide curriculum design, evaluation, and timely modification of their instructional programs. But available tests do not provide content breadth or growth sensitivity over brief intervals. This article details evidence for a multiform, multiscale test criterion-referenced to…

To examine how young children learn to read new words, we asked preschoolers (N = 115, mean age 4 years, 8 months) to learn and remember novel spellings that made sense based on letter names (e.g. TZ for "tease") and spellings that were visually distinctive but phonetically inappropriate. Children who were more knowledgeable about letter names…