Preparing students for high school is only one of the many functions of middle school. It is expected that by this time children would have acquired the behaviors necessary to interact appropriately with peers and adults. This practicum was designed to help the low achieving and the learning disabled student (SLD) acquire appropriate social…

Stability of the Early Screening Profiles (ESP), developed by P. Harrison, was examined with a sample of 23 non-handicapped preschool children (14 females and 9 males) ranging in age from 3 years 0 months to 6 years 0 months at the time of initial testing. The sample was drawn from a rural/suburban community in the midwest with a predominantly…

This report describes a study on the development of children's conceptualizations of written language, that is, their graphic sense. The study investigated three issues: (1) whether acquisition of literacy is a developmental process common to all normal children, (2) whether the levels of graphic sense tend to be associated with particular…

In 1986, New York City's summer Preparation for Raising Education Performance (PREP) program operated for the fifth consecutive year. Summer PREP is designed to ease incoming students' transition into high school and to provide instruction in basic writing skills. The program also provided theme-based instruction, enrichment, and guidance services…

Studies of child-rearing practices among Thai, Indonesian, and Indian families are reported in two abstracts and one full paper. The Indonesian study (by Siti Rahayu Haditono) explored achievement motivation, parents' educational level, and child-rearing practices among members of four Javanese occupational groups: farmers, traders, civil…

This report offers answers to four basic questions about children's readiness for school: (1) What does being ready for school mean? (2) How can practitioners best identify and assess readiness? (3) How important is readiness? and (4) How do children who are ready get ready, and how do children who are not yet ready become ready? It is argued that…

This book provides the teacher with a framework for assessing children's potential to learn, taking into account cognitive skills, specifically similarity thinking skills, as well as the emotional status of children, particularly the development of independent security. Complex ideas are introduced through the use of case studies and anecdotes.…

Newly assembled evidence indicates that children attending South Carolina's early childhood programs are better prepared for first grade than those who do not attend kindergarten. Children who attended some type of kindergarten in 1979-80 reached higher levels of achievement by the end of first grade than children who did not attend. These levels…

Sixty beginning first-grade students in an urban school district in South Carolina participated in a study investigating the relationship between representational competence and the ability to perform first-grade learning tasks. Representational competence may be defined as the ability to use representations of reality (such as pictures, symbols,…

The purpose of this paper, one of several background reports for a comprehensive policy study of early childhood education, is to identify current issues regarding the kindergarten curriculum, particularly in relation to the trends surrounding the shift from a developmental curriculum to a more academic-based curriculum. The single major issue…

This document reports the preliminary results of the Fall, 1980 administration of the Cognitive Skills Assessment Battery (CSAB) to all first grade students in South Carolina. This battery was administered in accordance with the mandate of the 1978 Act 631 of the state legislature. The CSAB is an individually administered readiness battery…

The effects of educational stimulation on creative thinking ability and the relationships among verbal and figural creativity, intelligence, and school readiness were investigated in a sample of 123 first grade children. The educational stimulation consisted of special advanced instruction in physical education, music, art, social studies, and…

A pilot study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of five curricular methods used in a summer Head Start program designed to develop perceptual-motor skills. Three hundred and seventy-three inner-city children in 15 Head Start centers were given the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the Brenner Developmental Gestalt Test of School…

In 1970, the Illinois Legislature passed bills requiring that elementary school districts institute procedures to identify and treat preschool children who, without such intervention, would not progress satisfactorily in a normal school environment. Efforts in this regard resulted in the screening instrument called Developmental Indicators for the…

This paper describes a Piagetian-based evaluation measure and results obtained from the use of this measure with 1260 pre-kindergarten inner-city children. The children were enrolled in a program designed to develop their readiness skills. Family income, limited educational opportunities of adult members of the family, and dependency on public…