This paper describes the development of Turkish Children and Mothers, a project designed to help 5-year-old preschoolers in the Ruhr Valley of Germany develop linguistic, motor, cognitive, and social abilities. The paper also describes various aspects of the project, including those that relate to maternal involvement, educational facilities, the…

This document presents criteria that are designed to help a media reviewer examine professional presentations of middle-level education, gauging how closely a presentation reflects prevailing educational philosophy. Ten key features of middle-level schooling are highlighted, and a Likert scale is provided for each. The 10 features include varied…

These four quarterly newsletter issues address various topics of interest to teachers of young children. Each issue focuses on a theme and includes an article on that theme, along with regular columns. The Fall 1997 issue focuses on kindergartners as inquirers and on using a negotiated curriculum in the early childhood setting. The vice…

GRADS (Graduation, Reality, and Dual-Role Skills) is an in-school instructional and intervention program for pregnant teens and young parents. Its objectives are to help these students remain in school through graduation, have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies, learn practical parenting and child-development skills, gain an orientation to…

This paper examines the prevailing theoretical orientation of the "free play" curriculum in New Zealand child care centers. It also introduces an alternative way of understanding how children learn and discusses a literacy-centered curriculum that uses aspects of the free play and alternative curricula. Child care centers in New Zealand…

This study compared Swedish and British child care policy, educational philosophy, and function and organization of preschools. The activities, language, and group patterns of 559 children in 73 full-time and 42 part-time preschools in Sweden were observed. Questionnaires assessed staff-child ratio, group size, staff working conditions, and…

Early childhood special educators recognize the necessity of establishing indices of reliability and validity for instruments that provide an index of developmental status. Many such instruments present little empirical evidence regarding psychometric integrity, particularly for a non-normative sample. The 341-item Battelle Developmental Inventory…

Among the goals of the teacher of human development is to open students' minds to the diverse cultural and ethnic influences that effect the development of children. A new approach to a semester-long human development course offered at Green Mountain College, in Vermont, is based on the study of children's literature. The course is organized…

This primer on fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) distinguishes between the syndrome and fetal alcohol effects (FAE), offers a history of FAS, outlines medical criteria for diagnosis, rates of incidence, factors influencing incidence and severity, developmental stages of children with FAS, clinical features, and educational implications and approaches.…

This guide is designed to help facilitators tailor the Reach and Teach program to their clients' individual needs. Reach and Teach is a family literacy project designed to improve the parenting and basic skills of clients of family agencies in Pinellas County, Florida. The program emphasizes enhancing the parent's role as the child's nurturer and…

This study investigated the extent to which preservice teachers could differentiate developmentally appropriate from inappropriate practices in the education of young children. Responses to 2 teaching scenarios were collected from 158 junior and/or senior early childhood teacher education majors from a university in the mid-South. Results…

This report reviews literature on the effects of maternal alcohol consumption on the fetus and the resulting impact on the learning abilities and behavior of children born with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Recent reports indicate that an estimated 73 percent of infants are exposed to alcohol before birth, resulting in varying degrees of learning…

This fundamentally encouraging book describes programs that offer young Black males from high-risk environments the same nurturing opportunities that other young people have to develop the competencies needed for adulthood. Chapters and their authors are (1) "Introduction" (Ronald B. Mincy); (2) "Adolescent Development"…

Written for a 1988 bilateral United Kingdom-West German conference, the chapters in this volume examine childhood and youth as socially constructed life stages within the context of contemporary social and cultural change. Following the editors' introduction are 14 papers: "What Does the Future Hold? Youth and Sociocultural Change in the…

In 1990, the World Conference on Education for All renewed the world's commitment to ensuring the rights of all people to education and knowledge. This theme issue of the "Coordinator's Notebook" introduces the Education for All initiative and surveys what has been done (and needs to be done) to address the education needs of young…