Early Childhood Learning

John Hartevelt Education reporter - Canterbury
Two-year-olds discussing insect proboscises and three-year-olds comparing notes on the surface tension of bubbles it is just another day at the Gifted Education Centre.

Robert C. Bobb, who will leave the board at the end of the year, said he plans to focus on programs such as bridging "the preparation gap" for children up to age 3.

BY GEORGIA PABST
Group says officials track illegal migrants outside centers
Immigration enforcement officials are now targeting migrant and seasonal Head Start centers in some states as part of efforts to track down illegal immigrants, the executive director of the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association says.

For some students in Yesenia De Angel's kindergarten classroom, first day jitters might have been topped Monday by the inability to understand almost anything their new teacher said.

By Shikha Dalmia and Lisa Snell
The evidence shows that for most children early separation from parents is bad. Barack Obama says he believes in universal preschool and if he's elected president he'll pump "billions of dollars into early childhood education." Universal preschool is now second only to universal health care on the liberal policy wish list. Democratic governors across the country -- including in Illinois, Arizona, Massachusetts and Virginia -- have made a major push to fund universal preschool in their states

By Hana Namrouqa
AMMAN - Tearful Osama Hassan dragged his mother out of the school premises, begging her to take him home as he started his first day as a student on Monday. The first grader at Al Rashid Public School in Jabal Hussein neighbourhood resisted all efforts made by his mother, his new teacher and even his peers to convince him to enter the classroom.

Southwest ISD hosts summer academy to help acclimate incoming kindergarten students. On the first day of Southwest Independent School District's Kinder Academy, 5-year-old children clung to their parents, who clung back, reluctant to turn them over to the district's eager kindergarten teachers. Tears were shed and sobs were audible outside Hidden Cove Elementary School, typical sights and sounds for the first day of school.

Mexican children in poorer areas of Monterrey are further ahead in kindergarten than the average Canadian kid, says new research led by renowned expert Dr. Fraser Mustard.

Pediatricians have long said children younger than 2 shouldn't watch any television.

A straight A-grade student who was told he couldn't become a doctor because of his spent criminal conviction has been offered an interview at a top medical school

Jessica Shepherd talks to academic Kathy Sylva, whose research has influenced government policy in preschool teaching
Graphs make Kathy Sylva very happy. "I love the patterns they make," the professor of educational psychology at Oxford University says. As if to prove her point, she finds a favourite in her filing cabinet. It shows how the reading abilities of seven-year-olds alter according to whether they went to pre-school and the status of their parents' jobs.

Philadelphia students will be required to start school at a younger age under legislation passed yesterday as part of the state budget.

Children as young as four are set to be given compulsory sex education in primary school. They will be taught the names of body parts and basic ideas about different relationships.

Children as young as four should be given compulsory sex education, two leading sexual health charities say. The Family Planning Association and Brook say more needs to be done to reduce rates of abortion and sexually transmitted infections among teenagers.

Sustained opposition from childcare experts leads to suspension of two goals for under-fives
Ministers today suspended part of a new curriculum which would have required all children to be able to write simple sentences and use punctuation by the time they started school after sustained opposition from childcare experts.