This book describes the emergence and early development of pretend play in its sociocultural context. It traces the development of pretend play in nine children growing up within educated, middle-class European-American families. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the social and cultural aspects of pretend play. Chapter 2 describes the children and…

This guide was designed to expand teachers' vision of symbolic play and to assist teachers in providing an appropriate play environment. The guide maintains that teachers of young children should consider symbolic play an essential element in the total learning environment. It presents ways for teachers to: (1) set up physical areas; (2) acquire…

This digest examines research on preschool programs that include children with and without disabilities. Recent research suggests that children with disabilities are able to take advantage of experiences that promote typical development. One study found that children with disabilities enrolled in integrated programs demonstrated higher levels of…

A program to identify culturally-diverse adolescents with the potential of becoming gifted adults is described, and instructions for conducting theater activities are presented. "Talent Search and Development Model Project" of the New Haven Connecticut School System involves middle schools serving primarily Black and Hispanic (bilingual)…

Nine papers comprise the proceedings of a 1988 North Carolina symposium on early childhood education. The first paper, "Preschool Assessment" (Nancy Johnson-Martin), focuses on norm-referenced psychological assessment to determine eligibility and programming needs. "Appropriate Use and Interpretation of Assessments of Young…

The present study describes the initial use of a measure for assessing children's imaginative predispositions and reports findings of significant relationships between oral reports of imaginativeness and selected individual and family variables. Subjects were 50 preschool children 4 to 5 years of age. Variables investigated were number of parents…

Social responsibility is a difficult but essential aspect of being a professional educator. The contributors to this volume hope that the social policy debate within the education profession will be encouraged. The book provides practical assistance for educators in developing curriculum and instruction programs that foster creativity and critical…

There is a risk of second language teachers becoming emotionally overcharged about innovative methods and techniques. Innovators promoting particular methods often claim comprehensive answers to instructional problems, and in spite of an apparent concern for scientific respectability, new approaches take on some characteristics of religious…

Classroom activity ideas for Japanese English as a second language students include a Punch and Judy puppet show (script included); a Halloween puppet trick-or-treat game to learn vocabulary and an American custom; a mime game using verbs; hangman; games of prediction, chance, and sorting or grouping; a Japanese card game similar to "slap"; a…

Preceded by a list of broad educational goals, subject areas of a kindergarten curriculum are specified generally in terms of domain-specific goals, skills, activities, and resources, and incidentally in terms of philosophy and suggested learning centers. Subject areas addressed include art, health and nutrition, language arts, math, music,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the social support network of mothers with high risk infants and the relation between support and mother-infant interactive behavior. Two issues were investigated: who gave what kind of support to the mother as a function of her infant's birth status; and the relation between type of support and…

Based on the hypothesis that the low academic achievement of Brazilian children attending government schools was directly related to a discrepancy between the children's working-class dialect and the school's dialect which is closer to upper class speech, a study was undertaken in literacy classes in one private and one public school where the…

The process by which parents become attached to their infants was the focus of a roundtable discussion. Participating were students of the attachment process in various animal species, as well as clinicians and researchers, from various disciplines, engaged in studying the development of attachment in parents of normal infants, parents of…

This book describes a 5-day program of imaginative activities designed to help elementary school children learn how their world functions through seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, and hearing. The book is designed to help children understand energy flow, the cycles of basic materials, the diversity of life, natural communities, change,…

Third of a four-part series, this article presents an instructional plan for teaching the place value notation concept, base ten, to preschool and elementary school children. After a brief review of the place value notation concept, contents describe an integrated and progressive series of four game-like activities which are fundamentally overt…