Welcome to the first issue of a monthly newsletter on Early Childhood Education topics. We hope to make this a useful resource to you and we welcome your feedback and ideas. Each issue will focus on a theme, as well as include items related to timely, important topics. If it creates more hassles than help, we apologize and have made it easy to unsubscribe. Our purpose is to keep you informed and provide access to source materials about critical issues in our field. We will archive each issue when a new one comes out and provide you with a web link to access them. In addition we will update you on the work of the Child and Family Program at NWREL.
Enjoy - Steffen Saifer, Program Director.
We are working with several states in the Northwest that are grappling
with the tricky issue of readiness. Our goal is to help them develop a
system for determining the "state of readiness" in their state while
providing useful and functional information about children. Towards that
end, we will help them establish a baseline of data along a wide band of
child functioning (social and emotional, physical, health etc.) and
include contextual concerns (i.e., characteristics of schools and
communities), while minimizing comparison of schools and other misuses of
data. Here are some resources we have found helpful.
OVERVIEWS
Promoting Children's Readiness to Learn. Staff of sister lab, NCREL, has
developed this very comprehensive discussion of the issue of school
readiness with numerous links to excellent resources.
www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/students/earlycld/ea700.htm
School Readiness. 1995 article from the Future of Children (Packard Foundation).
http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2826/information_show.htm?doc_id=71010
Assessing Readiness. Samuel J. Meisels. CIERA Report.
http://www.ciera.org/ciera/publications/report-series/inquiry-3/report32.html
STATE EFFORTS
Readiness for School: A Survey of State Policies and Definitions.
Gitanjali Saluja, Catherine Scott-Little, & Richard M. Clifford. Early
Childhood Research & Practice Vol. 2 No. 2: Fall 2000. A terrific "one-stop shopping" site for
state-related info across the nation. Sister lab, SEDL, was a major
contributor with additional contributions from NWREL and other labs.
www.ecrp.uiuc.edu/v2n2/saluja.html
Embedded in the above article is an interactive table that provides an
easy way to search a database of efforts in each state. Some of the
information may not be the most current.
http://nautilus.outreach.uiuc.edu/saluja/salujastates.asp
Maryland Model for School Readiness. Maryland is doing some thoughtful
work in this area including the use of the Work Sampling System to assess
readiness and providing extensive staff development.
www.mdk12.org/practices/ensure/mmsr/
Proceedings of the New England Meeting of the State Child Indicators
Projects: Forum on School Readiness and Childcare Indicators. December
1999. Includes summaries of remarks from Sharon Lynn Kagan and John Love
and a comprehensive list of indicators from a variety of states.
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/cyp/child-ind98/ne-forum.htm
CRITICAL AND/OR EXPANSIVE PERSPECTIVES
A Good Beginning: Sending America's Children to School with the Social and
Emotional Competence They Need to Succeed. This NIMH publication provides
support for advocating for a broad view of readiness.
www.nimh.nih.gov/childhp/monograph.pdf
NAEYC Position Statement on School Readiness. Revised 1995.
http://www.naeyc.org/resources/position_statements/psredy98.htm
Still Unacceptable Trends in Kindergarten Entry and Placement: A Position
Statement Developed by the National Association of Early Childhood
Education Specialists in State Departments of Education, 2000 revised and
updated.
http://ericps.crc.uiuc.edu/naecs/position/trends2000.html
School Readiness: Helping Communities Get Children Ready for School and
Schools Ready for Children. August 2000. An insightful research brief from
Child Trends on the issue of school readiness and the need to place it an
ecological context which includes families, communities and schools
www.childtrends.org/PDF/schrd.pdf
Quality Child Care is Key to School Readiness. Children's Defense Fund.
http://cdfweb.vwh.net/childcare/cc_school_readiness.html
IN THE CONTEXT OF TRANSITIONS
The Transition to Kindergarten: Linking Children, Families and Schools is
a 33 page publication on effective transition practices from the National
Center for Early Development and Learning.
www.fpg.unc.edu/~ncedl/PDFs/transman.pdf
Continuity Framework. Developed under the leadership of sister lab, SERVE,
with contributions from NWREL Child and Family Program Staff and others,
this is a resource with a training guide for promoting collaborations to
support the continuity of services and environments for young children
across transitions.
www.nwrel.org/cfc/publications/ContinuityFramework.html
Kindergarten Transition. Winter 1999 issue of Early Developments from the
Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at UNC:
www.fpg.unc.edu/~ncedl/PDFs/ed3_1.pdf
MISCELLANEOUS
Reading and Math Gains Measured After Year of Kindergarten. December 2000.
Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study on some outcomes of the
Kindergarten year as it relates to the school readiness effort.
http://nces.ed.gov/Pressrelease/rel2000/12_01_00.asp
Helping Your Child Get Ready for School. 1993 US Dept of Ed publication
for parents. It has a good, broad description/definition of school
readiness in the "What Does It Mean to be Ready for School" section.
www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/GetReadyForSchool/
Ready Web. ERIC website focused on the school readiness, ready to learn
issue. The library includes links to many excellent sites. This is a
meta-site (or a link to more links).
http://readyweb.crc.uiuc.edu/
STAFF FAVORITE WEBSITE OF THE MONTH
History of Education and Childhood
www.socsci.kun.nl/ped/whp/histeduc/links09e.html
Quote of the Month
"All children will have an opportunity to enhance their skills,
knowledge, and abilities by participating in classrooms that are sensitive
to community values, recognize individual differences, reinforce and
extend children's strength, and assist them in overcoming their
difficulties"
