The authors challenge proponents of informal open classrooms" as well as of traditional school organization. (Editor)

The Perry Preschool Project, for educable mentally retarded 3- and 4-year-olds from disadvantaged homes is described. This program uses a cognitively oriented curriculum (based on Piagetian theory) designed to help the child construct the mental representations of himself and his environment that will lead to the development of logical modes of…

In order to investigate diffusion effects within families involved in an intervention program, 80 disadvantaged children were divided into four groups, three of which were made up of younger siblings of preschool children in the intervention program. In two of these three groups, the mother was also involved in the program. The fourth group was…

The purpose of the study was to determine whether mathematical concepts could be learned and retained by disadvantaged preschool children when taught by an inexperienced teacher. College sophomores used printed lesson plans with no further instruction with 94 severely disadvantaged children attending either Headstart schools of Day Care Centers in…

The following research projects are described in this annual report: (1) "Concept Learning in Discrimination Tasks," which indicates that kindergarten children are able to discriminate the letters "b,""d,""p," and "q"; (2) "Discrimination of Letter-like Forms," indicating that nursery…

The program activities, curriculum, and evaluation of the Pennsylvania Research in Infant Development and Education (PRIDE) Project are described in this report. The project is an educational effort to accelerate the development of children, 12-52 months of age, by providing developmentally enriching experiences in a controlled environment which…

The purpose of the study was to describe ways in which disadvantaged children differ from their more advantaged peers in the areas of cognitive and affective developmental patterns, and to use this description to restructure curricular experiences for disadvantaged children. Five groups of approximately 30 preschool children each were tested three…

Research has established that students generally possess conceptions relevant to curricular topics before they begin to study them and that these preconceptions often persist despite instruction on scientific theories which contradict them. Discrepancies between students' post instruction conceptions and the scientific theories as taught often…