Mixed-age grouping in early childhood education is defined as “placing children who are at least a year apart in age into the same classroom groups in order to optimize what can be learned when children of different as well as same ages and abilities have frequent opportunities to interact” (Katz, Evangelou, and Hartman, 1990, p. 1).
The turn of the century has seen a dramatic increase in attention to the mathematics education of young children, for at least five reasons.
Despite a rich knowledge base on how children learn to read and write and how best to teach them, an alarming number of children with disabilities will reach adulthood having not attained literacy (Saint-Laurent, Giasson, and Couture, 1998).
With the introduction and widespread acceptance of literacy standards and goals starting in the 1990s, young children’s literacy development has garnered a great deal of attention on the part of policymakers, researchers, educators, and families.
The earliest American laboratory schools, frequently referred to as child development laboratories (CDLs), started to appear in the late 1800s, and were initially sites that reflected best practices in public schools.
The term “kindergarten” in the United States traditionally refers to the year of school that precedes “formal” schooling in first grade. In other countries, the term “kindergarten” often designates group settings for young children that precedes the beginning of formal schooling, and encompasses children from three- to six or seven years of age.
Jumpstart is a national organization that believes early literacy is a fundamental building block of success. Founded in 1993 by college students, parents, and Head Start staff, Jumpstart launched its first school-year program at Yale University.
Infant care generally refers to the nonparental care of children during the time period from just after birth to thirty-six months of age.
In 1975, Congress passed a law, the Education for All Handicapped Act (now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act [IDEA]), which specified that children with disabilities were entitled to a free and appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.
Multiple histories can be written of early childhood education—for example, histories based on those individuals whose leadership helped advance the availability and quality of early childhood programs;
High/Scope Educational Research Foundation is an independent nonprofit organization that was founded by David P. Weikart in 1970 in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Head Start is a comprehensive child development program that serves families with children from birth to five years. It is the longest lasting social program remaining from the 1960s Kennedy–Johnson era.
Grouping in early childhood education refers to the ways in which young children are organized for play, learning, and instruction.
Whether it is called nonpromotion, flunking, failing, being held back, the gift of time, or being retained, grade retention refers to a child repeating his or her current grade level again in the following year.
Recognizing the gifted and talented children in the United States has long been an ill-defined process. Lewis Terman (1916) was one of the first researchers to identify children of superior intellectual ability.
Family literacy is a phrase that is used to describe the intergenerational development of literacy within families.
Early childhood educators have long embraced the idea that families are the first and foremost educational and socialization influence on children.
The Even Start Family Literacy Program is a U.S. federally funded program serving low-income families with young children, birth through seven years of age.
Abigail Adams Eliot is best known for her contributions to the American nursery school movement. In 1922 Dr. Eliot founded the Ruggles Street Nursery Training School of Boston, where she integrated parent education and teacher training components into work with nursery age children.
The ecology of human development, as defined by its chief architect, Urie Bronfenbrenner, is a scientific perspective that addresses “the progressive, mutual accommodation between an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings within which the developing person lives.”
Early Head Start is a federal, two-generation Head Start program, or low-income pregnant women and fathers, and children ages birth to three and their families.
Among the most frequently utilized environment rating scales (ERS) in the United States are four developed by Thelma Harms, Richard M. Clifford, and Debby Cryer at the FPG Child Development Institute of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
To “document” is “to support (an assertion or a claim, for example) with evidence or decisive information” (American Heritage Dictionary, 1994).
The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children is a nonprofit, membership organization designed for individuals who work with or on behalf of children with special needs, from birth through age 8, and their families.