This study represents a segment of an evaluation of the effects of two diametrically-opposed instructional strategies on inner-city kindergarten children who had varying preschool experiences. The child- and parent-oriented "enrichment" approach was used in one school while the teacher- and goal-oriented "direct instructional" approach was practiced in a separate but comparable school. Children randomly selected from both programs were tested on a variety of measures in October and May. Data were collected on such independent variables as school poverty index (percent of families on welfare), chronological age, number of siblings, ordinal rank of child in family, and school year attendance. Two statistical measures were used: Stepdown Regression Analysis and Analysis of Covariance. Results indicated (1) direct instructional strategy was more effective than enrichment in fostering basic academic skills, (2) effect of preschool experience one year later was limited to reading scores only, and (3) pretest scores were the best predictors of children's performance on posttests of general mental functioning and basic skills. (Author/WY)