Early Childhood and Elementary Education

Improving children’s readiness for school is one of the most essential goals for education. Research on child development and learning clearly shows that children’s experiences in the first years of life profoundly affect their ability to succeed in school. At the same time, it is equally important for schools to be ready to meet the needs of all children. Individual children learn differently, and schools need to know how to identify individual needs and provide instruction that meets those needs. There is no area in which this is more true than early reading instruction.

SREB’s efforts focus on: the importance of a healthy, nurturing home environment for young children; the impact of early childhood services (including preschool) on children’s readiness for school; ways to ease children’s transitions from home and/or preschool to school; elementary schools’ ability to identify reading problems and to teach all children to read; and ways to help struggling students while eliminating social promotion and reducing rates of grade retention.

For more information, e-mail Marilyn Thomas at marilyn.thomas@sreb.org.