"Childhood Programs and Practices in the First Decade of Life" presents research findings on the effects of early childhood programs and practices in the first decade of life and their implications for policy development and reform. Leading scholars in the multidisciplinary field of human development and in early childhood learning discuss the effects and cost-effectiveness of the most influential model, state, and federally funded programs, policies, and practices. These include Head Start, Early Head Start, the WIC nutrition program, Nurse Family Partnership, and Perry Preschool as well as school reform strategies. This volume provides a unique multidisciplinary approach to understanding and improving interventions, practices, and policies to optimally foster human capital over the life course. This book contains the following: (1) Early Childhood Development and Human Capital (Arthur J. Reynolds, Arthur J. Rolnick, Michelle M. Englund and Judy A. Temple); (2) WIC Turns 35: Program Effectiveness and Future Directions (Barbara Devaney); (3) The Nurse-Family Partnership: From Trials to Practice (David L. Olds); (4) Carolina Abecedarian Project (Frances A. Campbell and Craig T. Ramey); (5) Early Head Start Impacts at Age 3 and a Description of the Age 5 Follow-Up Study (Helen H. Raikes, Rachel Chazan-Cohen, John M. Love and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn); (6) Project Head Start: Quality and Links to Child Outcomes (Gary Resnick); (7) How to Take The Highscope Perry Preschool to Scale (Lawrence J. Schweinhart); (8) Impacts and Implications of the Child-Parent Center Preschool (Arthur J. Reynolds, Judy A. Temple and Suh-Ruu Ou); (9) Small Miracles in Tulsa: The Effects of Universal Pre-K on Cognitive Development (William T. Gormley, Jr.); (10) Lessons from the Evaluation of the Great Start Readiness Program: A Longitudinal Evaluation (Marijata Daniel-Echols, Elena V. Malofeeva and Lawrence Schweinhart); (11) Abbott Preschool Program Longitudinal Effects Study (Apples) Year One Findings (Ellen Frede, W. Steven Barnett, Kwanghee Jung, Cynthia Esposito Lamy and Alexandra Figueras); (12) School Readiness and The Reading Achievement Gap: Can Full-Day Kindergarten Level the Playing Field? (Vi-Nhuan Le, Sheila Nataraj Kirby, Heather Barney, Claude Messan Setodji and Daniel Gershwin); (13) Small Classes in the Early Grades: One Policy, Multiple Outcomes (Jeremy D. Finn, Allison E. Suriani and Charles M. Achilles); (14) Opportunity in Early Education: Improving Teacher-Child interactions and Child Outcomes (Andrew J. Mashburn and Robert C. Pianta); (15) The Cost Effectiveness of Public investment in High-Quality Prekindergarten: A State Level Synthesis (Robert G. Lynch); (16) The Fiscal Returns to Public Educational investments in African American Males (Clive Belfield and Henry Levin); (17) A New Cost-Benefit and Rate of Return Analysis for the Perry Preschool Program: A Summary (James J. Heckman, Seong Hyeok Moon, Rodrigo Pinto, Peter Savelyev and Adam Yavitz); (18) Investing in Our Young People (Flavio Cunha and James Heckman); and (19) Paths of Effects of Preschool Participation to Educational Attainment at Age 20: A Study of the Child-Parent Centers, High/Scope Perry Preschool, and Abecedarian Project (Arthur J. Reynolds, Michelle M. Englund, Suh-Ruu Ou, Lawrence J. Schweinhart and Frances Campbell). Question and Answer Sessions are appended. (Contains 57 tables.)