This dissertation study employed quantitative methods to investigate the impact of adult questioning styles on children's novel vocabulary acquisition during shared storybook reading. In an effort to examine adult qualitative variations in shared storybook readings, two experiments were conducted to assess the effect of noneliciting questions…

Job Corps, administered by the Department of Labor, is an employment and training program aimed at providing severely disadvantaged youth with a comprehensive array of services, generally in a residential setting. A study conducted meetings with Department of Labor (DOL) officials, analyzed national data on program participants, and visited six…

Title I of the Elementary Secondary Education Act authorizes a federally funded compensatory program for several groups of educationally disadvantaged children. The legislation directs that priority educational needs of these children be identified and programs be designed to provide appropriate supplemental instruction. This report summarizes…

This paper, developed from the discussions of the Executive Session on Making the System Work for Poor Children, describes why the current human service system is failing to help many poor children, and maps out the dimensions of a system that could greatly improve these children's prospects. The argument is made that the current system's problems…

This report describes and evaluates Chapter 1 schoolwide programs in the School District of Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) since the reauthorization of that legislation in 1988. A brief description of the history and philosophy of Chapter 1 legislation and of the Philadelphia district opens the document. This district serves a population that is 77…

An interim report on the congressionally mandated National Study of Student Support Services (SSS) focuses on the characteristics of college freshmen program participants and on the level and type of services they receive. The federally funded grant program is designed to help economically disadvantaged students achieve success at the…

A project was designed to enrich the career growth and development of inner-city handicapped junior high students by training parent-trainers using a trainer-of-trainers model. Through the training process, the project also aimed at forging a strong working relationship among collaborating groups whose personnel were being trained. To achieve…

This paper argues for two major changes in the selection of students and in the way that services are delivered under Chapter 1 of the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act of 1981. The first change would make available Chapter 1 funds only to schools with very high proportions of children whose families live in poverty. The second change…

The Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act of 1977 (YEDPA) authorized a range of research, evaluation, and demonstration activities to increase understanding of the employment problems of youth and to help determine the most effective policies and programs to address these problems. Although many programs, such as the War on Poverty and…

This conference synopsis presents the views of educators, researchers, and a journalist who maintain that inner city schools are effective, and can be more so, in educating disadvantaged students. The claim that inner city schools cannot overcome deficits in family background unless students' socioeconomic position is first improved is challenged.…

This paper reports the results of a Neighborhood Youth Corps (NYC) prospective study, which are based on program-sourced information and second-round followup interviews with study subjects. The primary hypothesis that the NYC programs studied had helped enrollees achieve satisfactory adjustment to life and to the world of work was not confirmed,…

Since the University of California (UC) Board of Regents banned the consideration of race, ethnicity and gender in admissions, college outreach programs have been the primary vehicle of achieving diversity among the UC student body. Outreach programs constitute an array of tools and services that help improve the college preparedness and…

The federal Even Start program was implemented to improve the educational opportunities of low-income children and adults by integrating early childhood education, adult education, and parent education into a unified family literacy initiative. This study was designed to assess the impact of Even Start on children's early school performance…

Claims that the Carolina Abecedarian Project, an early intervention with children from economically and socially impoverished homes, has produced and maintained higher IQs in children at risk of mental retardation are examined for approximately 112 children. Assertions of project success are reviewed, and the implications are discussed. (SLD)

This case study documents how a group of 14 academically at risk Primary 5 students (11 year olds) were engaged in academic related tasks in an after school program mediated by a "3-D Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE)." Although there was no significant difference in the students' academic performance, they were found to be more engaged in the…