Suggests a way for teachers to organize their observations of children into valid, reliable, nonjudgmental descriptions in order to help an assessment team diagnose special problems. Gives guideline questions concerning visual, motor, social-emotional and other behaviors that can alert teachers to inconsistent development in young children. (BRT)

Urges the preschool teacher to assume the role of mental health counselor by working closely with parents. Suggests ways to deal with normal childrearing situations and with crises involving death, illness or surgery, and separation or divorce. Briefly discusses the nursery school's handling of children with psychological problems. (BRT)

An account of one school's home-involvement program and its benefits. (BRT)

Discusses how one's conception of intelligence and its development profoundly affects the formulation of educational objectives. A mechanistic conception of intelligence leads to the definition of objectives as a collection of fragmented "cognitive skills", while a Piagetian conception attempts to develop children's intelligence as an organized…

Describes a family day care program designed to enable day care mothers to become professional child development workers. Factors which facilitate this development are elaborated: recruiting and selecting day care mothers; preservice and inservice training; use of consultants; and some administrative considerations. (CS)

Discusses how two teacher functions can be used to guide science discovery learning and enhance concept formation in the preschool: (1) nurturing children's curiosity, and (2) providing active learning experiences that extend and clarify common events in the lives of young children. (CS)

Describes a home-based parent education component of a bilingual, bicultural preschool program which involves parents in the decision-making process concerning their child's education and has effected a language and cultural exchange between the Anglo and Spanish-speaking communities. (CS)

Four different sets of early childhood curriculum materials, selected for their emphasis on affective development, are examined for their structural characteristics, specified learning outcomes, theoretical bases, and degree of consistency. (CS)

Describes the Sumner Mobile Preschool program designed to help parents recognize the potential learning possibilities of a home-based pre-school program. Small groups of seven to ten children attend class in one of seven neighborhood homes in which the preschool meets. (CS)

A nursery school teacher shares some of her collection of spontaneous language phrases of preschoolers, and shows how they reflect the characteristics of what Piaget calls the natural reasoning processes of young children. (CS)

The physical, social, emotional, and cognitive gains derived from block building are examined in relation to learning needs of the pre-school child. (CS)

Two preschool educational settings were studied to learn whether children with different economic and ethnic backgrounds use a classroom in different ways. The observations described suggest that the optimum preschool either for low-income children or for a heterogeneous group is one that consistently offers a spectrum of structures, and freedom…

Discusses results of a survey of kindergarten teachers on the question of early reading instruction in kindergarten classrooms in the state of Virginia. (CS)

Indicates some specific ways in which art can be integrated with other subjects in the elementary ghetto school curriculum. (CS)

Offers suggestions for creating a physical environment in the kindergarten classroom that is functional, attractive, appropriate, flexible and conducive to learning. (ED)