Early childhood care and education (ECCE) has a crucial contribution to the future life of children, and overall quality of learning and development of a country. Even though there are no well-established international criteria to evaluate the quality of ECCE programmes because of the variability in nations' economies, workforces, political…

The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) lists 11 recommended practices for assessment, including "Practitioners report assessment results so they are understandable and useful to families" (DEC, 2014, p. 8). This article examines high-impact practices designed to make meaningful and understandable assessment reports to facilitate…

Studies of seven school-sponsored programs conducted by the Harvard Family Research Project and the National Association of State Boards of Education found various innovative approaches to early childhood education. This article describes four major success strategies: organizing an early childhood unit; creating child-centered classrooms;…

This summary report describes Maine's early childhood demonstration sites--three model programs within the schools which serve as demonstration and training sites for public school and preschool educators and which increase access to quality programs for four-year-old children and their families. Demonstration sites were designed to provide an…

This report presents preliminary findings of a 5-year study evaluating the effectiveness of state-funded prekindergarten programs in Texas. The two components of the study included in this report are (1) a statewide survey of 507 school districts, focusing on prekindergarten program characteristics, implementation, and parents' perceptions of the…

A pre-kindergarten program serving poor urban Aboriginal families in Saskatchewan, Canada, used parent-created literacy boxes based on a topic of interest to their child and themselves. It was found that the literacy box experiment encouraged families to come into the classroom to read with their child, allowed the teacher to become more…

The Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) Preschool Programs is a comprehensive early childhood educational delivery system that provides developmentally appropriate practices to children, integrated services to families, and interdisciplinary and interagency collaboration among organizations serving young children in Kentucky. This report…

This summary highlights implementation strategies from the full report for restructuring middle grade education in Texas. The task force was guided by a central theme--a vision of Texas schools using each other as resources and the campus planning process as a vehicle for implementing research-based concepts and practices in the middle grades.…

This paper examines the experience of Caribbean countries in striving to achieve quality in early childhood development programs. Part 1 reviews the needs of developing children and the dimensions of quality in early childhood programs intended to meet those needs. Included in the discussion is the use of Developmentally Appropriate Practice…

Kindergarten Plus, a program for disabled and non-disabled kindergarten students in an integrated classroom setting, was implemented in 5 New York City classrooms serving 99 kindergartners. The program's implementation and student outcomes were evaluated at the end of the first year. Classroom observation and staff interviews revealed that the…

This report describes the development, introduction, and evaluation of the SuperStart comprehensive prekindergarten program adopted by the New York City Public Schools in 1990. By 1991, SuperStart offered 299 classes in 188 schools, providing a developmentally appropriate learning environment to foster cognitive, social, emotional, and physical…

The involvement of parents in schools has been legislated in Spain since 1970, with the main activities being parents associations and school councils, but these partnerships do not represent a particularly friendly situation. A research project was carried out through the University of Oviedo, Spain, Department of Education, to create a mechanism…

The Regents' Center for Early Developmental Education (University of Northern Iowa) focuses efforts on improving early childhood education (birth through 8 years) in Iowa by supporting educational efforts that emphasize children's interests, experimentation, and cooperation. In recent years, educational reform initiatives have targeted programs…

This paper reports on the findings of an evaluation of Project Giant Step, a program funded by New York City to provide comprehensive services to all 4-year-olds in the city, beginning with low-income children who are unserved by existing programs. Both the costs and effects of Project Giant Step are examined. Effects of the program on children…

Given the help they want and need, families do spend time with their young children in developmentally appropriate learning activities. Following a successful experience with Family Connections 1, the Rural Excel Program at the Appalachia Educational Laboratory (AEL) developed a second volume of 22 colorful, four-page guides to learning, designed…