The last 15 years have witnessed a quiet revolution in the understanding of spatial skills, and the authors are finding that these all-important science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) competencies are rooted in spatial knowledge. Spatial skills are the tools use to visualize and navigate the world. Spatial skills allows people to…

Although the concept of learning readiness has been recognized for over a century, the term readiness did not appear until the 1920s. Readiness efforts must be considered in terms of their effect on the quality of life for young children, and continued evaluation of activities must take place in these terms. (JN)

Parents may better prepare their children to enter school by making sure that daily activities and household routines serve educational ends: learning scientific concepts through helping in the kitchen; being encouraged to read by having access to a variety of books. Specific activities are described. (JL)

This paper contends that a person's readiness for academic learning should be based on his/her developmental readiness, not on chronological age requirements. Human beings develop at their own neurological rates (biological clock). The paper first cites research on a "sensitive learning period" in which learning is mastered in a more efficient…

Assuming the premise that "a child has gone fifty percent of the way in organizing the thinking patterns that we call his intelligence by the time he has reached the age of four, and the next thirty percent by the time he is eight," 50 Schenectady kindergarten-through-first-grade teachers and administrators formulated a chart of behavioral…