This booklet is designed to help parents make their children's first days in school successful and exciting. It also answers questions about school entrance requirements in Virginia and suggests ways parents can be involved in their children's education. The first sections offer information on entrance age and compulsory school age, requirements…

This manual is a resource book for organizers and leaders and parent groups who want to explore specific strategies to use in modeling the kind of behavior that will help children do better in school. The guide contains material necessary to conduct a 1- or 1.5-hour session which reinforces the idea that parents are their children's most…

Schools in Alberta provide English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program support to immigrant students while they are adjusting to Canadian culture and learning the English language. This booklet is for parents who are new to Alberta, whose children are learning ESL and/or who need more information about ESL program support. A description of the…

This article reports on an ethnographic research project that investigated the relationship between home language use and acquisition of academic English as determined by the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS) scores. The subjects were 33 children ages 10 to 14 from bilingual Spanish-English families. Data on home language use was collected…

This study examined the relationship between parental childrearing behaviors and adolescent academic competence in 393 seventh-graders from rural two-parent families with similar educational and economic backgrounds. Data was collected from school academic records, adolescent and parent questionnaires, and observer ratings. Results indicate that…

This theme issue provides an overview of how parents and professionals can be involved in advocacy efforts for children with disabilities, ages 3 and older. The guide begins with a definition of advocacy and a discussion of parents' and professionals' roles as advocates. It outlines legal rights, specific parental rights provided by the…

This paper presents findings of a study that examined African-American parents' beliefs about their relationships with their children's schools. Telephone interviews were conducted with 147 parents of African-American children residing within the boundaries of a unified school district in a resort community in southern California. The study sought…

This report describes and evaluates the first year of the "Parents Sharing Books" project, a parent outreach program for Indiana middle and junior high schools. The project focuses on increasing interaction between parents and middle school children with books that they read together, encouraging parents and children to share books and…

This study examined the relationship between parents' general beliefs about child development and parents' beliefs regarding their child's performing a hypothetical developmental task with ease or with difficulty. The relation of these beliefs to the children's development was also considered. These relationships were examined separately for…

The prereferral process for intervention with students who might be candidates for special education can provide indirect services outside of the special education system and has benefits for teachers, parents, and students. During the prereferral process the classroom teacher remains the pivotal professional. Teachers observe the student's…

It is generally recognized that early childhood experiences are extremely important for human development. The development of rational thinking, attention span, and ability to memorize in the first years of life are very much dependent upon motor experiences gained through exploring and comprehending. Early learning experiences should not be…

When parents called for the removal of certain classroom and library materials from the Mexico, Missouri, public schools in 1982, the Mexico Board of Education unanimously refused their request. After separate complaints about the magazine "Humanist," a film of Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery," as well as her book…

This report is the second to appear in a series of studies carried out by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) during the past 5 years. The first report concerned the integration of handicapped young people into ordinary schools. The present report deals with what happens…

This guide on training bilingual education teachers focuses on parent participation in school activities. The guide addresses three groups of people: paraprofessionals and non-graduate students, bilingual teachers, and graduate students. Two units are presented, one dealing with the important influence parents have on their child's language…

In this two-part paper, an attempt is made to examine the relationship between social contexts and effective schools and specifically to contribute to the development of a conceptual model for understanding how social contexts influence the operation of effective schools and student learning. In the first part, school effects research is drawn…