Science devotes whole issue to early education

Earlier this year, the renowned magazine Science devoted a special edition to the topic of early childhood education.

As the editors say in their introduction, we generally don’t really remember the earliest experiences in our lives but these forces continue to affect us in many ways, such as our success in school or how we fare in our working lives.

The special edition includes numerous reviews, articles and opinion pieces:

• A review by Adele Diamond and Kathleen Lee looks at how cognitive skills can be taught in preschool.
• David K. Dickinson examines how the ability of a teacher to support language and conceptual knowledge can foster early language skills.
• Douglas H. Clements and Julie Sarama look at how to give children a solid early grounding in mathematics.
• W.S. Barnett reviews the effects of educational interventions on cognitive, social and schooling outcomes.

Other features look at the history of the Head Start program in the U.S. and longitudinal economic studies that provide evidence showing that high-quality early intervention is cost-effective.

The early childhood education issue also is linked to other related special editions such as Science, Language and Literacy.

Science is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which was founded in 1848 and is the world's largest general-science society. The magazine’s print and online editions reach an estimated international readership of more than one million.

By Mike Chouinard, kidSKAN managing editor. He can be reached at mike.chouinard@usask.ca.