巧用雅思阅读文章

　　Parent-educators made personal visits to homes and monthly group meetingswere held with other new parents to share experience and discuss topics ofinterest. Parent resource centres, Located in school buildings, offered learningmaterials for families and facilitators for child care.

　　E

　　At the age of three, the children who had been involved in the 'Missouri'programme were evaluated alongside a cross-section of children selected from thesame range of socio-economic backgrounds and Family situations, and also arandom sample of children that age. The results were phenomenal.

　　By the age of three, the children in the programme were significantly moreadvanced in language development than their peers, had made greater strides iNPRoblem solving and other intellectual skills, and were Further along in socialdevelopment. In fact, the average child on the programme was performing at thelevel of the top 15 to 20 per cent of their peers in such things as auditorycomprehension, verbal ability and language ability.

　　Most important of all, the traditional measures of 'risk', such as parents'age and education, or whether they were a single parent, bore little or norelationship to the measures of achievement and language development. Childrenin the programme performed equally well regardless of scio-economicdisadvantages.

　　Child abuse was virtually eliminated. The one factor that was found toaffect the child's development was family stress leading to a poor quality ofparent-child interaction. That interaction was not necessarily bad in poorerfamilies.

　　F

　　These research findings are exciting. There is growing evidence in NewZealand that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are arriving atschool less well developed and that our school system tends to perpetuate thatdisadvantage.

　　The initiative outlined above could break that cycle of disadvantage.

　　The concept of working with parents in their homes, or at their place ofwork, contrasts quite markedly with the report of the Early Childhood Care andEducation Working Group. Their focus is on getting children and mothers accessto childcare and institutionalised early childhood education.