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Washington, D.C.
National Academies
National Research Council
LEARNING

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS

NEW KNOWLEDGE FOR POLICY
EARLY CHILDHOOD
DEVELOPMENT AND

Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

i
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Printed in the United States of America

Copyright 2001 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418
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The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating

society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering
research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their
use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by
the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise
the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M.
Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the
charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of
outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the
selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the
responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of
Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national
needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior
achievements of engineers. Dr. William. A. Wulf is president of the National
Academy of Engineering.
The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy
of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate
professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of
the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National
Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an adviser to the
federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical
care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the
Institute of Medicine.
The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of
Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and
technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and
advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general
policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal
operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National
Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public,
and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered
jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce M.
Alberts and Dr. William. A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman,
respectively, of the National Research Council.
www.national-academies.org
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About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original
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Overview

Development

How to Reach Us
Executive Summaries:

Research and Its Utilization

Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers
Contents

Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children

How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School

Improving Student Learning: A Strategic Plan for Education

Selected Reports on Child Development, Learning, and Education

From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood

103
99
87
57
43
21
1
vii
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vi
 OVERVIEW vii
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Overview
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The National Research Council of the National Academies has been charged
by Congress with ensuring that the best scientific understanding illuminates key
challenges facing the nation and informs policy choices. Few challenges are more
crucial than fostering the healthy development of America's children and their
capacity to learn and achieve success in school. Child development, learning, and
education have been high priorities of the National Academies in the past two
decades. An explosion— and convergence—of knowledge from the cognitive,
behavioral, social, and neurosciences has brought into much sharper focus the
picture of how human development unfolds and the factors that determine
whether children are equipped to learn and to flourish. With the nation's attention
focused on the need to improve children's educational achievement, science has
much to offer in making gains toward that end.
Compelling new scientific evidence reveals that a child's earliest experiences
have a major role in shaping the likelihood of getting off to a good start in life and
school, for these are the years when the essential structures for growth and
learning are put in place. These findings have important implications for the
content of child care and early education programs and highlight the public
interest in assuring the quality of those programs.
Similarly, decades of research on the science of learning has shown that deep
understanding requires both a rich foundation of factual knowledge and command
of the subject's conceptual frameworks—whether it be chess, mathematics, or jet
engine mechanics. This research has impor
 OVERVIEW viii
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tant implications for educational practice—what and how teachers teach— and
for policy, for example, state education standards.
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This booklet includes executive summaries of five reports that, taken

together, provide policy makers, educators, and parents with important tools for
progress. It is intended for federal administrators, members of Congress, leaders
of nongovernmental organizations, and others who want to use the best available
science to develop policies to promote child development and education.
Conducted under the auspices of the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences
and Education of the National Research Council—the Academies' operating arm
—and the Institute of Medicine, these studies exemplify the contributions of
science in charting new directions for policies and programs.
From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood
Development integrates the latest scientific evidence about children's
extraordinary capacities for physical, emotional, and social growth and learning
in the earliest years of their lives. Well before they walk through a classroom
door, these early experiences matter because they can provide opportunities or
obstacles that affect early learning and subsequent academic success. Yet far too
little attention is given to these crucial years.
Today as never before, the nation needs to apply advancing knowledge to
help children and families negotiate the changing demands and opportunities as
we enter the 21st century. Dramatic transformations have occurred in the social
and economic circumstances of families with young children. The number of
working parents has increased significantly, leading to a pressing demand for
quality child care and greater difficulty in balancing work and family
responsibilities for families at all income levels. Despite these and other changes,
our nation's responses to the needs of young children and their families were
largely formulated decades ago with only incremental revisions since then.
From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents conclusions and
recommendations drawn from a rich and extensive knowledge base and grounded
in four core themes:
• All children are born wired for feelings and ready to learn.
• Early environments matter and nurturing relationships are essential.
• Society is changing and the needs of young children are not being
addressed.
• Interactions among early childhood science, policy, and practice demand
dramatic rethinking.
From Neurons to Neighborhoods, which has received considerable attention
in the media, offers an authoritative guide to what science-based
 OVERVIEW ix
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policies would mean for our society's youngest members. For example, research
highlights the need for early childhood programs that balance their focus on
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literacy and numeracy skills with comparable attention to the emotional,

regulatory, and social development of all children, including those with special
needs. Investments in child care should ensure that all early care and education
settings are safe, stimulating, and compatible with the values and priorities of
their families. Nurturing and sustained relationships between preschoolers and
qualified caregivers are essential, and the time for greater skills, compensation,
and benefits for child care professionals is long overdue. This comprehensive
study calls for a federal-state-local task force to review public investments in
child care and early education and develop a blueprint for a high quality, locally
responsive system for the new decade.
Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers explores what it will take to
provide early education and care for children that would develop their impressive
learning potential. The report integrates recent research findings on how young
children learn and the impact of early learning on later development and school
achievement. Reinforcing many of the findings in From Neurons to
Neighborhoods, it highlights the importance of warm emotional relationships
with adults in fostering a child's cognitive as well as social development. It
includes findings about the interplay of biology and environment, and variations
in learning preparedness among children from different social and economic
groups. The report probes a number of key issues:
• The importance of a responsive teacher-child relationship in a child's
cognitive, social, and emotional development.
• The substantial variation among children in developmental pathways,
temperament, and environmental and cultural influences.
• The learning needs of disadvantaged children and children with disabilities.
• Evidence regarding the features of preschool programs, curricula, and
teaching style that produce positive outcomes for children.
• Preparation and continuing development of teachers.
Eager to Learn issues a range of recommendations to parents, educators, and
policy makers. It calls for a substantial investment in a high-quality system of
child care and preschool on the basis of the convergence of scientific and
practical considerations. And it calls for systematic and widespread public
education to increase public understanding of the importance of stimulating early
learning experiences in the lives of young children.
 OVERVIEW x
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Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children is a ground-breaking

study of the process of learning to read, factors that predict success and failure in
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reading, and instructional strategies for overcoming potential stumbling blocks on

the path to literacy. A companion book, Starting Out Right—A Guide to
Promoting Children's Reading Success, describes the skills that young children
(from birth to age 8) need to accumulate and provides illustrative examples of
activities that will help them develop those skills. This popular and invaluable
resource for parents, caregivers, and teachers includes practical guidelines, advice
on resources, program descriptions, and strategies for everyday life—all based on
the underlying concepts presented in Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young
Children and supported by scientific research.
With literacy problems plaguing as many as four in ten children in America,
the teaching of reading has for decades evoked heated debate and fierce battles
over curricula, frustrating parents, educators, and policy makers alike. In contrast
to the narrow solutions that defined the old battle lines, these reports show skilled
reading to be a complex and multifaceted process. Good readers master three
main accomplishments:
• They understand the system of sound/spelling connections used in English to
identify printed words.
• They are able to use previous knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension
strategies to obtain meaning from print.
• They read fluently enough to understand what they read and to enjoy
reading.
Good instruction focuses on all three kinds of accomplishment in an
integrated way that enables young readers to develop increasing proficiency in all
of them.
Research consistently demonstrates that the more children know about
language before they arrive at school, the better equipped they are to succeed in
reading. The foundation for skilled reading is provided by responsive parents and
caregivers who read to infants and toddlers, talk and listen to them, help them
understand stories and how things work, and develop their awareness of how
words sound and how they look on a page and their motivation to read. Equally
important is high quality reading instruction in the first years of schooling.
Preventing reading difficulties or addressing them early has a far higher
likelihood of success than trying to reverse deeply entrenched reading problems.
While there is still a good deal to be learned about the specifics of effective
reading instruction in the primary grades, Preventing Reading Difficulties in
Young Children provides the core principles on which suc
 OVERVIEW xi
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cessful programs need to build, and Starting Out Right provides practical
examples of the types of activities that will bring those principles to life.
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How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School (Expanded

Edition) integrates research from the variety of fields that contributes to our
understanding of human learning and relates it to educational practice in schools.
From research on cognition, brain development, learning, and teaching, the
report knits together a rich knowledge base that significantly advances
understanding of what it means to know—from the neural processes that occur
during learning to the influence of culture on what individuals see and absorb. It
suggests principles of learning with clear implications for what we teach, how we
teach, and how we assess student learning. The findings in the report call into
question concepts and practices commonly used in our schools, and illustrate how
approaches based on what is now known can result in in-depth learning.
Topics include:
• the amazing learning potential of infants;
• how learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain;
• how existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn; and
• what the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach.
The expanded edition looks further at the agenda the nation must tackle to
employ the best research in classroom practice. Incorporating learning principles
into teaching materials, teacher education, education policy (such as standards for
content and accountability), and public understanding—all are keys to success.
How People Learn offers recommendations for a sustained effort to consolidate
knowledge on teaching and learning, and aligning the efforts of teachers,
educators, parents, and policy makers.
Improving Student Learning: A Strategic Plan for Education Research
and Its Utilization speaks to the urgent need to strengthen public education and,
in particular, to improve the educational achievement of youngsters growing up in
conditions of social and economic disadvantage. The nation's continued vitality
as a democracy and productivity in the global economy hinge on the knowledge
and skills of the majority of its people. While many students perform at high
levels, there are millions who will be ill-equipped to meet the intellectual
demands of modern life and work. The pronounced failure of many big-city
schools that serve poor children is of particular concern.
 AVAILABILITY INFORMATION xii
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Education in the United States consumes more than 7 percent of GDP.

Improving Student Learning: A Strategic Plan for Education Research and its
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Utilization calls for an ambitious and intensive 15-year program of research and
implementation that has the potential to leverage substantial improvements in
student performance. The goal of the Strategic Education Research Program
(SERP) is to change the landscape fundamentally, to achieve permanent
improvements in education by institutionalizing strategies, incentives, and
enduring relationships between educators and the research community so that the
use of salient research in educational settings becomes smooth, practiced, and
effective.
The plan addresses four key questions:
• How can advances in research on human cognition, development, and
learning be incorporated into educational practice?
• How can student engagement in the learning process and motivation to
achieve in school be increased?
• How can schools and school districts be transformed into organizations that
have the capacity to continuously improve their practices?
• How can the use of research knowledge be increased in schools and school
districts?
Each of these four questions would provide the basis for a network of expert
and committed researchers, state and local practitioners, and policy makers. The
networks would be devoted to synthesizing what we know in each of the four
areas, extending our understanding through the conduct of new research, and
developing the mechanisms for effective use of research knowledge in the
classroom. This proposal for a bold initiative to harness the power of science to
public drive for school reform will be the focus of a planning and coalition-
building campaign for the year 2001 by the National Research Council, with
support from the Department of Education, the MacArthur Foundation, and the
Carnegie Corporation.

AVAILABILITY INFORMATION

The reports highlighted here are a sampling of the kinds of information

available from the National Academies. A list of recent related publications
appears at the end of this booklet. The Division of Social and Behavioral
Sciences and Education can provide copies of the full volumes summarized here
as well as discuss any of the findings or recommendations they present.
To request additional information, please contact Paula Melville,
Administrative Associate, at 202-334-2300. For a list of the Division's key
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Academies are available at www.nap.edu .

projects of the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Education is
xiii

staff, please see page 103. Information on other reports and current and planned

available at www.nationalacademies.org/dbasse . Reports of the National

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xiv
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NEW KNOWLEDGE FOR POLICY

EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING
xv
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Development

Washington, D.C. 2000

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Board on Children, Youth, and Families
Jack P. Shonkoff and Deborah A. Phillips, Editors

National Research Council and Institute of Medicine

The Science of Early Childhood
From Neurons to Neighborhoods

Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development

1
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2
 THE SCIENCE OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT 3
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COMMITTEE ON INTEGRATING THE SCIENCE OF EARLY

CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
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JACK P. SHONKOFF (Chair), Heller Graduate School, Brandeis University

DEBORAH L. COATES, Department of Psychology, The City University of
New York
GREG DUNCAN, Institute for Policy Research, School of Education and Social
Policy, Northwestern University
FELTON J. EARLS, Department of Child Psychology, Harvard Medical School
ROBERT N. EMDE, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Health
Sciences Center
YOLANDA GARCIA, Children's Services, Santa Clara County Office of
Education
SUSAN GELMAN, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan
SUSAN J. GOLDIN-MEADOW, Department of Psychology, University of
Chicago
WILLIAM T. GREENOUGH, Departments of Psychology and Cell and
Structural Biology, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
RUTH T. GROSS, Department of Pediatrics (emeritus), Stanford University
Medical School
MEGAN GUNNAR, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
MICHAEL GURALNICK, Center on Human Development and Disability,
University of Washington
ALICIA F. LIEBERMAN, Department of Psychiatry, University of California at
San Francisco
BETSY LOZOFF, Center for Human Growth and Development, University of
Michigan
BRIAN MacWHINNEY, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon
University *
RUTH MASSINGA, The Casey Family Program, Seattle, Washington
STEPHEN RAUDENBUSH, School of Education, University of Michigan
ROSS THOMPSON, Department of Psychology, University of Nebraska
CHARLES A. NELSON (liaison from the MacArthur Foundation/McDonnell
Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain
Development), Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
DEBORAH A. PHILLIPS, Study Director
NANCY GEYELIN MARGIE, Research Assistant
RONNÉ WINGATE, Senior Project Assistant

* Resigned October 1998.

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4
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5
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Executive Summary
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Scientists have had a long-standing fascination with the complexities of the

process of human development. Parents have always been captivated by the rapid
growth and development that characterize the earliest years of their children's
lives. Professional service providers continue to search for new knowledge to
inform their work. Consequently, one of the distinctive features of the science of
early childhood development is the extent to which it evolves under the anxious
and eager eyes of millions of families, policy makers, and service providers who
seek authoritative guidance as they address the challenges of promoting the health
and well-being of young children.
PUTTING THE STUDY IN CONTEXT
Two profound changes over the past several decades have coincided to
produce a dramatically altered landscape for early childhood policy, service
delivery, and childrearing in the United States. First, an explosion of research in
the neurobiological, behavioral, and social sciences has led to major advances in
understanding the conditions that influence whether children get off to a
promising or a worrisome start in life. These scientific gains have generated a
much deeper appreciation of: (1) the importance of early life experiences, as well
as the inseparable and highly interactive influences of genetics and environment,
on the development of the brain and the unfolding of human behavior; (2) the
central role of early relationships as a source of either support and adaptation or
risk and dysfunc
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6
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tion; (3) the powerful capabilities, complex emotions, and essential social skills
that develop during the earliest years of life, and (4) the capacity to increase the
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odds of favorable developmental outcomes through planned interventions.

Second, the capacity to use this knowledge constructively has been
constrained by a number of dramatic transformations in the social and economic
circumstances under which families with young children are living in the United
States: (1) marked changes in the nature, schedule, and amount of work engaged
in by parents of young children and greater difficulty balancing workplace and
family responsibilities for parents at all income levels; (2) continuing high levels
of economic hardship among families, despite overall increases in maternal
education, increased rates of parent employment, and a strong economy; (3)
increasing cultural diversity and the persistence of significant racial and ethnic
disparities in health and developmental outcomes; 4) growing numbers of young
children spending considerable time in child care settings of highly variable
quality, starting in infancy; and (5) greater awareness of the negative effects of
stress on young children, particularly as a result of serious family problems and
adverse community conditions that are detrimental to child well-being. While any
given child may be affected by only one or two of these changes, their cumulative
effects on the 24 million infants, toddlers, and preschoolers who are now growing
up in the United States warrant dedicated attention and thoughtful response.
This convergence of advancing knowledge and changing circumstances calls
for a fundamental reexamination of the nation's responses to the needs of young
children and their families, many of which were formulated several decades ago
and revised only incrementally since then. It demands that scientists, policy
makers, business and community leaders, practitioners, and parents work
together to identify and sustain policies and practices that are effective, generate
new strategies to replace those that are not achieving their objectives, and
consider new approaches to address new goals as needed. It is the strong
conviction of this committee that the nation has not capitalized sufficiently on the
knowledge that has been gained from nearly half a century of considerable public
investment in research on children from birth to age 5. In many respects, we have
barely begun to use our growing research capabilities to help children and
families negotiate the changing demands and possibilities of life in the 21st
century.
THE COMMITTEE'S CHARGE
The Committee on Integrating the Science of Early Childhood Development
was established by the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7
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the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine to update scientific
knowledge about the nature of early development and the role of early
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experiences, to disentangle such knowledge from erroneous popular beliefs or

misunderstandings, and to discuss the implications of this knowledge base for
early childhood policy, practice, professional development, and research.
The body of research that the committee reviewed is extensive, multi-
disciplinary, and more complex than current discourse would lead one to believe.
It covers the period from before birth until the first day of kindergarten. It
includes efforts to understand how early experience affects all aspects of
development—from the neural circuitry of the maturing brain, to the expanding
network of a child's social relationships, to both the enduring and the changing
cultural values of the society in which parents raise children. It includes efforts to
understand the typical trajectories of early childhood, as well as the atypical
developmental pathways that characterize the adaptations of children with
disabilities.
The committee's review of this evidence addresses two complementary
agendas. The first is focused on the future and asks: How can society use
knowledge about early childhood development to maximize the nation's human
capital and ensure the ongoing vitality of its democratic institutions? The second
is focused on the present and asks: How can the nation use knowledge to nurture,
protect, and ensure the health and well-being of all young children as an
important objective in its own right, regardless of whether measurable returns can
be documented in the future? The first agenda speaks to society's economic,
political, and social interests. The second speaks to its ethical and moral values.
The committee is clear in our responsibility to speak to both.
CORE CONCEPTS OF DEVELOPMENT
As the knowledge generated by interdisciplinary developmental science has
evolved and been integrated with lessons from program evaluation and
professional experience, a number of core concepts, which are elaborated in the
report, have come to frame understanding of the nature of early human
development.
1. Human development is shaped by a dynamic and continuous interaction
between biology and experience.
2. Culture influences every aspect of human development and is reflected in
childrearing beliefs and practices designed to promote healthy adaptation.
3. The growth of self-regulation is a cornerstone of early childhood
development that cuts across all domains of behavior.
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4. Children are active participants in their own development, reflecting the

intrinsic human drive to explore and master one's environment.
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5. Human relationships, and the effects of relationships on relationships, are

the building blocks of healthy development.
6. The broad range of individual differences among young children often
makes it difficult to distinguish normal variations and maturational delays
from transient disorders and persistent impairments.
7. The development of children unfolds along individual pathways whose
trajectories are characterized by continuities and discontinuities, as well as
by a series of significant transitions.
8. Human development is shaped by the ongoing interplay among sources of
vulnerability and sources of resilience.
9. The timing of early experiences can matter, but, more often than not, the
developing child remains vulnerable to risks and open to protective
influences throughout the early years of life and into adulthood.
10. The course of development can be altered in early childhood by effective
interventions that change the balance between risk and protection, thereby
shifting the odds in favor of more adaptive outcomes.
POLICY AND PRACTICE
The committee's conclusions and recommendations are derived from a rich
and extensive knowledge base and are firmly grounded in the following four
overarching themes:
• All children are born wired for feelings and ready to learn.
• Early environments matter and nurturing relationships are essential.
• Society is changing and the needs of young children are not being
addressed.
• Interactions among early childhood science, policy, and practice are
problematic and demand dramatic rethinking.
All Children Are Born Wired for Feelings and Ready to Learn
From the time of conception to the first day of kindergarten, development
proceeds at a pace exceeding that of any subsequent stage of life. Efforts to
understand this process have revealed the myriad and remarkable
accomplishments of the early childhood period, as well as the serious problems
that confront some young children and their families long before school entry. A
fundamental paradox exists and is unavoidable: development in the early years is
both highly robust and highly vulnerable. Although there have been long-standing
debates about how much the
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early years really matter in the larger scheme of lifelong development, our
conclusion is unequivocal: What happens during the first months and years of life
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matters a lot, not because this period of development provides an indelible

blueprint for adult well-being, but because it sets either a sturdy or fragile stage
for what follows.
Conclusions
• From birth to age 5, children rapidly develop foundational capabilities on
which subsequent development builds. In addition to their remarkable
linguistic and cognitive gains, they exhibit dramatic progress in their
emotional, social, regulatory, and moral capacities. All of these critical
dimensions of early development are intertwined, and each requires focused
attention.
• Striking disparities in what children know and can do are evident well
before they enter kindergarten. These differences are strongly associated
with social and economic circumstances, and they are predictive of
subsequent academic performance. Redressing these disparities is critical,
both for the children whose life opportunities are at stake and for a society
whose goals demand that children be prepared to begin school, achieve
academic success, and ultimately sustain economic independence and
engage constructively with others as adult citizens.
• Early child development can be seriously compromised by social,
regulatory, and emotional impairments. Indeed, young children are capable
of deep and lasting sadness, grief, and disorganization in response to
trauma, loss, and early personal rejection. Given the substantial short-and
long-term risks that accompany early mental health impairments, the
incapacity of many early childhood programs to address these concerns and
the severe shortage of early childhood professionals with mental health
expertise are urgent problems.
Recommendations
• Recommendation 1 — Resources on a par with those focused on literacy
and numerical skills should be devoted to translating the knowledge base on
young children's emotional, regulatory, and social development into
effective strategies for fostering: (1) the development of curiosity, self-
direction, and persistence in learning situations; (2) the ability to cooperate,
demonstrate caring, and resolve conflict with peers; and (3) the capacity to
experience the enhanced motivation associated with feeling competent and
loved. Such strategies and their widespread diffusion into
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the early childhood field must encompass young children both with and
without special needs. Successful action on this recommendation will
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require the long-term, collaborative investment of government,

professional organizations, private philanthropy, and voluntary
associations.
• Recommendation 2 — School readiness initiatives should be judged not
only on the basis of their effectiveness in improving the performance of the
children they reach, but also on the extent to which they make progress in
reducing the significant disparities that are observed at school entry in the
skills of young children with differing backgrounds.
• Recommendation 3 — Substantial new investments should be made to
address the nation's seriously inadequate capacity for addressing young
children's mental health needs. Expanded opportunities for professional
training, as recently called for by the Surgeon General, and incentives for
individuals with pertinent expertise to work in settings with young children
are essential first steps toward more effective screening, early detection,
treatment, and ultimate prevention of serious childhood mental health
problems.
Early Environments Matter and Nurturing Relationships Are
Essential
The scientific evidence on the significant developmental impacts of early
experiences, caregiving relationships, and environmental threats is
incontrovertible. Virtually every aspect of early human development, from the
brain's evolving circuitry to the child's capacity for empathy, is affected by the
environments and experiences that are encountered in a cumulative fashion,
beginning early in the prenatal period and extending throughout the early
childhood years. The science of early development is also clear about the specific
importance of parenting and of regular caregiving relationships more generally.
The question today is not whether early experience matters, but rather how early
experiences shape individual development and contribute to children's continued
movement along positive pathways.
Conclusions
• The long-standing debate about the importance of nature versus nurture,
considered as independent influences, is overly simplistic and scientifically
obsolete. Scientists have shifted their focus to take account of the fact that
genetic and environmental influences work together in dynamic ways over
the course of development. At any time, both are sources of human
potential and growth as well as risk and dysfunction. Both genetically
determined characteristics and those that are highly affected by experience
are open to intervention. The most important questions now
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concern how environments influence the expression of genes and how

genetic makeup, combined with children's previous experiences, affects
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their on-going interactions with their environments during the early years
and beyond.
• Parents and other regular caregivers in children's lives are “active
ingredients” of environmental influence during the early childhood period.
Children grow and thrive in the context of close and dependable
relationships that provide love and nurturance, security, responsive
interaction, and encouragement for exploration. Without at least one such
relationship, development is disrupted and the consequences can be severe
and long-lasting. If provided or restored, however, a sensitive caregiving
relationship can foster remarkable recovery.
• Children's early development depends on the health and well-being of their
parents. Yet the daily experiences of a significant number of young children
are burdened by untreated mental health problems in their families,
recurrent exposure to family violence, and the psychological fallout from
living in a demoralized and violent neighborhood. Circumstances
characterized by multiple, interrelated, and cumulative risk factors impose
particularly heavy developmental burdens during early childhood and are
the most likely to incur substantial costs to both the individual and society
in the future.
• The time is long overdue for society to recognize the significance of out-of-
home relationships for young children, to esteem those who care for them
when their parents are not available, and to compensate them adequately as a
means of supporting stability and quality in these relationships for all
children, regardless of their family's income and irrespective of their
developmental needs.
• Early experiences clearly affect the development of the brain. Yet the recent
focus on “zero to three” as a critical or particularly sensitive period is
highly problematic, not because this isn't an important period for the
developing brain, but simply because the disproportionate attention to the
period from birth to 3 years begins too late and ends too soon.
• Abundant evidence from the behavioral and the neurobiological sciences has
documented a wide range of environmental threats to the developing
central nervous system. These include poor nutrition, specific infections,
environmental toxins, and drug exposures, beginning early in the prenatal
period, as well as chronic stress stemming from abuse or neglect
throughout the early childhood years and beyond.
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Recommendations
• Recommendation 4 — Decision makers at all levels of government, as
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well as leaders from the business community, should ensure that better
public and private policies provide parents with viable choices about how to
allocate responsibility for child care during the early years of their
children's lives. During infancy, there is a pressing need to strike a better
balance between options that support parents to care for their infants at
home and those that provide affordable, quality child care that enables them
to work or go to school. This calls for expanding coverage of the Family
and Medical Leave Act to all working parents, pursuing the complex issue
of income protection, lengthening the exemption period before states
require parents of infants to work as part of welfare reform, and enhancing
parents' opportunities to choose from among a range of child care settings
that offer the stable, sensitive, and linguistically rich caregiving that fosters
positive early childhood development.
• Recommendation 5 — Environmental protection, reproductive health
services, and early intervention efforts should be substantially expanded to
reduce documented risks that arise from harmful prenatal and early
postnatal neurotoxic exposures, as well as from seriously disrupted early
relationships due to chronic mental health problems, substance abuse, and
violence in families. The magnitude of these initiatives should be
comparable to the attention and resources that have been dedicated to crime
prevention, smoking cessation, and the reduction of teen pregnancy. They
will require the participation of multiple societal sectors (e.g., private,
public, and philanthropic) and the development of multiple strategies.
• Recommendation 6 — The major funding sources for child care and early
childhood education should set aside a dedicated portion of funds to
support initiatives that jointly improve the qualifications and increase the
compensation and benefits routinely provided to children's nonparental
caregivers. These initiatives can be built on the successful experience of the
U.S. Department of Defense.
Society Is Changing and the Needs of Young Children Are Not
Being Addressed
Profound social and economic transformations are posing serious challenges
to the efforts of parents and others to strike a healthy balance between spending
time with their children, securing their economic needs, and protecting them from
the many risks beyond the home that may have an adverse impact on their health
and development.
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Conclusions
• Changing parental work patterns are transforming family life. Growing
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numbers of young children are being raised by working parents whose

earnings are inadequate to lift their families out of poverty, whose work
entails long and nonstandard hours, and whose economic needs require an
early return to work after the birth of a baby. The consequences of the
changing context of parental employment for young children are likely to
hinge on how it affects the parenting they receive and the quality of the
caregiving they experience when they are not with their parents.
• The developmental effects of child care depend on its safety, the
opportunities it provides for nurturing and stable relationships, and its
provision of linguistically and cognitively rich environments. Yet the child
care that is available in the United States today is highly fragmented and
characterized by marked variation in quality, ranging from rich, growth-
promoting experiences to unstimulating, highly unstable, and sometimes
dangerous settings. The burden of poor quality and limited choice rests
most heavily on low-income, working families whose financial resources
are too high to qualify for subsidies yet too low to afford quality care.
• Young children are the poorest members of society and are more likely to be
poor today than they were 25 years ago. Growing up in poverty greatly
increases the probability that a child will be exposed to environments and
experiences that impose significant burdens on his or her well-being,
thereby shifting the odds toward more adverse developmental outcomes.
Poverty during the early childhood period may be more damaging than
poverty experienced at later ages, particularly with respect to eventual
academic attainment. The dual risk of poverty experienced simultaneously
in the family and in the surrounding neighborhood, which affects minority
children to a much greater extent than other children, increases young
children's vulnerability to adverse consequences.
Recommendations
The challenges that arise at the juxtaposition of work, income, and the care
of children reflect some of the most complex problems of contemporary society.
Rather than offer recommendations for specific actions, many of which have been
made before and gone unheeded, the committee wishes to underscore the
compelling need for a focused, integrative, and comprehensive reassessment of
our nation's child care and income support policies.
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• Recommendation 7 — The President should establish a joint federal-state-

local task force charged with reviewing the entire portfolio of public
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investments in child care and early education. Its goal should be to develop a
blueprint for locally responsive systems of early care and education for the
coming decade that will ensure the following priorities: (1) that young
children's needs are met through sustained relationships with qualified
caregivers, (2) that the special needs of children with developmental
disabilities or chronic health conditions are addressed, and (3) that the
settings in which children spend their time are safe, stimulating, and
compatible with the values and priorities of their families.
• Recommendation 8 — The President's Council of Economic Advisers and
the Congress should assess the nation's tax, wage, and income support
policies with regard to their adequacy in ensuring that no child who is
supported by the equivalent of a full-time working adult lives in poverty
and that no family suffers from deep and persistent poverty, regardless of
employment status. The product of this effort should be a set of policy
alternatives that would move the nation toward achieving these
fundamental goals.
Interactions Among Early Childhood Science, Policy, and
Practice Are Problematic and Demand Dramatic Rethinking
Policies and programs aimed at improving the life chances of young children
come in many varieties. Some are home based and others are delivered in
centers. Some focus on children alone or in groups, and others work primarily
with parents. A variety of services have been designed to address the needs of
young children whose future prospects are threatened by socioeconomic
disadvantages, family disruptions, and diagnosed disabilities. They all share a
belief that early childhood development is susceptible to environmental
influences and that wise public investments in young children can increase the
odds of favorable developmental outcomes. The scientific evidence resoundingly
supports these premises.
Conclusions
• The overarching question of whether we can intervene successfully in young
children's lives has been answered in the affirmative and should be put to
rest. However, interventions that work are rarely simple, inexpensive, or
easy to implement. The critical agenda for early childhood intervention is to
advance understanding of what it takes to improve the odds of positive
outcomes for the nation's most vulnerable young children and to determine
the most cost-effective strategies for achieving well-defined goals.
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• The scientific knowledge base guiding early childhood policies and

programs is seriously constrained by the relatively limited availability of
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systematic and rigorous evaluations of program implementation; gaps in the

documentation of causal relations between specific interventions and
specific outcomes and of the underlying mechanisms of change; and
infrequent assessments of program costs and benefits.
• Model early childhood programs that deliver carefully designed
interventions with well-defined objectives and that include well-designed
evaluations have been shown to influence the developmental trajectories of
children whose life course is threatened by socioeconomic disadvantage,
family disruption, and diagnosed disabilities. Programs that combine
child-focused educational activities with explicit attention to parent-child
interaction patterns and relationship building appear to have the greatest
impacts. In contrast, services that are based on generic family support, often
without a clear delineation of intervention strategies matched directly to
measurable objectives, and that are funded by more modest budgets, appear
to be less effective.
• The elements of early intervention programs that enhance social and
emotional development are just as important as the components that
enhance linguistic and cognitive competence. Some of the strongest long-
term impacts of successful interventions have been documented in the
domains of social adjustment, such as reductions in criminal behavior.
• The reconciliation of traditional program formats and strategies— many of
which emphasize the importance of active parent involvement and the
delivery of services in the home setting—with the economic and social
realities of contemporary family life is a pressing concern. Particularly
urgent is the need to ensure access to these intervention programs for
parents who are employed full-time, those who work nonstandard hours,
and those who are making the transition from public assistance to work.
• Early childhood policies and practices are highly fragmented, with complex
and confusing points of entry that are particularly problematic for
underserved segments of the population and those with special needs. This
lack of an integrative early childhood infrastructure makes it difficult to
advance prevention-oriented initiatives for all children and to coordinate
services for those with complex problems.
• The growing racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity of the early
childhood population requires that all early childhood programs
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and medical services periodically reassess their appropriateness and

effectiveness for the wide variety of families they are mandated to serve.
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Poor “take-up” and high rates of program attrition that are common to many
early intervention programs, while not at all restricted to specific racial,
ethnic, or linguistic groups, nonetheless raise serious questions about
whether those who design, implement, and staff early childhood programs
fully understand the meaning of “cultural competence” in the delivery of
health and human services.
• The general political environment in which research questions are
formulated and investigations are conducted has resulted in a highly
problematic context for early childhood policy and practice. In many
circumstances, the evaluation of intervention impacts is largely a high-
stakes activity to determine whether policies and programs should receive
continued funding, rather than a more constructive process of continuous
knowledge generation and quality improvement.
• As the rapidly evolving science of early child development continues to
grow, its complexity will increase and the distance between the working
knowledge of service providers and the cutting edge of the science will be
staggering. The professional challenges that this raises for the early
childhood field are formidable.
Recommendations
• Recommendation 9 — Agencies and foundations that support evaluation
research in early childhood should follow the example set by the nation's
successful approach to clinical investigation in the biomedical sciences. In
this spirit, the goals of program-based research and the evaluation of
services should be to document and ensure full implementation of effective
interventions, and to use evidence of ineffectiveness to stimulate further
experimentation and study.
• Recommendation 10 — The time is long overdue for state and local
decision makers to take bold actions to design and implement coordinated,
functionally effective infrastructures to reduce the long-standing
fragmentation of early childhood policies and programs. To this end, the
committee urges two compelling first steps. First, require that all children
who are referred to a protective services agency for evaluation of suspected
abuse or neglect be automatically referred for a developmental-behavioral
screening under Part C of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
Second, establish explicit and effective linkages among agencies that
currently are charged with implementing the work require
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ments of welfare reform and those that oversee the provision of both early
intervention programs and child and adult mental health services.
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• Recommendation 11 — A comprehensive analysis of the professional

development challenges facing the early childhood field should be
conducted as a collaborative effort involving professional organizations and
representatives from the wide array of training institutions that prepare
people to work with young children and their families. The responsibility
for convening such a broad-based working group or commission should be
shared among the fields of education, health, and human services.
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
Research has historically played a significant role in enhancing human
development and preventing, ameliorating, and treating a range of conditions that
can begin prenatally, at birth, or during the early years of life. To identify
priorities among the many possible recommendations that could be made for
promising further research, the committee was guided by three goals.
First, it is clear that the capacity to increase the odds of favorable birth
outcomes and positive adaptation in the early childhood years would be
strengthened considerably by supporting creative collaborations among child
development researchers, neuroscientists, and molecular geneticists. Second,
there is a pressing need to integrate basic research aimed at understanding
developmental processes with intervention research that assesses efforts to
influence developmental outcomes. Such collaborative initiatives hold the
promise of advancing both understanding of environmental effects on
development and improving the effectiveness of the nation's early intervention
strategies. Third, the entire early childhood evaluation enterprise warrants a
thorough reassessment in order to maximize opportunities for valid causal
inference and generalization, to assess what has been learned cumulatively across
the full array of evaluation studies, and to establish a constructive environment
for discussion of ongoing research and its application to policy. The themes and
issues presented below are elaborated in the committee's full complement of
research priorities in the full report.
Integrating Child Development Research, Neuroscience, and
Molecular Genetics
Enormous potential exists at the intersection of child development research,
neuroscience, and molecular and behavioral genetics to unlock some of the
enduring mysteries about how biogenetic and environmental factors interact to
influence developmental pathways. These include:
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(a) understanding how experience is incorporated into the developing nervous

system and how the boundaries are determined that differentiate deprivation from
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sufficiency and sufficiency from enrichment; (b) understanding how biological

processes, including neurochemical and neuro-endocrine factors, interact with
environmental influences to affect the development of complex behaviors,
including self-regulatory capacities, prosocial or antisocial tendencies, planning
and sustained attention, and adaptive responses to stress; (c) describing the
dynamics of gene-environment interactions that underlie the development of
behavior and contribute to differential susceptibility to risk and capacity for
resilience; and (d) elucidating the mechanisms that underlie nonoptimal birth
outcomes and developmental disabilities.
Integrating the Basic Science of Human Development and the
Applied Science of Early Childhood Intervention
There are currently few avenues for integrating knowledge gained from
basic developmental science and from evaluations of early interventions. Yet both
enterprises ultimately seek to improve children's early outcomes and life
opportunities. A great deal stands to be gained from deliberate efforts to forge
ongoing interactions among scientists engaged in these complementary yet
largely disconnected research traditions. Among the important objectives to be
addressed are: (a) enhanced understanding, detection, and treatment of early
precursors of psychopathology; (b) improved preventive and ameliorative
interventions for women and children who are exposed to biological insults and
adverse environmental conditions, as well as for children with identified
disabilities; (c) the identification of modifiable mechanisms that link
impoverished family resources to both adverse outcomes for individual children
and persistent disparities across groups of children in learning skills and other
developmental capacities; and (d) refined understanding of how interventions and
the staff that implement them can work effectively with families that differ along
dimensions defined by race and ethnicity, immigration status, religion, or other
cultural characteristics. The capacity of research to address these objectives will
hinge in part on investments in improving the available tools for measuring
important, but generally neglected early developmental outcomes, such as the
multiple components of self-regulatory and executive capacities, and the ability to
make friends and engage with others as a contributing member of a group, as
well as on increased efforts to evaluate the biological systems that are affected by
early interventions.
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Improving Evaluations of Early Childhood Interventions

To improve the nation's capacity to learn from evaluations of early childhood
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interventions, the committee recommends substantially increased attention to

program implementation as an integral component of all early childhood
evaluation research, the adoption of higher standards for the use of rigorous and
appropriate evaluation study designs, the inclusion of early childhood outcomes
in evaluations of broad-based community and economic interventions, and the
convening of regular forums at the National Institutes of Health to synthesize
evaluation research evidence across programs and strategies that share similar
developmental aims.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
As this report moved to completion, it became increasingly clear to the
members of the committee that the science of early childhood development has
often been viewed through highly personalized and sharply politicized lenses. In
many respects, this is an area in which personal experience allows everyone to
claim some level of expertise. Moreover, as a public issue, questions about the
care and protection of children confront many of the basic values that have
defined our country from its founding—personal responsibility, individual self-
reliance, and restrained government involvement in people's lives. In a highly
pluralistic society that is experiencing dramatic economic and social change,
however, the development of children must be viewed as a matter of intense
concern for both their parents and for the nation as a whole.
In this context, and based on the evidence gleaned from a rich and rapidly
growing knowledge base, we feel an urgent need to call for a new national
dialogue focused on rethinking the meaning of both shared responsibility for
children and strategic investment in their future. The time has come to stop
blaming parents, communities, business, and government, and to shape a shared
agenda to ensure both a rewarding childhood and a promising future for all
children.
The charge to this committee was to blend the knowledge and insights of a
broad range of disciplines to generate an integrated science of early childhood
development. The charge to society is to blend the skepticism of a scientist, the
passion of an advocate, the pragmatism of a policy maker, the creativity of a
practitioner, and the devotion of a parent—and to use existing knowledge to
ensure both a decent quality of life for all of our children and a productive future
for the nation.
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20
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Washington, DC 2001
Eager to Learn

National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS

Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy
Educating Our Preschoolers

Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

Barbara T. Bowman, M. Suzanne Donovan, and M. Susan Burns, Editors
21
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 EDUCATING OUR PRESCHOOLERS 23
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COMMITTEE ON EARLY CHILDHOOD PEDAGOGY

BARBARA T. BOWMAN (Chair), Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in
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Child Development, Chicago

W. STEVEN BARNETT, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University
LINDA M. ESPINOSA, College of Education, University of Missouri, Columbia
ROCHEL GELMAN, Department of Psychology, University of California, Los
Angeles
HERBERT P. GINSBURG, Teachers College, Columbia University
EDMUND W. GORDON, Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology,
City University of New York
BETTY M. HART, Institute for Life Span Studies, University of Kansas,
Lawrence
CAROLLEE HOWES, Graduate School of Education, University of California,
Los Angeles
SHARON LYNN KAGAN, Teachers College, Columbia University, and Yale
University
LILIAN G. KATZ, ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood
Education, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
ROBERT A. LeVINE, Harvard Graduate School of Education
SAMUEL J. MEISELS, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor
LYNN OKAGAKI, Department of Child Development and Family Studies,
Purdue University
MICHAEL I. POSNER, Sackler Institute, Weill Medical College of Cornell, New
York
IRVING E. SIGEL, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, New Jersey
BARBARA H. WASIK, School of Education, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill
GROVER J. WHITEHURST, Department of Psychology, State University of
New York, Stony Brook
ALEXANDRA K. WIGDOR, Deputy Director, Commission on Behavioral and
Social Sciences and Education
M. SUSAN BURNS, Study Director
M. SUZANNE DONOVAN, Senior Project Officer
MARIE SUIZZO, Research Associate
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24
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 25
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Executive Summary
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Children come into the world eager to learn. The first five years of life are a
time of enormous growth of linguistic, conceptual, social, emotional, and motor
competence. Right from birth a healthy child is an active participant in that
growth, exploring the environment, learning to communicate, and, in relatively
short order, beginning to construct ideas and theories about how things work in
the surrounding world. The pace of learning, however, will depend on whether
and to what extent the child's inclinations to learn encounter and engage
supporting environments. There can be no question that the environment in which
a child grows up has a powerful impact on how the child develops and what the
child learns.
Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers is about the education of
children ages 2 to 5. It focuses on programs provided outside the home, such as
preschool, Head Start, and child care centers. As the twenty-first century begins,
there can be little doubt that something approaching voluntary universal early
childhood education, a feature of other wealthy industrialized nations, is also on
the horizon here. Three major trends have focused public attention on children's
education and care in the preschool years:
1. the unprecedented labor force participation of women with young children,
which is creating a pressing demand for child care;
2. an emerging consensus among professionals and, to an ever greater
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extent, among parents that young children should be provided with

educational experiences; and
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3. the accumulation of convincing evidence from research that young children

are more capable learners than current practices reflect, and that good
educational experiences in the preschool years can have a positive impact
on school learning.
The growing consensus regarding the importance of early education stands
in stark contrast to the disparate system of care and education available to
children in the United States in the preschool years. America's programs for
preschoolers vary widely in quality, content, organization, sponsorship, source of
funding, relationship to the public schools, and government regulation.
Historically, there have been two separate and at times conflicting traditions
in the United States that can be encapsulated in the terms child care and
preschool. A central premise of this report, one that grows directly from the
research literature, is that care and education cannot be thought of as separate
entities in dealing with young children. Adequate care involves providing quality
cognitive stimulation, rich language environments, and the facilitation of social,
emotional, and motor development. Likewise, adequate education for young
children can occur only in the context of good physical care and of warm
affective relationships. Indeed, research suggests that secure attachment improves
social and intellectual competence and the ability to exploit learning
opportunities. Neither loving children nor teaching them is, in and of itself,
sufficient for optimal development; thinking and feeling work in tandem.
Learning, moreover, is not a matter of simply assimilating a store of facts
and skills. Children construct knowledge actively, integrating new concepts and
ideas into their existing understandings. Educators have an opportunity and an
obligation to facilitate this propensity to learn and to develop a receptivity to
learning that will prepare children for active engagement in the learning
enterprise throughout their lives. This report argues, therefore, that promoting
young children's growth calls for early childhood settings (half day or full day,
public or private, child care or preschool) that support the development of the full
range of capacities that will serve as a foundation for school learning. As the child
is assimilated into the culture of education in a setting outside the home, early
childhood programs must be sensitive and responsive to the cultural contexts that
define the child's world outside the school or center, and they must build on the
strengths and supports that those contexts provide.
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CONTEXT OF THE REPORT AND COMMITTEE CHARGE

As Americans grapple with decisions about early childhood education that
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many European countries have already made, we can draw on certain

advantages. We have a strong research community investigating early childhood
learning and development and producing evidence on which to base the design,
implementation, and evaluation of programs. And we have a tradition of
experimentation and observation in preschools that gives us access to a wealth of
experience in early childhood education.
The Committee on Early Childhood Pedagogy was established by the
National Research Council in 1997 to study a broad range of behavioral and
social science research on early learning and development and to explore the
implications of that research for the education and care of young children ages 2
to 5. More specifically, the committee was asked to undertake the following:
• Review and synthesize theory, research, and applications in the social,
behavioral, and biological sciences that contribute to our understanding of
early childhood pedagogy.
• Review the literature and synthesize the research on early childhood
pedagogy.
• Review research concerning special populations, such as children living in
poverty, children with limited English proficiency, or children with
disabilities, and highlight early childhood education practices that enhance
the development of these children.
• Produce a coherent distillation of the knowledge base and develop its
implications for practice in early childhood education programs, the
training of teachers and child care professionals, and future research
directions.
• Draw out the major policy implications of the research findings.
The study was carried out at the request of the U.S. Department of
Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (Early Childhood
Institute) and the Office of Special Education Programs, the Spencer Foundation,
and the Foundation for Child Development. An important motivation for
sponsors of the study is to help public discussion of these issues move away from
ideology and toward evidence, so that educators, parents, and policy makers will
be able to make better decisions about programs for the education and care of
young children.
In accordance with the charge to the committee, this report focuses primarily
on research and practice of relevance to programs for young
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children that take place outside the home, especially center-based programs. Yet
it is important to underscore the point that children's learning and development
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are strongly influenced by myriad family factors, including parental interaction

styles and family aspirations and expectations for achievement. It is also
important to note that many of the committee's findings, especially those on
children's learning and development, are likely to apply to in-home settings and to
parents who care for their own children, and they should also be of interest to
family literacy and two-generation programs.
NEW UNDERSTANDINGS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
DEVELOPMENT AND PEDAGOGY
Current conceptions of early childhood development and pedagogy are built
on a century of research and experience. Many of the theoretical perspectives that
have held sway during that period have been incorporated in some form into early
childhood practice. These include the “behaviorist” view of the role of positive
reinforcement in behavior and learning, as well as the focus on children's
affective-social development—an influence of Freudian theory. A more recent
(1970s) influence on preschool practice comes from Piagetian theory, which
emphasizes stages of development that are systemically defined. From Piaget's
perspective, the emerging capacities of the preschool (or “preoperational”) period
involve the development of symbolic abilities: language, imitation, symbolic
play, and drawing. While much learning is involved, it takes place in the here and
now and focuses largely on the perceptible.
More recent research has led many to reinterpret the stage theorists' views;
there is strong evidence that children, when they have accumulated substantial
knowledge, have the ability to abstract well beyond what is ordinarily observed.
Indeed, the striking feature of modern research is that it describes unexpected
competencies in young children, key features of which appear to be universal.
These data focus attention on the child's exposure to learning opportunities,
calling into question simplistic concep-tualizations of developmentally
appropriate practice that do not recognize the newly understood competencies of
very young children, and they highlight the importance of individual differences
in children, their past experiences, and their present contexts.
Recent research on cognitive development also emphasizes the role a
supportive context can play in strengthening and supporting learning in a
particular domain. Indeed, techniques that provide a window into the developing
brain allow us to see that stimulation from the environment changes the very
physiology of the brain, interlocking nature and nurture. Research from a variety
of theoretical perspectives suggests that a
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defining feature of a supportive environment is a responsible and responsive

adult. Parents, teachers, and caregivers promote development when they create
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learning experiences that build on and extend the child's competence—

experiences that are challenging, but within reach. To do so, these adults must be
sensitive to individual and developmental characteristics of the child.
VARIATION AMONG CHILDREN
Developmental trends occur in a similar fashion for all children. This does
not, however, imply uniformity. On the contrary, individual differences due to
genetic and experiential variations and differing cultural and social contexts have
strong influences on development. The notion of lockstepped development in
children is not useful; the potential of human development interacts with diversity
among individuals, available resources, and the goals and preferred interaction
patterns of communities in a way that links the biological and the social in the
construction of diverse developmental pathways.
Children present themselves to preschool teachers or caregivers with many
differences in their cognitive, social, physical, and motor skills. These differences
are associated with both “functional” characteristics—such as temperament,
learning style, and motivation—and “status” characteristics—including gender,
race, ethnicity, and social class. Data on children as they enter kindergarten
suggest that there are significant differences in many aspects of development by
the time children reach the schoolhouse door. Resources (like books and audio
recordings) and activities (book reading, story telling, verbal interaction) to which
children of higher socioeconomic status (SES) are typically exposed are strong
correlates of many aspects of cognitive development, and SES is correlated with
social and some forms of physical development as well.
QUALITY IN EDUCATION AND CARE
The issue of quality in early childhood education and care has many
dimensions, including political and social dimensions, not all of which lend
themselves to research and analysis. Research can, however, inform views of
best practice by providing information about the consequences of program
features and of curriculum and pedagogy for young children's learning,
development, and well-being. A number of distinct, but overlapping, research
literatures provide relevant insights. Several decades of research have been
conducted on the effects of a wide range of preschool programs on children's
learning and development. This research includes experimental comparisons of
carefully specified alternative approaches;
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experimental and quasi-experimental studies of the effects of “model” programs,

Head Start, and public preschool programs on children in poverty; studies relying
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on “natural variation” among child care programs to examine the effects of

program features and quality on the learning and development of children from a
broad cross-section of society; studies of programs for English-language learners;
and descriptions of exemplary programs in other countries. These literatures
provide insight into important components of the quality of preschool programs,
one of which is support for cognitive development. Other literatures (including
research in cognitive science) focus less on the study of preschool programs and
more on the study of children's development and their learning in specific
cognitive domains, such as reading, mathematics, and science. These literatures
also have implications for curriculum content and pedagogy.
FEATURES OF QUALITY PROGRAMS
There are a number of broadly supported findings regarding components of
quality preschool programs:
• Cognitive, social-emotional, and motor development are complementary,
mutually supportive areas of growth all requiring active attention in the
preschool years. Social skills and physical dexterity influence cognitive
development, just as cognition plays a role in children's social
understanding and motor competence. All are therefore related to early
learning and later academic achievement and are necessary domains of
early childhood pedagogy.
• Responsive interpersonal relationships with teachers nurture young
children's dispositions to learn and their emerging abilities. Social
competence and school achievement are influenced by the quality of early
teacher-child relationships, and by teachers' attentiveness to how the child
approaches learning.
• Both class size and adult-child ratios are correlated with greater program
effects. Low adult-child ratios are associated with more extensive teacher-
child interaction, more individualization, and less restrictive and controlling
teacher behavior. Smaller group size has been associated with more child
initiations, and more opportunities for teachers to work on extending
language, mediating children's social interactions, and encouraging and
supporting exploration and problem solving.
• While no single curriculum or pedagogical approach can be identified as
best, children who attend well-planned, high-quality early childhood
programs in which curriculum aims are specified and integrated across
domains tend to learn more and are better prepared to master the
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complex demands of formal schooling. Particular findings of relevance in

this regard include the following:
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1. Children who have a broad base of experience in domain-specific

knowledge (for example, in mathematics or an area of science) move more
rapidly in acquiring more complex skills.
2. More extensive language development—such as a rich vocabulary and
listening comprehension—is related to early literacy learning.
3. Children are better prepared for school when early childhood programs
expose them to a variety of classroom structures, thought processes, and
discourse patterns. This does not mean adopting the methods and
curriculum of the elementary school; rather it is a matter of providing
children with a mix of whole class, small group, and individual interactions
with teachers, the experience of discourse patterns associated with school,
and such mental strategies as categorizing, memorizing, reasoning, and
metacognition.
• Young children who are living in circumstances that place them at greater
risk of school failure—including poverty, low level of maternal
education, maternal depression, and other factors that can limit their
access to opportunities and resources that enhance learning and
development—are much more likely to succeed in school if they attend
well-planned, high-quality early childhood programs. Many children,
especially those in low-income households, are served in child care
programs of such low quality that learning and development are not
enhanced and may even be jeopardized.
The importance of teacher responsiveness to children's differences,
knowledge of children's learning processes and capabilities, and the
multiple developmental goals that a quality preschool program must
address simultaneously all point to the centrality of teacher education and
preparation.
• The professional development of teachers is related to the quality of early
childhood programs, and program quality predicts developmental
outcomes for children. Formal early childhood education and training have
been linked consistently to positive caregiver behaviors. The strongest
relationship is found between the number of years of education and training
and the appropriateness of a teacher's classroom behavior.
• Programs found to be highly effective in the United States and exemplary
programs abroad actively engage teachers and provide high-quality
supervision. Teachers are trained and encouraged to reflect on
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their practice and on the responsiveness of their children to classroom

activities, and to revise and plan their teaching accordingly.
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CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGY

Much of the research on young children's learning investigates cognitive
development in language, mathematics, and science. Because these appear to be
“privileged domains,” that is, domains in which children have a natural proclivity
to learn, experiment, and explore, they allow for nurturing and extending the
boundaries of the learning in which children are already actively engaged.
Developing and extending children's interests is particularly important in the
preschool years, when attention and self-regulation are nascent abilities.
What should be learned in the preschool curriculum? In addressing this
question, the committee focused largely on reading, mathematics, and science
because a rich research base has provided insights in these domains suggesting
that more can be learned in the preschool years than was previously understood.
This does not imply, however, that many of the music, arts and crafts, and
physical activities that are common in quality preschool programs are of less
importance. Indeed, the committee supports the notion that it is the whole child
that must be developed. Moreover, these activities—important in their own right
—can provide opportunities for developing language, reasoning, and social skills
that support learning in more academic areas.
An extensive body of research suggests the types of activity that promote
emergent literacy skills. These include story reading and “dialogic reading,”
providing materials for scribbling and “writing” in pretend play, participating in
classroom conversation, and identifying letters and words. In mathematics and
science, research indicates that children are capable of thinking that is both
complex and abstract. Curricula that work with children's emergent
understandings and provide the concepts, knowledge, and opportunities to extend
those understandings, have been used effectively in the preschool years. When
these activities operate in the child's “zone of proximal development,” where
learning is within reach but takes the child just beyond his or her existing ability,
these curricula have been reported to be both enjoyable and educational.
While the committee does not endorse any particular curriculum, the
cognitive science literature suggests principles of learning that should be
incorporated into any curriculum:
• Teaching and learning will be most effective if they engage and build on
children's existing understandings.
• Key concepts involved in each domain of preschool learning (e.g.,
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representational systems in early literacy, the concept of quantity in

mathematics, causation in the physical world) must go hand in hand with
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information and skill acquisition (e.g., identifying numbers and letters and
acquiring information about the natural world).
• Metacognitive skill development allows children to learn to solve problems
more effectively. Curricula that encourage children to reflect, predict,
question, and hypothesize (examples: How many will there be after two
numbers are added? What happens next in the story? Will it sink or float?)
set them on course for effective, engaged learning.
How should teaching be done in preschool? Research indicates that many
teaching strategies can work. Good teachers acknowledge and encourage
children's efforts, model and demonstrate, create challenges and support children
in extending their capabilities, and provide specific directions or instruction. All
of these teaching strategies can be used in the context of play and structured
activities. Effective teachers also organize the classroom environment and plan
ways to pursue educational goals for each child as opportunities arise in child-
initiated activities and in activities planned and initiated by the teacher.
This panoply of strategies provides a tool kit from which the teacher can
select the right tool for the right task at the right time. Children need
opportunities to initiate activities and follow their interests, but teachers are not
passive during these initiated and directed activities. Similarly, children should be
actively engaged and responsive during teacher-initiated and directed activities.
Good teachers help support the child's learning in both types of activities. They
also recognize that children learn from each other and from interactions with the
physical environment. Since preschool programs serve so many ends
simultaneously, multiple pedagogical approaches should be expected.
ASSESSMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
If the trend of increasing enrollments in early childhood education programs
continues in this country, the use of assessments and tests as instruments of
education policy and practice is also likely to increase. There is great potential in
the use of assessment to support learning. The importance of building new
learning on prior knowledge, the episodic course of development in any given
child, and the enormous variability among children in background and
development all mean that assessment and instruction are inseparable parts of
effective pedagogy. What preschool teachers do to guide and promote learning
needs to be based on what each child brings to the interaction, cognitively,
culturally, and
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developmentally. Careful assessment is even more critical to effective strategies

for working with children with disabilities and special needs.
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The growing sense of public responsibility for the quality of early childhood
programs means that there are also external pressures to use tests and assessments
for program evaluation and monitoring and for school accountability. Such high-
stakes uses of assessment data for purposes external to the classroom increase the
requirement for measurement validity and heighten the need for caution in
interpreting results.
All assessments, and particularly assessments for accountability, must be
used carefully and appropriately if they are to resolve, and not create, educational
problems. Assessment of young children poses greater challenges than people
generally realize. The first five years of life are a time of incredible growth and
learning, but the course of development is uneven and sporadic. The status of a
child's development as of any given day can change very rapidly. Consequently,
assessment results—in particular, standardized test scores that reflect a given
point in time—can easily misrepresent children's learning.
Few early childhood teachers or administrators are trained to understand
traditional standardized tests and measurements. As a consequence, misuse is
rampant, as experience with readiness tests demonstrates. Likewise, early
childhood personnel are seldom offered real preparation in the development and
use of alternative assessments.
Assessment itself is in a state of flux. There is widespread dissatisfaction
with traditional norm-referenced standardized tests, which are based on early 20th
century psychological theory. There are a number of promising new approaches
to assessment, among them variations on the clinical interview and performance
assessment, but the field must be described as emergent. Much more research and
development are needed for a productive fusion of assessment and instruction to
occur and if the potential benefits of assessment for accountability are to be fully
realized.
RECOMMENDATIONS
What is now known about the potential of the early years, and of the promise
of high-quality preschool programs to help realize that potential for all children,
stands in stark contrast to practice in many—perhaps most—early childhood
settings. In the committee's view, bringing what is known to bear on what is done
in early childhood education will require efforts in four areas: (1) professional
development of teachers; (2) development of teaching materials that reflect
research-based understandings of children's learning; (3) development of public
policies that support—through standards and appropriate assessment, regulations,
and funding—the provision of quality preschool experiences; and (4) efforts
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to make more recent understandings of development in the preschool years

common public knowledge. The committee proposes recommendations in each
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of these areas.
Professional Development
At the heart of the effort to promote quality early childhood programs, from
the committee's perspective, is a substantial investment in the education and
training of those who work with young children.
Recommendation 1: Each group of children in an early childhood education
and care program should be assigned a teacher who has a bachelor's degree
with specialized education related to early childhood (e.g., developmental
psychology, early childhood education, early childhood special education).
Achieving this goal will require a significant public investment in the
professional development of current and new teachers.
Sadly, there is a great disjunction between what is optimal pedagogically for
children's learning and development and the level of preparation that currently
typifies early childhood educators. Progress toward a high-quality teaching force
will require substantial public and private support and incentive systems,
including innovative educational programs, scholarship and loan programs, and
compensation commensurate with the expectations of college graduates.
Recommendation 2: Education programs for teachers should provide them
with a stronger and more specific foundational knowledge of the
development of children's social and affective behavior, thinking, and
language.
Few programs currently do. This foundation should be linked to teachers'
knowledge of mathematics, science, linguistics, literature, etc., as well as to
instructional practices for young children.
Recommendation 3: Teacher education programs should require mastery
of information on the pedagogy of teaching preschool-aged children,
including:
• Knowledge of teaching and learning and child development and how to
integrate them into practice.
• Information about how to provide rich conceptual experiences that promote
growth in specific content areas, as well as particular areas of development,
such as language (vocabulary) and cognition (reasoning).
• Knowledge of effective teaching strategies, including organizing
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the environment and routines so as to promote activities that build social-

emotional relationships in the classroom.
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• Knowledge of subject-matter content appropriate for preschool children and

knowledge of professional standards in specific content areas.
• Knowledge of assessment procedures (observation/performance records,
work sampling, interview methods) that can be used to inform instruction.
• Knowledge of the variability among children, in terms of teaching methods
and strategies that may be required, including teaching children who do not
speak English, children from various economic and regional contexts, and
children with identified disabilities.
• Ability to work with teams of professionals.
• Appreciation of the parents' role and knowledge of methods of collaboration
with parents and families.
• Appreciation of the need for appropriate strategies for accountability.
Recommendation 4: A critical component of preservice preparation should
be a supervised, relevant student teaching or internship experience in which
new teachers receive ongoing guidance and feedback from a qualified
supervisor.
There are a number of models (e.g., National Council for Accreditation of
Teacher Education) that suggest the value of this sort of supervised student
teaching experience.
Recommendation 5: All early childhood education and child care programs
should have access to a qualified supervisor of early childhood education.
Teachers should be provided with opportunities to reflect on practice with
qualified supervisors.
Recommendation 6: Federal and state departments of education, human
services, and other agencies interested in young children and their families
should initiate programs of research and development aimed at learning
more about effective preparation of early childhood teachers.
Recommendation 7: The committee recommends the development of
demonstration schools for professional development.
The U.S. Department of Education should collaborate with universities in
developing the demonstration schools and in using them as sites for ongoing
research:
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• on the efficacy of various models, including pairing demonstration schools

as partners with community programs, and pairing researchers and in-
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service teachers with exemplary community-based programs;

• to identify conditions under which the gains of mentoring, placement of
preservice teachers in demonstration schools, and supervised student
teaching can be sustained once teachers move into community-based
programs.
Educational Materials
Recommendation 8: The committee recommends that the U.S. Department
of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and their
equivalents at the state level fund efforts to develop, design, field test, and
evaluate curricula that incorporate what is known about learning and
thinking in the early years, with companion assessment tools and teacher
guides.
Each curriculum should emphasize what is known from research about
children's thinking and learning in the area it addresses. Activities should be
included that enable children with different learning styles and strengths to learn.
Each curriculum should include a companion guide for teachers that
explains the teaching goals, alerts the teacher to common misconceptions, and
suggests ways in which the curriculum can be used flexibly for students at
different developmental levels. In the teacher's guide, the description of methods
of assessment should be linked to instructional planning so that the information
acquired in the process of assessment can be used as a basis for making
pedagogical decisions at the level of both the group and the individual child.
Recommendation 9: The committee recommends that the U.S. Department
of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
support the use of effective technology, including videodiscs for preschool
teachers and Internet communication groups.
The process of early childhood education is one in which interaction
between the adult/teacher and the child/student is the most critical feature.
Opportunities to see curriculum and pedagogy in action are likely to promote
understanding of complexity and nuance not easily communicated in the written
word. Internet communication groups could provide information on curricula,
results of field tests, and opportunities for teachers using a common curriculum to
discuss experiences, query each other, and share ideas.
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Policy
States can play a significant role in promoting program quality with respect
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to both teacher preparation and curriculum and pedagogy.

Recommendation 10: All states should develop program standards for early
childhood programs and monitor their implementation.
These standards should recognize the variability in the development of
young children and adapt kindergarten and primary programs, as well as
preschool programs, to this diversity. This means, for instance, that kindergartens
must be readied for children. In some schools, this will require smaller class sizes
and professional development for teachers and administrators regarding
appropriate teaching practice, so that teachers can meet the needs of individual
children, rather than teaching to the “average” child. The standards should outline
essential components and should include, but not be limited to, the following
categories:
• School-home relationships,
• Class size and teacher-student ratios,
• Specification of pedagogical goals, content, and methods,
• Assessment for instructional improvement,
• Educational requirements for early childhood educators, and
• Monitoring quality/external accountability.
Recommendation 11: Because research has identified content that is
appropriate and important for inclusion in early childhood programs,
content standards should be developed and evaluated regularly to ascertain
whether they adhere to current scientific understanding of children's
learning.
The content standards should ensure that children have access to rich and
varied opportunities to learn in areas that are now omitted from many curricula
—such as phonological awareness, number concepts, methods of scientific
investigation, cultural knowledge, and language.
Recommendation 12: A single career ladder for early childhood teachers,
with differentiated pay levels, should be specified by each state.
This career ladder should include, at a minimum, teaching assistants (with
child development associate certification), teachers (with bachelor's degrees), and
supervisors.
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Recommendation 13: The committee recommends that the federal

government fund well-planned, high-quality center-based preschool
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programs for all children at high risk of school failure.

Such programs can prevent school failure and significantly enhance learning
and development in ways that benefit the entire society.
The Public
Recommendation 14: Organizations and government bodies concerned with
the education of young children should actively promote public
understanding of early childhood education and care.
Beliefs that are at odds with scientific understanding—that maturation
automatically accounts for learning, for example, or that children can learn
concrete skills only through drill and practice—must be challenged. Systematic
and widespread public education should be undertaken to increase public
awareness of the importance of providing stimulating educational experiences in
the lives of all young children. The message that the quality of children's
relationships with adult teachers and child care providers is critical in preparation
for elementary school should be featured prominently in communication efforts.
Parents and other caregivers, as well as the public, should be the targets of such
efforts.
Recommendation 15: Early childhood programs and centers should build
alliances with parents to cultivate complementary and mutually reinforcing
environments for young children at home and at the center.
FUTURE RESEARCH NEEDS
Research on child development and education can and has influenced the
development of early childhood curriculum and pedagogy. But the influences are
mutual. By evaluating outcomes of early childhood programs we have come to
understand more about children's development and capacities. The committee
believes that continued research efforts along both these lines can expand
understanding of early childhood education and care, and the ability to influence
them for the better.
Research on Early Childhood Learning and Development
Although it is apparent that early experiences affect later ones, there are a
number of important developmental questions to be studied regard
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ing how, when, and which early experiences support development and learning.
Recommendation 16: The committee recommends a broad empirical
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research program to better understand:

• The range of inputs that can contribute to supporting environments that
nurture young children's eagerness to learn;
• Development of children's capacities in the variety of cognitive and
socioemotional areas of importance in the preschool years, and the contexts
that enhance that development;
• The components of adult-child relationships that enhance the child's
development during the preschool years, and experiences affecting that
development for good or for ill;
• Variation in brain development, and its implications for sensory processing,
attention, and regulation, are particularly relevant;
• The implications of developmental disabilities for learning and development
and effective approaches for working with children who have disabilities;
• With regard to children whose home language is not English, the age and
level of native language mastery that is desirable before a second language
is introduced and the trajectory of second language development.
Research on Programs, Curricula, and Assessment
Recommendation 17: The next generation of research must examine more
rigorously the characteristics of programs that produce beneficial outcomes
for all children. In addition, research is needed on how programs can
provide more helpful structures, curricula, and methods for children at high
risk of educational difficulties, including children from low-income homes
and communities, children whose home language is not English, and
children with developmental and learning disabilities.
Research on programs for any population of children should examine such
program variations as age groupings, adult-child ratios, curricula, class size, and
program duration. These questions can best be answered through longitudinal
studies employing random assignment. In developing and assessing curricula,
new research must also continue to consider the interplay between an individual
child's characteristics, the immediate
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 41
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contexts of the home and classroom, and the larger contexts of the formal school
environment.
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Recommendation 18: A broad program of research and development should

be undertaken to advance the state of the art of assessment in three areas:
(1) classroom-based assessment to support learning (including studies of the
impact of methods of instructional assessment on pedagogical technique and
children's learning); (2) assessment for diagnostic purposes; and (3)
assessment of program quality for accountability and other reasons of
public policy.
Research on Ways to Create Universal High Quality
Recommendation 19: Research to fully develop and evaluate alternatives
for organizing, regulating, supporting, and financing early childhood
programs should be conducted to provide an empirical base for the
decisions being made.
The current early childhood system is fragmented, lacks uniform standards,
and provides uneven access to all children. Numerous policy choices have been
proposed. This research would inform public policy decision making.
CONCLUSION
At a time when the importance of education to individual fulfillment and
economic success has focused attention on the need to better prepare children for
academic achievement, the research literature suggests ways to make gains
toward that end. Parents are relying on child care and preschool programs in ever
larger numbers. We know that the quality of the programs in which they leave
their children matters. If there is a single critical component to quality, it rests in
the relationship between the child and the teacher/caregiver, and in the ability of
the adult to be responsive to the child. But responsiveness extends in many
directions: to the child's cognitive, social, emotional, and physical characteristics
and development.
Much research still needs to be done. But from the committee's perspective,
the case for a substantial investment in a high-quality system of child care and
preschool on the basis of what is already known is persuasive. Moreover, the
considerable lead by other developed countries in the provision of quality
preschool programs suggests that it can, indeed, be done on a large scale.
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42
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Children

Washington, DC 1998
National Research Council
PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS

Catherine E. Snow, M. Susan Burns, and Peg Griffin, Editors

Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young

Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children

43
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44
 PREVENTING READING DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN 45
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COMMITTEE ON THE PREVENTION OF READING

DIFFICULTIES IN YOUNG CHILDREN
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CATHERINE SNOW (Chair), Graduate School of Education, Harvard

University
MARILYN JAGER ADAMS, Bolt, Beranek, and Newman Inc., Cambridge,
Massachusetts
BARBARA T. BOWMAN, Erikson Institute, Chicago, Illinois
BARBARA FOORMAN, Department of Pediatrics, University of Texas, and
Houston Medical School
DOROTHY FOWLER, Fairfax County Public Schools, Annandale, Virginia
CLAUDE N. GOLDENBERG, Department of Teacher Education, California
State University, Long Beach
EDWARD J. KAME'ENUI, College of Education, University of Oregon, Eugene
WILLIAM LABOV, Department of Linguistics and Psychology, University of
Pennsylvania
RICHARD K. OLSON, Department of Psychology, University of Colorado,
Boulder
ANNEMARIE SULLIVAN PALINCSAR, School of Education, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor
CHARLES A. PERFETTI, Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh
HOLLIS S. SCARBOROUGH, Brooklyn College, City University of New
York, and Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, Connecticut
SALLY SHAYWITZ, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University
KEITH STANOVICH, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of
Toronto
DOROTHY STRICKLAND, Graduate School of Education, Rutgers University
SAM STRINGFIELD, Center for the Social Organization of Schools, Johns
Hopkins University
ELIZABETH SULZBY, School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor
M. SUSAN BURNS, Study Director
PEG GRIFFIN, Research Associate
SHARON VANDIVERE, Project Assistant
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46
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 47
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Executive Summary
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Reading is essential to success in our society. The ability to read is highly

valued and important for social and economic advancement. Of course, most
children learn to read fairly well. In this report, we are most concerned with the
large numbers of children in America whose educational careers are imperiled
because they do not read well enough to ensure understanding and to meet the
demands of an increasingly competitive economy. Current difficulties in reading
largely originate from rising demands for literacy, not from declining absolute
levels of literacy. In a technological society, the demands for higher literacy are
ever increasing, creating more grievous consequences for those who fall short.
The importance of this problem led the U.S. Department of Education and
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to ask the National Academy
of Sciences to establish a committee to examine the prevention of reading
difficulties. Our committee was charged with conducting a study of the
effectiveness of interventions for young children who are at risk of having
problems learning to read. The goals of the project were three: (1) to comprehend a
rich but diverse research base; (2) to translate the research findings into advice
and guidance for parents, educators, publishers, and others involved in the care
and instruction of the young; and (3) to convey this advice to the targeted
audiences through a variety of publications, conferences, and other outreach
activities.
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THE COMMITTEE'S APPROACH

The committee reviewed research on normal reading development and
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instruction; on risk factors useful in identifying groups and individuals at risk of

reading failure; and on prevention, intervention, and instructional approaches to
ensuring optimal reading outcomes.
We found many informative literatures to draw on and have aimed in this
report to weave together the insights of many research traditions into clear
guidelines for helping children become successful readers. In doing so, we also
considered the current state of affairs in education for teachers and others
working with young children; policies of federal, state, and local governments
impinging on young children's education; the pressures on publishers of
curriculum materials, texts, and tests; programs addressed to parents and to
community action; and media activities.
Our main emphasis has been on the development of reading and on factors
that relate to reading outcomes. We conceptualized our task as cutting through the
detail of mostly convergent, but sometimes discrepant, research findings to
provide an integrated picture of how reading develops and how its development
can be promoted.
Our recommendations extend to all children. Granted, we have focused our
lens on children at risk for learning to read. But much of the instructional research
we have reviewed encompasses, for a variety of reasons, populations of students
with varying degrees of risk. Good instruction seems to transcend
characterizations of children's vulnerability for failure; the same good early
literacy environment and patterns of effective instruction are required for children
who might fail for different reasons.
Does this mean that the identical mix of instructional materials and
strategies will work for each and every child? Of course not. If we have learned
anything from this effort, it is that effective teachers are able to craft a special mix
of instructional ingredients for every child they work with. But it does mean that
there is a common menu of materials, strategies, and environments from which
effective teachers make choices. This in turn means that, as a society, our most
important challenge is to make sure that our teachers have access to those tools
and the knowledge required to use them well. In other words, there is little
evidence that children experiencing difficulties learning to read, even those with
identifiable learning disabilities, need radically different sorts of supports than
children at low risk, although they may need much more intensive support.
Childhood environments that support early literacy development and excellent
instruction are important for all children. Excellent instruction is the best
intervention for children who demonstrate problems learning to read.
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CONCEPTUALIZING READING AND READING

INSTRUCTION
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Effective reading instruction is built on a foundation that recognizes that

reading ability is determined by multiple factors: many factors that correlate with
reading fail to explain it; many experiences contribute to reading development
without being prerequisite to it; and although there are many prerequisites, none
by itself is considered sufficient.
Adequate initial reading instruction requires that children:
• use reading to obtain meaning from print,
• have frequent and intensive opportunities to read,
• be exposed to frequent, regular spelling-sound relationships,
• learn about the nature of the alphabetic writing system, and
• understand the structure of spoken words.
Adequate progress in learning to read English (or any alphabetic language)
beyond the initial level depends on:
• having a working understanding of how sounds are represented
alphabetically,
• sufficient practice in reading to achieve fluency with different kinds of
texts,
• sufficient background knowledge and vocabulary to render written texts
meaningful and interesting,
• control over procedures for monitoring comprehension and repairing
misunderstandings, and
• continued interest and motivation to read for a variety of purposes.
Reading skill is acquired in a relatively predictable way by children who
have normal or above-average language skills; have had experiences in early
childhood that fostered motivation and provided exposure to literacy in use; get
information about the nature of print through opportunities to learn letters and to
recognize the internal structure of spoken words, as well as explanations about
the contrasting nature of spoken and written language; and attend schools that
provide effective reading instruction and opportunities to practice reading.
Disruption of any of these developments increases the possibility that
reading will be delayed or impeded. The association of poor reading outcomes
with poverty and minority status no doubt reflects the accumulated effects of
several of these risk factors, including lack of access to literacy-stimulating
preschool experiences and to excellent, coherent reading instruction. In addition, a
number of children without any obvious risk factors also develop reading
difficulties. These children may require
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intensive efforts at intervention and extra help in reading and accommodations

for their disability throughout their lives.
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There are three potential stumbling blocks that are known to throw children
off course on the journey to skilled reading. The first obstacle, which arises at the
outset of reading acquisition, is difficulty understanding and using the alphabetic
principle—the idea that written spellings systematically represent spoken words.
It is hard to comprehend connected text if word recognition is inaccurate or
laborious. The second obstacle is a failure to transfer the comprehension skills of
spoken language to reading and to acquire new strategies that may be specifically
needed for reading. The third obstacle to reading will magnify the first two: the
absence or loss of an initial motivation to read or failure to develop a mature
appreciation of the rewards of reading.
As in every domain of learning, motivation is crucial. Although most
children begin school with positive attitudes and expectations for success, by the
end of the primary grades and increasingly thereafter, some children become
disaffected. The majority of reading problems faced by today's adolescents and
adults are the result of problems that might have been avoided or resolved in their
early childhood years. It is imperative that steps be taken to ensure that children
overcome these obstacles during the primary grades.
Reducing the number of children who enter school with inadequate
literacy-related knowledge and skill is an important primary step toward
preventing reading difficulties. Although not a panacea, this would serve to
reduce considerably the magnitude of the problem currently facing schools.
Children who are particularly likely to have difficulty with learning to read in the
primary grades are those who begin school with less prior knowledge and skill in
relevant domains, most notably general verbal abilities, the ability to attend to the
sounds of language as distinct from its meaning, familiarity with the basic
purposes and mechanisms of reading, and letter knowledge. Children from poor
neighborhoods, children with limited proficiency in English, children with
hearing impairments, children with preschool language impairments, and children
whose parents had difficulty learning to read are particularly at risk of arriving at
school with weaknesses in these areas and hence of falling behind from the
outset.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The critical importance of providing excellent reading instruction to all
children is at the heart of the committee's recommendations. Accordingly, our
central recommendation characterizes the nature of good primary reading
instruction. We also recognize that excellent instruction is
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most effective when children arrive in first grade motivated for literacy and with
the necessary linguistic, cognitive, and early literacy skills. We therefore
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recommend attention to ensuring high-quality preschool and kindergarten

environments as well. We acknowledge that excellent instruction in the primary
grades and optimal environments in preschool and kindergarten require teachers
who are well prepared, highly knowledgeable, and receiving ongoing support.
Excellent instruction may be possible only if schools are organized in optimal
ways; if facilities, curriculum materials, and support services function
adequately; and if children's home languages are taken into account in designing
instruction. We therefore make recommendations addressing these issues. (The
complete text of all the committee's recommendations appears in Chapter 10 [of
the full report].)
Literacy Instruction in First Through Third Grades
Given the centrality of excellent instruction to the prevention of reading
difficulties, the committee strongly recommends attention in every primary-grade
classroom to the full array of early reading accomplishments: the alphabetic
principle, reading sight words, reading words by mapping speech sounds to parts
of words, achieving fluency, and comprehension. Getting started in alphabetic
reading depends critically on mapping the letters and spellings of words onto the
speech units that they represent; failure to master word recognition can impede
text comprehension. Explicit instruction that directs children's attention to the
sound structure of oral language and to the connections between speech sounds
and spellings assists children who have not grasped the alphabetic principle or
who do not apply it productively when they encounter unfamiliar printed words.
Comprehension difficulties can be prevented by actively building
comprehension skills as well as linguistic and conceptual knowledge, beginning
in the earliest grades. Comprehension can be enhanced through instruction
focused on concept and vocabulary growth and background knowledge,
instruction about the syntax and rhetorical structures of written language, and
direct instruction about comprehension strategies such as summarizing,
predicting, and monitoring. Comprehension also takes practice, which is gained
by reading independently, by reading in pairs or groups, and by being read aloud
to.
We recommend that first through third grade curricula include the following
components:
• Beginning readers need explicit instruction and practice that lead to an
appreciation that spoken words are made up of smaller units of
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sounds, familiarity with spelling-sound correspondences and common

spelling conventions and their use in identifying printed words, “sight”
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recognition of frequent words, and independent reading, including reading

aloud. Fluency should be promoted through practice with a wide variety of
well-written and engaging texts at the child's own comfortable reading
level.
• Children who have started to read independently, typically second graders
and above, should be encouraged to sound out and confirm the identities of
visually unfamiliar words they encounter in the course of reading
meaningful texts, recognizing words primarily through attention to their
letter-sound relationships. Although context and pictures can be used as a
tool to monitor word recognition, children should not be taught to use them
to substitute for information provided by the letters in the word.
• Because the ability to obtain meaning from print depends so strongly on the
development of word recognition accuracy and reading fluency, both of the
latter should be regularly assessed in the classroom, permitting timely and
effective instructional response when difficulty or delay is apparent.
• Beginning in the earliest grades, instruction should promote comprehension
by actively building linguistic and conceptual knowledge in a rich variety
of domains, as well as through direct instruction about comprehension
strategies such as summarizing the main idea, predicting events and
outcomes of upcoming text, drawing inferences, and monitoring for
coherence and misunderstandings. This instruction can take place while
adults read to students or when students read themselves.
• Once children learn some letters, they should be encouraged to write them,
to use them to begin writing words or parts of words, and to use words to
begin writing sentences. Instruction should be designed with the
understanding that the use of invented spelling is not in conflict with
teaching correct spelling. Beginning writing with invented spelling can be
helpful for developing understanding of the identity and segmentation of
speech sounds and sound-spelling relationships. Conventionally correct
spelling should be developed through focused instruction and practice.
Primary-grade children should be expected to spell previously studied
words and spelling patterns correctly in their final writing products. Writing
should take place regularly and frequently to encourage children to become
more comfortable and familiar with it.
• Throughout the early grades, time, materials, and resources should be
provided with two goals: (a) to support daily independent reading of texts
selected to be of particular interest for the individual student, and beneath
the individual student's frustration level, in order to consolidate the
student's capacity for independent reading and (b) to support daily
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assisted or supported reading and rereading of texts that are slightly more
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order to promote advances in the student's capabilities.

• Throughout the early grades, schools should promote independent reading
outside school by such means as daily at-home reading assignments and
expectations, summer reading lists, encouraging parent involvement, and by
working with community groups, including public librarians, who share
this goal.
Promoting Literacy Development in Preschool and
Kindergarten
It is clear from the research that the process of learning to read is a lengthy
one that begins very early in life. Given the importance identified in the research
literature of starting school motivated to read and with the prerequisite language
and early literacy skills, the committee recommends that all children, especially
those at risk for reading difficulties, should have access to early childhood
environments that promote language and literacy growth and that address a
variety of skills that have been identified as predictors of later reading
achievement. Preschools and other group care settings for young children often
provide relatively impoverished language and literacy environments, in particular
those available to families with limited economic resources. As ever more young
children are entering group care settings pursuant to expectations that their
mothers will join the work force, it becomes critical that the preschool
opportunities available to lower-income families be designed in ways that
support language and literacy development.
Preschool programs, even those designed specifically as interventions for
children at risk of reading difficulties, should be designed to provide optimal
support for cognitive, language, and social development, within this broad focus.
However, ample attention should be paid to skills that are known to predict future
reading achievement, especially those for which a causal role has been
demonstrated. Similarly, and for the same reasons, kindergarten instruction
should be designed to stimulate verbal interaction; to enrich children's
vocabularies; to encourage talk about books; to provide practice with the sound
structure of words; to develop knowledge about print, including the production
and recognition of letters; and to generate familiarity with the basic purposes and
mechanisms of reading.
Children who will probably need additional support for early language and
literacy development should receive it as early as possible. Pediatricians, social
workers, speech-language therapists, and other preschool practitioners should
receive research-based guidelines to assist them to be alert for signs that children
are having difficulties acquiring
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 54
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early language and literacy skills. Parents, relatives, neighbors, and friends can
also play a role in identifying children who need assistance. Through adult
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education programs, public service media, instructional videos provided by

pediatricians, and other means, parents can be informed about what skills and
knowledge children should be acquiring at young ages, and about what to do and
where to turn if there is concern that a child's development may be lagging behind
in some respects.
Education and Professional Development for All Involved in
Literacy Instruction
The critical importance of the teacher in the prevention of reading
difficulties must be recognized, and efforts should be made to provide all teachers
with adequate knowledge about reading and the knowledge and skill to teach
reading or its developmental precursors. It is imperative that teachers at all grade
levels understand the course of literacy development and the role of instruction in
optimizing literacy development.
Preschool teachers represent an important, and largely underutilized,
resource in promoting literacy by supporting rich language and emergent literacy
skills. Early childhood educators should not try to replicate the formal reading
instruction provided in schools.
The preschool and primary school teacher's knowledge and experience, as
well as the support provided to the teacher, are central to achieving the goal of
primary prevention of reading difficulties. Each of these may vary according to
where the teacher is in his or her professional development. A critical component
in the preparation of pre-service teachers is supervised, relevant, clinical
experience providing ongoing guidance and feedback, so they develop the ability
to integrate and apply their knowledge in practice.
Teachers need to be knowledgeable about the research foundations of
reading. Collaborative support by the teacher preparation institution and the field
placement is essential. A critical component for novice teachers is the support of
mentors who have demonstrated records of success in teaching reading.
Professional development should not be conceived as something that ends
with graduation from a teacher preparation program, nor as something that
happens primarily in graduate classrooms or even during inservice activities.
Rather, ongoing support from colleagues and specialists, as well as regular
opportunities for self-examination and reflection, are critical components of the
career-long development of excellent teachers.
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 55
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Teaching Reading to Speakers of Other Languages

Schools have the responsibility to accommodate the linguistic needs of
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students with limited proficiency in English. Precisely how to do this is difficult

to prescribe, because students' abilities and needs vary greatly, as do the
capacities of different communities to support their literacy development. The
committee recommends the following guidelines for decision making:
• If language-minority children arrive at school with no proficiency in English
but speaking a language for which there are instructional guides, learning
materials, and locally available proficient teachers, these children should be
taught how to read in their native language while acquiring proficiency in
spoken English and then subsequently taught to extend their skills to
reading in English.
• If language-minority children arrive at school with no proficiency in English
but speak a language for which the above conditions cannot be met and for
which there are insufficient numbers of children to justify the development
of the local capacity to meet such conditions, the instructional priority
should be to develop the children's proficiency in spoken English. Although
print materials may be used to develop understanding of English speech
sounds, vocabulary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading
instruction is appropriate until an adequate level of proficiency in spoken
English has been achieved.
Ensuring Adequate Resources to Meet Children's Needs
To be effective, schools with large numbers of children at risk for reading
difficulties need rich resources—manageable class sizes and student-teacher
ratios, high-quality instructional materials in sufficient quantity, good school
libraries, and pleasant physical environments. Achieving this may require extra
resources for schools that serve a disproportionate number of high-risk children.
Even in schools in which a large percentage of the students are not achieving
at a satisfactory level, a well-designed classroom reading program, delivered by
an experienced and competent teacher, may be successful in bringing most
students to grade level or above during the primary grades. However, achieving
and sustaining radical gains is often difficult when improvements are introduced
on a classroom-by-classroom basis. In a situation of school-wide poor
performance, school restructuring should be considered as a vehicle for
preventing reading difficulties. Ongoing professional development for teachers is
typically a component of successful school restructuring efforts.
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 56
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Addressing the Needs of Children with Persistent Reading

Difficulties
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Even with excellent instruction in the early grades, some children fail to
make satisfactory progress in reading. Such children will require supplementary
services, ideally from a reading specialist who provides individual or small-group
intensive instruction that is coordinated with high-quality instruction from the
classroom teacher. Children who are having difficulty learning to read do not, as a
rule, require qualitatively different instruction from children who are “getting it.”
Instead, they more often need application of the same principles by someone who
can apply them expertly to individual children who are having difficulty for one
reason or another.
Schools that lack or have abandoned reading specialist positions need to
reexamine their needs for such specialists to ensure that well-trained staff are
available for intervention with children and for ongoing support to classroom
teachers. Reading specialists and other specialist roles need to be defined so that
two-way communication is required between specialists and classroom teachers
about the needs of all children at risk of or experiencing reading difficulties.
Coordination is needed at the instructional level so that intervention from
specialists coordinates with and supports classroom instruction. Schools that have
reading specialists as well as special educators need to coordinate the roles of
these specialists. Schools need to ensure that all the specialists engaged in child
study or individualized educational program (IEP) meetings for special education
placement, early childhood intervention, out-of-classroom interventions, or in-
classroom support are well informed about research in reading development and
the prevention of reading difficulties.
Although volunteer tutors can provide valuable practice and motivational
support for children learning to read, they should not be expected either to
provide primary reading instruction or to instruct children with serious reading
problems.
CONCLUSION
Most reading difficulties can be prevented. There is much work to be done,
however, that requires the aggressive deployment of the information currently
available, which is distilled in [the full] report. In addition, many questions
remain unanswered concerning reading development, some of which we address
in our recommendations for research. While science continues to discover more
about how children learn to read and how teachers and others can help them, the
knowledge currently available can equip our society to promote higher levels of
literacy for large numbers of American schoolchildren. The committee's hope is
that the recommendations contained in this report will provide direction for the
first important steps.
 HOW PEOPLE LEARN BRAIN, MIND, EXPERIENCE, AND SCHOOL 57
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How People Learn Brain, Mind, Experience,

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and School

Expanded Edition
Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning

John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, editors with

additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational
Practice

M. Suzanne Donovan, John D. Bransford, and James W. Pellegrino, editors

Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS

Washington, D.C. 2000

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58
 HOW PEOPLE LEARN BRAIN, MIND, EXPERIENCE, AND SCHOOL 59
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COMMITTEE ON LEARNING RESEARCH AND

EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
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JOHN D. BRANSFORD (Co-Chair), Peabody College of Education and Human

Development, Vanderbilt University
JAMES W. PELLEGRINO (Co-Chair), Peabody College of Education and
Human Development, Vanderbilt University
DAVID BERLINER, Department of Education, Arizona State University,
Tempe
MYRNA S. COONEY, Taft Middle School, Cedar Rapids, IA
ARTHUR EISENKRAFT, Bedford Public Schools, Bedford, NY
HERBERT P. GINSBURG, Department of Human Development, Teachers
College, Columbia University
PAUL D. GOREN, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago
JOSÉ P. MESTRE, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of
Massachusetts, Amherst
ANNEMARIE S. PALINCSAR, School of Education, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor
ROY PEA, SRI International, Menlo Park, CA
M. SUZANNE DONOVAN, Study Director
WENDELL GRANT, Senior Project Assistant
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60
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 61
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Learning: From Speculation to Science

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The essence of matter, the origins of the universe, the nature of the human
mind—these are the profound questions that have engaged thinkers through the
centuries. Until quite recently, understanding the mind— and the thinking and
learning that the mind makes possible—has remained an elusive quest, in part
because of a lack of powerful research tools. Today, the world is in the midst of
an extraordinary outpouring of scientific work on the mind and brain, on the
processes of thinking and learning, on the neural processes that occur during
thought and learning, and on the development of competence.
The revolution in the study of the mind that has occurred in the last three or
four decades has important implications for education. As we illustrate, a new
theory of learning is coming into focus that leads to very different approaches to
the design of curriculum, teaching, and assessment than those often found in
schools today. Equally important, the growth of interdisciplinary inquiries and
new kinds of scientific collaborations have begun to make the path from basic
research to educational practice somewhat more visible, if not yet easy to travel.
Thirty years ago, educators paid little attention to the work of cognitive
scientists, and researchers in the nascent field of cognitive science worked far
removed from classrooms. Today, cognitive researchers are spending more time
working with teachers, testing and refining their theories in real class

Note: References are not included in this booklet but are available online at
www.nap.edu.Search under title of report.
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 62
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rooms where they can see how different settings and classroom interactions
influence applications of their theories.
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What is perhaps currently most striking is the variety of research approaches

and techniques that have been developed and ways in which evidence from many
different branches of science are beginning to converge. The story we can now
tell about learning is far richer than ever before, and it promises to evolve
dramatically in the next generation. For example:
• Research from cognitive psychology has increased understanding of the
nature of competent performance and the principles of knowledge
organization that underlie people's abilities to solve problems in a wide
variety of areas, including mathematics, science, literature, social studies,
and history.
• Developmental researchers have shown that young children understand a
great deal about basic principles of biology and physical causality, about
number, narrative, and personal intent, and that these capabilities make it
possible to create innovative curricula that introduce important concepts for
advanced reasoning at early ages.
• Research on learning and transfer has uncovered important principles for
structuring learning experiences that enable people to use what they have
learned in new settings.
• Work in social psychology, cognitive psychology, and anthropology is
making clear that all learning takes place in settings that have particular
sets of cultural and social norms and expectations and that these settings
influence learning and transfer in powerful ways.
• Neuroscience is beginning to provide evidence for many principles of
learning that have emerged from laboratory research, and it is showing how
learning changes the physical structure of the brain and, with it, the
functional organization of the brain.
• Collaborative studies of the design and evaluation of learning environments,
among cognitive and developmental psychologists and educators, are
yielding new knowledge about the nature of learning and teaching as it
takes place in a variety of settings. In addition, researchers are discovering
ways to learn from the “wisdom of practice” that comes from successful
teachers who can share their expertise.
• Emerging technologies are leading to the development of many new
opportunities to guide and enhance learning that were unimagined even a
few years ago.
All of these developments in the study of learning have led to an era of new
relevance of science to practice. In short, investment in basic research is paying
off in practical applications. These developments in under
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 63
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standing of how humans learn have particular significance in light of changes in

what is expected of the nation's educational systems.
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In the early part of the twentieth century, education focused on the

acquisition of literacy skills: simple reading, writing, and calculating. It was not
the general rule for educational systems to train people to think and read
critically, to express themselves clearly and persuasively, to solve complex
problems in science and mathematics. Now, at the end of the century, these
aspects of high literacy are required of almost everyone in order to successfully
negotiate the complexities of contemporary life. The skill demands for work have
increased dramatically, as has the need for organizations and workers to change in
response to competitive workplace pressures. Thoughtful participation in the
democratic process has also become increasingly complicated as the locus of
attention has shifted from local to national and global concerns.
Above all, information and knowledge are growing at a far more rapid rate
than ever before in the history of humankind. As Nobel laureate Herbert Simon
wisely stated, the meaning of “knowing” has shifted from being able to
remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it (Simon, 1996).
More than ever, the sheer magnitude of human knowledge renders its coverage by
education an impossibility; rather, the goal of education is better conceived as
helping students develop the intellectual tools and learning strategies needed to
acquire the knowledge that allows people to think productively about history,
science and technology, social phenomena, mathematics, and the arts.
Fundamental understanding about subjects, including how to frame and ask
meaningful questions about various subject areas, contributes to individuals' more
basic understanding of principles of learning that can assist them in becoming
self-sustaining, lifelong learners.
FOCUS: PEOPLE, SCHOOLS, AND THE POTENTIAL TO
LEARN
The scientific literatures on cognition, learning, development, culture, and
brain are voluminous. Three organizing decisions, made fairly early in the work
of the committee, provided the framework for our study.
• First, we focus primarily on research on human learning (though the study
of animal learning provides important collateral information), including
new developments from neuroscience.
• Second, we focus especially on learning research that has implications for
the design of formal instructional environments, primarily pre-schools,
kindergarten through high schools (K-12), and colleges.
• Third, and related to the second point, we focus on research that helps
explore the possibility of helping all individuals achieve their fullest
potential.
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 64
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New ideas about ways to facilitate learning—and about who is most capable
of learning—can powerfully affect the quality of people's lives. At different
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points in history, scholars have worried that formal educational environments

have been better at selecting talent than developing it (see, e.g., Bloom, 1964).
Many people who had difficulty in school might have prospered if the new ideas
about effective instructional practices had been available. Furthermore, given new
instructional practices, even those who did well in traditional educational
environments might have developed skills, knowledge, and attitudes that would
have significantly enhanced their achievements.
Learning research suggests that there are new ways to introduce students to
traditional subjects, such as mathematics, science, history and literature, and that
these new approaches make it possible for the majority of individuals to develop a
deep understanding of important subject matter. This committee is especially
interested in theories and data that are relevant to the development of new ways to
introduce students to such traditional subjects as mathematics, science, history,
and literature. There is hope that new approaches can make it possible for a
majority of individuals to develop a moderate to deep understanding of important
subjects.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SCIENCE OF LEARNING
This report builds on research that began in the latter part of the nineteenth
century—the time in history at which systematic attempts were made to study the
human mind through scientific methods. Before then, such study was the
province of philosophy and theology. Some of the most influential early work
was done in Leipzig in the laboratory of Wilhelm Wundt, who with his
colleagues tried to subject human consciousness to precise analysis—mainly by
asking subjects to reflect on their thought processes through introspection.
By the turn of the century, a new school of behaviorism was emerging. In
reaction to the subjectivity inherent in introspection, behaviorists held that the
scientific study of psychology must restrict itself to the study of observable
behaviors and the stimulus conditions that control them. An extremely influential
article, published by John B. Watson in 1913, provides a glimpse of the
behaviorist credo:
. . . all schools of psychology except that of behaviorism claim that
“consciousness” is the subject-matter of psychology. Behaviorism, on the
contrary, holds that the subject matter of human psychology is the behavior or
activities of the human being. Behaviorism claims that “consciousness” is
neither a definable nor a useable concept; that it is merely another word for the
“soul” of more ancient times. The old psychology is thus dominated by a kind of
subtle religious philosophy (p. 1).
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 65
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Drawing on the empiricist tradition, behaviorists conceptualized learning as a

process of forming connections between stimuli and responses. Motivation to
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learn was assumed to be driven primarily by drives, such as hunger, and the
availability of external forces, such as rewards and punishments (e.g., Thorndike,
1913; Skinner, 1950).
In a classic behaviorist study by Edward L. Thorndike (1913), hungry cats
had to learn to pull a string hanging in a “puzzle box” in order for a door to open
that let them escape and get food. What was involved in learning to escape in this
manner? Thorndike concluded that the cats did not think about how to escape and
then do it; instead, they engaged in trial-and-error behavior; see Box 1.1.
Sometimes a cat in the puzzle box

BOX 1.1

A CAT'S LEARNING

“When put into the box, the cat would show evident signs of discomfort
and impulse to escape from confinement. It tries to squeeze through any
opening; it claws and bites at the wire; it thrusts its paws out through any
opening and claws at everything it reaches. . . . It does not pay very much
attention to the food outside but seems simply to strive instinctively to
escape from confinement. . . . The cat that is clawing all over the box in her
impulsive struggle will probably claw the string or loop or button so as to
open the door. And gradually all the other unsuccessful impulses will be
stamped out and the particular impulse leading to the successful act will be
stamped in by the resulting pleasure, until, after many trials, the cat will,
when put in the box, immediately claw the button or loop in a definite
way” (Thorndike, 1913:13).
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accidentally pulled the strings while playing and the door opened, allowing the
cat to escape. But this event did not appear to produce an insight on the part of
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the cat because, when placed in the puzzle box again, the cat did not immediately
pull the string to escape. Instead, it took a number of trials for the cats to learn
through trial and error. Thorndike argued that rewards (e.g., food) increased the
strength of connections between stimuli and responses. The explanation of what
appeared to be complex problem-solving phenomena as escaping from a
complicated puzzle box could thus be explained without recourse to unobservable
mental events, such as thinking.
A limitation of early behaviorism stemmed from its focus on observable
stimulus conditions and the behaviors associated with those conditions. This
orientation made it difficult to study such phenomena as understanding,
reasoning, and thinking—phenomena that are of paramount importance for
education. Over time, radical behaviorism (often called “Behaviorism with a
Capital B”) gave way to a more moderate form of behaviorism (“behaviorism
with a small b”) that preserved the scientific rigor of using behavior as data, but
also allowed hypotheses about internal “mental” states when these became
necessary to explain various phenomena (e.g., Hull, 1943; Spence, 1942).
In the late 1950s, the complexity of understanding humans and their
environments became increasingly apparent, and a new field emerged—
cognitive science. From its inception, cognitive science approached learning from
a multidisciplinary perspective that included anthropology, linguistics,
philosophy, developmental psychology, computer science, neuroscience, and
several branches of psychology (Norman, 1980,1993; Newell and Simon, 1972).
New experimental tools, methodologies, and ways of postulating theories made it
possible for scientists to begin serious study of mental functioning: to test their
theories rather than simply speculate about thinking and learning (see, e.g.,
Anderson, 1982, 1987; deGroot, 1965,1969; Newell and Simon, 1972; Ericsson
and Charness, 1994), and, in recent years, to develop insights into the importance
of the social and cultural contexts of learning (e.g., Cole, 1996; Lave, 1988; Lave
and Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff et al., 1993). The introduction of
rigorous qualitative research methodologies have provided perspectives on
learning that complement and enrich the experimental research traditions
(Erickson, 1986; Hammersly and Atkinson, 1983; Heath, 1982; Lincoln and
Guba, 1985; Marshall and Rossman, 1955; Miles and Huberman, 1984; Spradley,
1979).
Learning with Understanding
One of the hallmarks of the new science of learning is its emphasis on
learning with understanding. Intuitively, understanding is good, but it
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 67
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has been difficult to study from a scientific perspective. At the same time,
students often have limited opportunities to understand or make sense of topics
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because many curricula have emphasized memory rather than understanding.

Textbooks are filled with facts that students are expected to memorize, and most
tests assess students' abilities to remember the facts. When studying about veins
and arteries, for example, students may be expected to remember that arteries are
thicker than veins, more elastic, and carry blood from the heart; veins carry blood
back to the heart. A test item for this information may look like the following:
1. Arteries
a. Are more elastic than veins
b. Carry blood that is pumped from the heart
c. Are less elastic than veins
d. Both a and b
e. Both b and c
The new science of learning does not deny that facts are important for
thinking and problem solving. Research on expertise in areas such as chess,
history, science, and mathematics demonstrate that experts' abilities to think and
solve problems depend strongly on a rich body of knowledge about subject
matter (e.g., Chase and Simon, 1973; Chi et al., 1981; deGroot, 1965). However,
the research also shows clearly that “usable knowledge” is not the same as a mere
list of disconnected facts. Experts' knowledge is connected and organized around
important concepts (e.g., Newton's second law of motion); it is “conditionalized”
to specify the contexts in which it is applicable; it supports understanding and
transfer (to other contexts) rather than only the ability to remember.
For example, people who are knowledgeable about veins and arteries know
more than the facts noted above: they also understand why veins and arteries have
particular properties. They know that blood pumped from the heart exits in spurts
and that the elasticity of the arteries helps accommodate pressure changes. They
know that blood from the heart needs to move upward (to the brain) as well as
downward and that the elasticity of an artery permits it to function as a one-way
valve that closes at the end of each spurt and prevents the blood from flowing
backward. Because they understand relationships between the structure and
function of veins and arteries, knowledgeable individuals are more likely to be
able to use what they have learned to solve novel problems—to show evidence of
transfer. For example, imagine being asked to design an artificial artery—would
it have to be elastic? Why or why not? An understanding of reasons for the
properties of arteries suggests that elasticity may not be necessary—perhaps the
problem can be solved by creating a
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conduit that is strong enough to handle the pressure of spurts from the heart and
also function as a one-way valve. An understanding of veins and arteries does not
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guarantee an answer to this design question, but it does support thinking about
alternatives that are not readily available if one only memorizes facts (Bransford
and Stein, 1993).
Pre-Existing Knowledge
An emphasis on understanding leads to one of the primary characteristics of
the new science of learning: its focus on the processes of knowing (e.g., Piaget,
1978; Vygotsky, 1978). Humans are viewed as goal-directed agents who actively
seek information. They come to formal education with a range of prior
knowledge, skills, beliefs, and concepts that significantly influence what they
notice about the environment and how they organize and interpret it. This, in
turn, affects their abilities to remember, reason, solve problems, and acquire new
knowledge.
Even young infants are active learners who bring a point of view to the
learning setting. The world they enter is not a “booming, buzzing
confusion” (James, 1890), where every stimulus is equally salient. Instead, an
infant's brain gives precedence to certain kinds of information: language, basic
concepts of number, physical properties, and the movement of animate and
inanimate objects. In the most general sense, the contemporary view of learning
is that people construct new knowledge and understandings based on what they
already know and believe (e.g., Cobb, 1994; Piaget, 1952, 1973a,b, 1977, 1978;
Vygotsky, 1962, 1978). A classic children's book illustrates this point; see
Box 1.2 .

BOX 1.2

FISH IS FISH
Fish Is Fish (Lionni, 1970) describes a fish who is keenly interested in
learning about what happens on land, but the fish cannot explore land
because it can only breathe in water. It befriends a tadpole who grows into a
frog and eventually goes out onto the land. The frog returns to the pond a
few weeks later and reports on what he has seen. The frog describes all
kinds of things like birds, cows, and people. The book shows pictures of the
fish's representations of each of these descriptions: each is a fish-like form
that is slightly adapted to accommodate the frog's descriptions—people are
imagined to be fish who walk on their tailfins, birds are fish with wings, cows
are fish with udders. This tale illustrates both the creative opportunities and
dangers inherent in the fact that people construct new knowledge based on
their current knowledge.
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A logical extension of the view that new knowledge must be constructed

from existing knowledge is that teachers need to pay attention to the incomplete
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understandings, the false beliefs, and the naive renditions of concepts that
learners bring with them to a given subject. Teachers then need to build on these
ideas in ways that help each student achieve a more mature understanding. If
students' initial ideas and beliefs are ignored, the understandings that they develop
can be very different from what the teacher intends.
Consider the challenge of working with children who believe that the earth
is flat and attempting to help them understand that it is spherical. When told it is
round, children picture the earth as a pancake rather than as a sphere (Vosniadou
and Brewer, 1989). If they are then told that it is round like a sphere, they
interpret the new information about a spherical earth within their flat-earth view
by picturing a pancake-like flat surface inside or on top of a sphere, with humans
standing on top of the pancake. The children's construction of their new
understandings has been guided by a model of the earth that helped them explain
how they could stand or walk upon its surface, and a spherical earth did not fit
their mental model. Like Fish Is Fish, everything the children heard was
incorporated into that pre-existing view.
Fish Is Fish is relevant not only for young children, but for learners of all
ages. For example, college students often have developed beliefs about physical
and biological phenomena that fit their experiences but do not fit scientific
accounts of these phenomena. These preconceptions must be addressed in order
for them to change their beliefs (e.g., Confrey, 1990; Mestre, 1994; Minstrell,
1989; Redish, 1996).
A common misconception regarding “constructivist” theories of knowing
(that existing knowledge is used to build new knowledge) is that teachers should
never tell students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to
construct knowledge for themselves. This perspective confuses a theory of
pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing. Constructivists assume that all
knowledge is constructed from previous knowledge, irrespective of how one is
taught (e.g., Cobb, 1994)— even listening to a lecture involves active attempts to
construct new knowledge. Fish Is Fish (Lionni, 1970) and attempts to teach
children that the earth is round (Vosniadou and Brewer, 1989) show why simply
providing lectures frequently does not work. Nevertheless, there are times,
usually after people have first grappled with issues on their own, that “teaching
by telling” can work extremely well (e.g., Schwartz and Bransford, 1998).
However, teachers still need to pay attention to students' interpretations and
provide guidance when necessary.
There is a good deal of evidence that learning is enhanced when teachers pay
attention to the knowledge and beliefs that learners bring to
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a learning task, use this knowledge as a starting point for new instruction, and
monitor students' changing conceptions as instruction proceeds. For example,
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sixth graders in a suburban school who were given inquirybased physics

instruction were shown to do better on conceptual physics problems than eleventh
and twelfth grade physics students taught by conventional methods in the same
school system. A second study comparing seventh-ninth grade urban students
with the eleventh and twelfth grade suburban physics students again showed that
the younger students, taught by the inquiry-based approach, had a better grasp of
the fundamental principles of physics (White and Frederickson, 1997, 1998). New
curricula for young children have also demonstrated results that are extremely
promising: for example, a new approach to teaching geometry helped second-
grade children learn to represent and visualize three-dimensional forms in ways
that exceeded the skills of a comparison group of undergraduate students at a
leading university (Lehrer and Chazan, 1998). Similarly, young children have
been taught to demonstrate powerful forms of early geometry generalizations
(Lehrer and Chazan, 1998) and generalizations about science (Schauble et al.,
1995; Warren and Rosebery, 1996).
Active Learning
New developments in the science of learning also emphasize the importance
of helping people take control of their own learning. Since understanding is
viewed as important, people must learn to recognize when they understand and
when they need more information. What strategies might they use to assess
whether they understand someone else's meaning? What kinds of evidence do
they need in order to believe particular claims? How can they build their own
theories of phenomena and test them effectively?
Many important activities that support active learning have been studied
under the heading of “metacognition,” a topic discussed in more detail in
Chapters 2 and 3 [of the full report]. Metacognition refers to people's abilities to
predict their performances on various tasks (e.g., how well they will be able to
remember various stimuli) and to monitor their current levels of mastery and
understanding (e.g., Brown, 1975; Flavell, 1973). Teaching practices congruent
with a metacognitive approach to learning include those that focus on sense-
making, self-assessment, and reflection on what worked and what needs
improving. These practices have been shown to increase the degree to which
students transfer their learning to new settings and events (e.g., Palincsar and
Brown, 1984; Scardamalia et al., 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983, 1985, 1991).
Imagine three teachers whose practices affect whether students learn
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to take control of their own learning (Scardamalia and Bereiter, 1991). Teacher
A's goal is to get the students to produce work; this is accomplished by
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supervising and overseeing the quantity and quality of the work done by the
students. The focus is on activities, which could be anything from old-style
workbook activities to the trendiest of space-age projects. Teacher B assumes
responsibility for what the students are learning as they carry out their activities.
Teacher C does this as well, but with the added objective of continually turning
more of the learning process over to the students. Walking into a classroom, you
cannot immediately tell these three kinds of teachers apart. One of the things you
might see is the students working in groups to produce videos or multimedia
presentations. The teacher is likely to be found going from group to group,
checking how things are going and responding to requests. Over the course of a
few days, however, differences between Teacher A and Teacher B would become
evident. Teacher A's focus is entirely on the production process and its products
—whether the students are engaged, whether everyone is getting fair treatment,
and whether they are turning out good pieces of work. Teacher B attends to all of
this as well, but Teacher B is also attending to what the students are learning from
the experience and is taking steps to ensure that the students are processing
content and not just dealing with show. To see a difference between Teachers B
and C, however, you might need to go back into the history of the media
production project. What brought it about in the first place? Was it conceived from
the start as a learning activity, or did it emerge from the students' own knowledge
building efforts? In one striking example of a Teacher C classroom, the students
had been studying cockroaches and had learned so much from their reading and
observation that they wanted to share it with the rest of the school; the production
of a video came about to achieve that purpose (Lamon et al., 1997).
The differences in what might seem to be the same learning activity are thus
quite profound. In Teacher A's classroom, the students are learning something of
media production, but the media production may very well be getting in the way
of learning anything else. In Teacher B's classroom, the teacher is working to
ensure that the original educational purposes of the activity are met, that it does
not deteriorate into a mere media production exercise. In Teacher C's classroom,
the media production is continuous with and a direct outgrowth of the learning
that is embodied in the media production. The greater part of Teacher C's work
has been done before the idea of a media production even comes up, and it
remains only to help the students keep sight of their purposes as they carry out the
project.
These hypothetical teachers—A, B, and C—are abstract models that of
course fit real teachers only partly, and more on some days than others.
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Nevertheless, they provide important glimpses of connections between goals for

learning and teaching practices that can affect students' abilities to accomplish
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these goals.
Implications for Education
Overall, the new science of learning is beginning to provide knowledge to
improve significantly people's abilities to become active learners who seek to
understand complex subject matter and are better prepared to transfer what they
have learned to new problems and settings. Making this happen is a major
challenge (e.g., Elmore et al., 1996), but it is not impossible. The emerging
science of learning underscores the importance of rethinking what is taught, how
it is taught, and how learning is assessed. These ideas are developed throughout
[the full report].
An Evolving Science
This volume synthesizes the scientific basis of learning. The scientific
achievements include a fuller understanding of: (1) memory and the structure of
knowledge; (2) problem solving and reasoning; (3) the early foundations of
learning; (4) regulatory processes that govern learning, including metacognition;
and (5) how symbolic thinking emerges from the culture and community of the
learner.
These key characteristics of learned proficiency by no means plumb the
depths of human cognition and learning. What has been learned about the
principles that guide some aspects of learning do not constitute a complete picture
of the principles that govern all domains of learning. The scientific bases, while
not superficial in themselves, do represent only a surface level of a complete
understanding of the subject. Only a few domains of learning have been examined
in depth, as reflected in this book, and new, emergent areas, such as interactive
technologies (Greenfield and Cocking, 1996) are challenging generalizations
from older research studies.
As scientists continue to study learning, new research procedures and
methodologies are emerging that are likely to alter current theoretical conceptions
of learning, such as computational modeling research. The scientific work
encompasses a broad range of cognitive and neuroscience issues in learning,
memory, language, and cognitive development. Studies of parallel distributed
processing, for example (McClelland et al., 1995; Plaut et al., 1996; Munakata et
al., 1997; McClelland and Chappell, 1998) look at learning as occurring through
the adaptation of connections among participating neurons. The research is
designed to develop explicit computational models to refine and extend basic
principles, as well as to
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apply the models to substantive research questions through behavioral

experiments, computer simulations, functional brain imaging, and mathematical
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analyses. These studies are thus contributing to modification of both theory and
practice. New models also encompass learning in adulthood to add an important
dimension to the scientific knowledge base.
Key Findings
This report provides a broad overview of research on learners and learning
and on teachers and teaching. Three findings are highlighted here because they
have both a solid research base to support them and strong implications for how
we teach.
1. Students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the
world works. If their initial understanding is not engaged, they may
fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they
may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their
preconceptions outside the classroom.
Research on early learning suggests that the process of making sense of the
world begins at a very young age. Children begin in preschool years to develop
sophisticated understandings (whether accurate or not) of the phenomena around
them (Wellman, 1990). Those initial understandings can have a powerful effect
on the integration of new concepts and information. Sometimes those
understandings are accurate, providing a foundation for building new knowledge.
But sometimes they are inaccurate (Carey and Gelman, 1991). In science,
students often have misconceptions of physical properties that cannot be easily
observed. In humanities, their preconceptions often include stereotypes or
simplifications, as when history is understood as a struggle between good guys
and bad guys (Gardner, 1991). A critical feature of effective teaching is that it
elicits from students their preexisting understanding of the subject matter to be
taught and provides opportunities to build on—or challenge—the initial
understanding. James Minstrell, a high school physics teacher, describes the
process as follows (Minstrell, 1989: 130-131):
Students' initial ideas about mechanics are like strands of yarn, some
unconnected, some loosely interwoven. The act of instruction can be viewed as
helping the students unravel individual strands of belief, label them, and then
weave them into a fabric of more complete understanding. Rather than denying
the relevancy of a belief, teachers might do better by helping students
differentiate their present ideas from and integrate them into conceptual beliefs
more like those of scientists.
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The understandings that children bring to the classroom can already be quite
powerful in the early grades. For example, some children have been found to hold
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onto their preconception of a flat earth by imagining a round earth to be shaped

like a pancake (Vosniadou and Brewer, 1989). This construction of a new
understanding is guided by a model of the earth that helps the child explain how
people can stand or walk on its surface. Many young children have trouble giving
up the notion that one-eighth is greater than one-fourth, because 8 is more than 4
(Gelman and Gallistel, 1978). If children were blank slates, telling them that the
earth is round or that one-fourth is greater than one-eighth would be adequate.
But since they already have ideas about the earth and about numbers, those ideas
must be directly addressed in order to transform or expand them.
Drawing out and working with existing understandings is important for
learners of all ages. Numerous research experiments demonstrate the persistence
of preexisting understandings among older students even after a new model has
been taught that contradicts the naïve understanding. For example, in a study of
physics students from elite, technologically oriented colleges, Andrea DiSessa
(1982) instructed them to play a computerized game that required them to direct a
computer-simulated object called a dynaturtle so that it would hit a target and do
so with minimum speed at impact. Participants were introduced to the game and
given a hands-on trial that allowed them to apply a few taps with a small wooden
mallet to a tennis ball on a table before beginning the game. The same game was
also played by elementary schoolchildren. DiSessa found that both groups of
students failed dismally. Success would have required demonstrating an
understanding of Newton's laws of motion. Despite their training, college physics
students, like the elementary school-children, aimed the moving dynaturtle
directly at the target, failing to take momentum into account. Further investigation
of one college student who participated in the study revealed that she knew the
relevant physical properties and formulas, yet, in the context of the game, she fell
back on her untrained conception of how the physical world works.
Students at a variety of ages persist in their beliefs that seasons are caused by
the earth's distance from the sun rather than by the tilt of the earth (Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 1987), or that an object that had been
tossed in the air has both the force of gravity and the force of the hand that tossed
it acting on it, despite training to the contrary (Clement, 1982). For the scientific
understanding to replace the naïve understanding, students must reveal the latter
and have the opportunity to see where it falls short.
2. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a) have a
deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts
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and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize

knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.
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This principle emerges from research that compares the performance of

experts and novices and from research on learning and transfer. Experts,
regardless of the field, always draw on a richly structured information base; they
are not just “good thinkers” or “smart people.” The ability to plan a task, to notice
patterns, to generate reasonable arguments and explanations, and to draw
analogies to other problems are all more closely intertwined with factual
knowledge than was once believed.
But knowledge of a large set of disconnected facts is not sufficient. To
develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must have opportunities to
learn with understanding. Deep understanding of subject matter transforms
factual information into usable knowledge. A pronounced difference between
experts and novices is that experts' command of concepts shapes their
understanding of new information: it allows them to see patterns, relationships, or
discrepancies that are not apparent to novices. They do not necessarily have
better overall memories than other people. But their conceptual understanding
allows them to extract a level of meaning from information that is not apparent to
novices, and this helps them select and remember relevant information. Experts
are also able to fluently access relevant knowledge because their understanding
of subject matter allows them to quickly identify what is relevant. Hence, their
attention is not overtaxed by complex events.
In most areas of study in K-12 education, students will begin as novices;
they will have informal ideas about the subject of study, and will vary in the
amount of information they have acquired. The enterprise of education can be
viewed as moving students in the direction of more formal understanding (or
greater expertise). This will require both a deepening of the information base and
the development of a conceptual framework for that subject matter.
Geography can be used to illustrate the manner in which expertise is
organized around principles that support understanding. A student can learn to
fill in a map by memorizing states, cities, countries, etc., and can complete the
task with a high level of accuracy. But if the boundaries are removed, the problem
becomes much more difficult. There are no concepts supporting the student's
information. An expert who understands that borders often developed because
natural phenomena (like mountains or water bodies) separated people, and that
large cities often arose in locations that allowed for trade (along rivers, large
lakes, and at coastal ports) will easily outperform the novice. The more developed
the conceptual understanding of the needs of cities and the resource base that drew
people to them, the more meaningful the map becomes. Students can
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become more expert if the geographical information they are taught is placed in
the appropriate conceptual framework.
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BOX 1.3

THROWING DARTS UNDER WATER

In one of the most famous early studies comparing the effects of
learning a procedure with learning with understanding, two groups of
children practiced throwing darts at a target under water (described in
Judd, 1908; see a conceptual replication by Hendrickson and Schroeder,
1941). One group received an explanation of the refraction of light, which
causes the apparent location of the target to be deceptive. The other group
only practiced dart throwing, without the explanation. Both groups did
equally well on the practice task, which involved a target 12 inches under
water. But the group that had been instructed about the abstract principle
did much better when they had to transfer to a situation in which the target
was under only 4 inches of water. Because they understood what they were
doing, the group that had received instruction about the refraction of light
could adjust their behavior to the new task.

A key finding in the learning and transfer literature is that organizing

information into a conceptual framework allows for greater “transfer”; that is, it
allows the student to apply what was learned in new situations and to learn related
information more quickly (see Box 1.3 ). The student who has learned
geographical information for the Americas in a conceptual framework approaches
the task of learning the geography of another part of the globe with questions,
ideas, and expectations that help guide acquisition of the new information.
Understanding the geographical importance of the Mississippi River sets the
stage for the student's understanding of the geographical importance of the Nile.
And as concepts are reinforced, the student will transfer learning beyond the
classroom, observing and inquiring, for example, about the geographic features
of a visited city that help explain its location and size (Holyoak, 1984; Novick
and Holyoak, 1991).
3. A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students learn to
take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and
monitoring their progress in achieving them.
In research with experts who were asked to verbalize their thinking as they
worked, it was revealed that they monitored their own understanding carefully,
making note of when additional information was required for understanding,
whether new information was consistent with
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what they already knew, and what analogies could be drawn that would advance
their understanding. These meta-cognitive monitoring activities are an important
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component of what is called adaptive expertise (Hatano and Inagaki, 1986).

Because metacognition often takes the form of an internal conversation, it
can easily be assumed that individuals will develop the internal dialogue on their
own. Yet many of the strategies we use for thinking reflect cultural norms and
methods of inquiry (Hutchins, 1995; Brice-Heath, 1981, 1983; Suina and
Smolkin, 1994). Research has demonstrated that children can be taught these
strategies, including the ability to predict outcomes, explain to oneself in order to
improve understanding, note failures to comprehend, activate background
knowledge, plan ahead, and apportion time and memory. Reciprocal teaching, for
example, is a technique designed to improve students' reading comprehension by
helping them explicate, elaborate, and monitor their understanding as they read
(Palincsar and Brown, 1984). The model for using the meta-cognitive strategies is
provided initially by the teacher, and students practice and discuss the strategies
as they learn to use them. Ultimately, students are able to prompt themselves and
monitor their own comprehension without teacher support.
The teaching of metacognitive activities must be incorporated into the
subject matter that students are learning (White and Frederickson, 1998). These
strategies are not generic across subjects, and attempts to teach them as generic
can lead to failure to transfer. Teaching metacognitive strategies in context has
been shown to improve understanding in physics (White and Frederickson,
1998), written composition (Scardamalia et al., 1984), and heuristic methods for
mathematical problem solving (Schoenfeld, 1983, 1984, 1991). And
metacognitive practices have been shown to increase the degree to which students
transfer to new settings and events (Lin and Lehman, in press; Palincsar and
Brown, 1984; Scardamalia et al., 1984; Schoenfeld, 1983, 1984, 1991).
Each of these techniques shares a strategy of teaching and modeling the
process of generating alternative approaches (to developing an idea in writing or a
strategy for problem solving in mathematics), evaluating their merits in helping to
attain a goal, and monitoring progress toward that goal. Class discussions are
used to support skill development, with a goal of independence and self-
regulation.
Implications for Teaching
The three core learning principles described above, simple though they
seem, have profound implications for the enterprise of teaching and teacher
preparation.
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1. Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understandings
that their students bring with them. This requires that:
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• The model of the child as an empty vessel to be filled with

knowledge provided by the teacher must be replaced. Instead, the
teacher must actively inquire into students' thinking, creating
classroom tasks and conditions under which student thinking can
be revealed. Students' initial conceptions then provide the
foundation on which the more formal understanding of the
subject matter is built.
• The roles for assessment must be expanded beyond the
traditional concept of testing. The use of frequent formative
assessment helps make students' thinking visible to themselves,
their peers, and their teacher. This provides feedback that can
guide modification and refinement in thinking. Given the goal of
learning with understanding, assessments must tap understanding
rather than merely the ability to repeat facts or perform isolated
skills.
• Schools of education must provide beginning teachers with
opportunities to learn: (a) to recognize predictable
preconceptions of students that make the mastery of particular
subject matter challenging, (b) to draw out preconceptions that
are not predictable, and (c) to work with preconceptions so that
children build on them, challenge them and, when appropriate,
replace them.
2. Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth, providing many
examples in which the same concept is at work and providing a firm
foundation of factual knowledge. This requires that:
• Superficial coverage of all topics in a subject area must be
replaced with in-depth coverage of fewer topics that allows key
concepts in that discipline to be understood. The goal of
coverage need not be abandoned entirely, of course. But there
must be a sufficient number of cases of indepth study to allow
students to grasp the defining concepts in specific domains
within a discipline. Moreover, in-depth study in a domain often
requires that ideas be carried beyond a single school year before
students can make the transition from informal to formal ideas.
This will require active coordination of the curriculum across
school years.
• Teachers must come to teaching with the experience of in-depth
study of the subject area themselves. Before a teacher can
develop powerful pedagogical tools, he or she must be familiar
with the progress of inquiry and the terms of discourse in the
discipline, as well as understand the relationship between
information and the concepts that help organize that information
in the discipline. But equally important, the teacher must have a
grasp of the growth and development of students' thinking
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about these concepts. The latter will be essential to developing

teaching expertise, but not expertise in the discipline. It may
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therefore require courses, or course supplements, that are

designed specifically for teachers.
• Assessment for purposes of accountability (e.g., statewide
assessments) must test deep understanding rather than surface
knowledge. Assessment tools are often the standard by which
teachers are held accountable. A teacher is put in a bind if she or
he is asked to teach for deep conceptual understanding, but in
doing so produces students who perform more poorly on
standardized tests. Unless new assessment tools are aligned with
new approaches to teaching, the latter are unlikely to muster
support among the schools and their constituent parents. This
goal is as important as it is difficult to achieve. The format of
standardized tests can encourage measurement of factual
knowledge rather than conceptual understanding, but it also
facilitates objective scoring. Measuring depth of understanding
can pose challenges for objectivity. Much work needs to be done
to minimize the trade-off between assessing depth and assessing
objectively.
3. The teaching of metacognitive skills should be integrated into the
curriculum in a variety of subject areas. Because metacognition often
takes the form of an internal dialogue, many students may be unaware of its
importance unless the processes are explicitly emphasized by teachers. An
emphasis on metacognition needs to accompany instruction in each of the
disciplines, because the type of monitoring required will vary. In history,
for example, the student might be asking himself, “who wrote this
document, and how does that affect the interpretation of events,” whereas in
physics the student might be monitoring her understanding of the
underlying physical principle at work.
• Integration of metacognitive instruction with discipline-based
learning can enhance student achievement and develop in
students the ability to learn independently. It should be
consciously incorporated into curricula across disciplines and age
levels.
• Developing strong metacognitive strategies and learning to teach
those strategies in a classroom environment should be standard
features of the curriculum in schools of education.
Evidence from research indicates that when these three principles are
incorporated into teaching, student achievement improves. For example, the
Thinker Tools Curriculum for teaching physics in an interactive computer
environment focuses on fundamental physical concepts and properties, allowing
students to test their preconceptions in model building and experimentation
activities. The program includes an “inquiry
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cycle” that helps students monitor where they are in the inquiry process. The
program asks for students' reflective assessments and allows them to review the
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assessments of their fellow students. In one study, sixth graders in a suburban

school who were taught physics using Thinker Tools performed better at solving
conceptual physics problems than did eleventh and twelfth grade physics students
in the same school system taught by conventional methods. A second study
comparing urban students in grades 7 to 9 with suburban students in grades 11
and 12 again showed that the younger students taught by the inquiry-based
approach had a superior grasp of the fundamental principles of physics (White
and Frederickson, 1997, 1998).
Bringing Order to Chaos
A benefit of focusing on how people learn is that it helps bring order to a
seeming cacophony of choices. Consider the many possible teaching strategies
that are debated in education circles and the media. Figure 1.1 depicts them in
diagram format: lecture-based teaching, text-based teaching, inquiry-based
teaching, technology-enhanced teaching, teaching organized around individuals
versus cooperative groups, and so forth. Are some of these teaching techniques
better than others? Is lecturing a poor way to teach, as many seem to claim? Is
cooperative learning effective? Do attempts to use computers (technology-
enhanced teaching) help achievement or hurt it?
This report suggests that these are the wrong questions. Asking which
teaching technique is best is analogous to asking which tool is best—a hammer, a
screwdriver, a knife, or pliers. In teaching as in carpentry, the selection of tools
depends on the task at hand and the materials one is working with. Books and
lectures can be wonderfully efficient modes of transmitting new information for
learning, exciting the imagination, and honing students' critical faculties—but one
would choose other kinds of activities to elicit from students their preconceptions
and level of understanding, or to help them see the power of using meta-cognitive
strategies to monitor their learning. Hands-on experiments can be a powerful way
to ground emergent knowledge, but they do not alone evoke the underlying
conceptual understandings that aid generalization. There is no universal best
teaching practice.
If, instead, the point of departure is a core set of learning principles, then the
selection of teaching strategies (mediated, of course, by subject matter, grade
level, and desired outcome) can be purposeful. The many possibilities then
become a rich set of opportunities from which a teacher constructs an
instructional program rather than a chaos of competing alternatives.
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 81
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FIGURE 1.1 With knowledge of how people learn, teachers can choose more
purposefully among techniques to accomplish specific goals.

Focusing on how people learn also will help teachers move beyond either-or
dichotomies that have plagued the field of education. One such issue is whether
schools should emphasize “the basics” or teach thinking and problem-solving
skills. This volume shows that both are necessary. Students' abilities to acquire
organized sets of facts and skills are actually enhanced when they are connected
to meaningful problem-solving activities, and when students are helped to
understand why, when, and how those facts and skills are relevant. And attempts
to teach thinking skills without a strong base of factual knowledge do not
promote problem-solving ability or support transfer to new situations.
Designing Classroom Environments
Chapter 6 [of the full report] proposes a framework to help guide the design
and evaluation of environments that can optimize learning. Drawing heavily on
the three principles discussed above, it posits four interrelated attributes of
learning environments that need cultivation.
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1. Schools and classrooms must be learner centered. Teachers must pay

close attention to the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that learners bring into
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the classroom. This incorporates the preconceptions regarding subject

matter already discussed, but it also includes a broader understanding of the
learner. For example:
• Cultural differences can affect students' comfort level in working
collaboratively versus individually, and they are reflected in the
background knowledge students bring to a new learning situation
(Moll et al., 1993).
• Students' theories of what it means to be intelligent can affect
their performance. Research shows that students who think that
intelligence is a fixed entity are more likely to be performance
oriented than learning oriented—they want to look good rather
than risk making mistakes while learning. These students are
especially likely to bail out when tasks become difficult. In
contrast, students who think that intelligence is malleable are
more willing to struggle with challenging tasks; they are more
comfortable with risk (Dweck, 1989; Dweck and Legget, 1988).
• Teachers in learner-centered classrooms also pay close attention
to the individual progress of each student and devise tasks that
are appropriate. Learner-centered teachers present students with
“just manageable difficulties”—that is, challenging enough to
maintain engagement, but not so difficult as to lead to
discouragement. They must therefore have an understanding of
their students' knowledge, skill levels, and interests (Duckworth,
1987).
2. To provide a knowledge-centered classroom environment, attention
must be given to what is taught (information, subject matter), why it is
taught (understanding), and what competence or mastery looks like. As
mentioned above, research discussed in the report shows clearly that
expertise involves well-organized knowledge that supports understanding,
and that learning with understanding is important for the development of
expertise because it makes new learning easier (i.e., supports transfer).
Learning with understanding is often harder to accomplish than simply
memorizing, and it takes more time. Many curricula fail to support learning
with understanding because they present too many disconnected facts in too
short a time—the “mile wide, inch deep” problem. Tests often reinforce
memorizing rather than understanding. The knowledge-centered
environment provides the necessary depth of study, assessing student
understanding rather than factual memory. It incorporates the teaching of
meta-cognitive strategies that further facilitate future learning.
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 83
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Knowledge-centered environments also look beyond engagement as the

primary index of successful teaching (Prawaf et al., 1992). Students'
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interest or engagement in a task is clearly important. Nevertheless, it does

not guarantee that students will acquire the kinds of knowledge that will
support new learning. There are important differences between tasks and
projects that encourage hands-on doing and those that encourage doing with
understanding; the knowledge-centered environment emphasizes the latter
(Greeno, 1991).
3. Formative assessments—ongoing assessments designed to make
students' thinking visible to both teachers and students—are
essential. They permit the teacher to grasp the students'
preconceptions, understand where the students are in the
“developmental corridor” from informal to formal thinking, and
design instruction accordingly. In the assessment-centered classroom
environment, formative assessments help both teachers and students
monitor progress.
An important feature of assessments in these classrooms is that they be
learner-friendly: they are not the Friday quiz for which information is
memorized the night before, and for which the student is given a grade that
ranks him or her with respect to classmates. Rather, these assessments
should provide students with opportunities to revise and improve their
thinking (Vye et al., 1998b), help students see their own progress over the
course of weeks or months, and help teachers identify problems that need to
be remedied (problems that may not be visible without the assessments).
For example, a high school class studying the principles of democracy
might be given a scenario in which a colony of people have just settled on
the moon and must establish a government. Proposals from students of the
defining features of such a government, as well as discussion of the
problems they foresee in its establishment, can reveal to both teachers and
students areas in which student thinking is more and less advanced. The
exercise is less a test than an indicator of where inquiry and instruction
should focus.
4. Learning is influenced in fundamental ways by the context in which it
takes place. A community-centered approach requires the
development of norms for the classroom and school, as well as
connections to the outside world, that support core learning values.
The norms established in the classroom have strong effects on students'
achievement. In some schools, the norms could be expressed as “don't get
caught not knowing something.” Others encourage academic risk-taking
and opportunities to make mistakes, obtain feedback, and
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revise. Clearly, if students are to reveal their preconceptions about a subject

matter, their questions, and their progress toward understanding, the norms
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of the school must support their doing so.

Teachers must attend to designing classroom activities and helping
students organize their work in ways that promote the kind of intellectual
camaraderie and the attitudes toward learning that build a sense of
community. In such a community, students might help one another solve
problems by building on each other's knowledge, asking questions to clarify
explanations, and suggesting avenues that would move the group toward its
goal (Brown and Campione, 1994). Both cooperation in problem solving
(Evans, 1989; Newstead and Evans, 1995) and argumentation (Goldman,
1994; Habermas, 1990; Kuhn, 1991; Moshman, 1995a, 1995b; Salmon and
Zeitz, 1995; Youniss and Damon, 1992) among students in such an
intellectual community enhance cognitive development.
Teachers must be enabled and encouraged to establish a community of
learners among themselves (Lave and Wegner, 1991). These communities
can build a sense of comfort with questioning rather than knowing the
answer and can develop a model of creating new ideas that build on the
contributions of individual members. They can engender a sense of the
excitement of learning that is then transferred to the classroom, conferring a
sense of ownership of new ideas as they apply to theory and practice.
Not least, schools need to develop ways to link classroom learning to
other aspects of students' lives. Engendering parent support for the core
learning principles and parent involvement in the learning process is of
utmost importance (Moll, 1990; 1986a, 1986b). Figure 1.2 shows the
percentage of time, during a calendar year, that students in a large school
district spent in school. If one-third of their time outside school (not
counting sleeping) is spent watching television, then students apparently
spend more hours per year watching television than attending school. A
focus only on the hours that students currently spend in school overlooks
the many opportunities for guided learning in other settings.
Applying the Design Framework to Adult Learning
The design framework summarized above assumes that the learners are
children, but the principles apply to adult learning as well. This point is
particularly important because incorporating the principles in this volume into
educational practice will require a good deal of adult learning. Many approaches
to teaching adults consistently violate principles for optimizing learning.
Professional development programs for teachers, for example, frequently:
 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 85
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• Are not learner centered. Rather than ask teachers where they need help,
they are simply expected to attend prearranged workshops.
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• Are not knowledge centered. Teachers may simply be introduced to a new

technique (like cooperative learning) without being given the opportunity to
understand why, when, where, and how it might be valuable to them.
Especially important is the need to integrate the structure of activities with
the content of the curriculum that is taught.
• Are not assessment centered. In order for teachers to change their practices,
they need opportunities to try things out in their classrooms and then
receive feedback. Most professional development opportunities do not
provide such feedback. Moreover, they tend to focus on change in teaching
practice as the goal, but they neglect to develop in teachers the capacity to
judge successful transfer of the technique to the classroom or its effects on
student achievement.

FIGURE 1.2 Students spend only 14 percent of their time in school.

 LEARNING: FROM SPECULATION TO SCIENCE 86
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• Are not community centered. Many professional development opportunities

are conducted in isolation. Opportunities for continued contact and support
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as teachers incorporate new ideas into their teaching are limited, yet the
rapid spread of Internet access provides a ready means of maintaining such
contact if appropriately designed tools and services are available.
The principles of learning and their implications for designing learning
environments apply equally to child and adult learning. They provide a lens
through which current practice can be viewed with respect to K-12 teaching and
with respect to preparation of teachers in the research and development agenda.
The principles are relevant as well when we consider other groups, such as policy
makers and the public, whose learning is also required for educational practice to
change.
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and Its Utilization

A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND ITS UTILIZATION

Improving STUDENT LEARNING

A Strategic Plan for Education Research

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS

Committee on a Feasibility Study for a Strategic Education Research Program
87

Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

National Research Council

Washington, DC 1999
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88
 A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR EDUCATION RESEARCH AND ITS UTILIZATION 89
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COMMITTEE ON A FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR A STRATEGIC

EDUCATION RESEARCH PROGRAM
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RICHARD C. WALLACE (Chair), School Leadership Collaborative,

University of Pittsburgh
DAVID A. GOSLIN (Vice Chair), American Institutes for Research in the
Behavioral Sciences, Washington, DC
EMERSON J. ELLIOTT, National Council for Accreditation of Teacher
Education, Washington, DC
HERBERT P. GINSBURG, Teachers College, Columbia University
NANCY S. GRASMICK, Maryland State Department of Education, Baltimore
WILLIS D. HAWLEY, College of Education, University of Maryland
ANTHONY W. JACKSON, Disney Learning Initiative, Burbank, California
CAROL R. JOHNSON, Minneapolis Public Schools, Minnesota
MARTHA M. MCCARTHY, School of Education, Indiana University
RICHARD P. MILLS, New York State Education Department, Albany
P. DAVID PEARSON, College of Education, Michigan State University
S. JEANNE REARDON, Damascus Elementary School, Maryland
RUTH SCHOENBACH, WestEd, San Francisco
MARIA TUKEVA, Bell Multicultural High School, Washington, DC
CAROL H. WEISS, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
RONALD A. WOLK, Consultant in Education and Media Relations, Warwick,
Rhode Island
BRUCE M. ALBERTS (ex officio), President, National Academy of Sciences;
Chair, National Research Council
ALEXANDRA K. WIGDOR, Director, Division on Education, Labor, and
Human Performance
PEG GRIFFIN, Study Director (through 1997)
RIMA SHORE, Consultant
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90
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 91
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Executive Summary
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Education in the United States currently consumes about 7 percent of the

gross domestic product, yet the state of education is increasingly an issue of deep
concern to parents, political leaders, employers, and the public generally. The
recognition that many big-city schools, particularly the schools that serve poor
children, have become failures for almost all students has given particular
urgency to the issue of school reform. As Education Week (1998:6) put it
recently, “It's hard to exaggerate the education crisis in America's cities.”
One striking fact is that the complex world of education—unlike defense,
health care, or industrial production—does not rest on a strong research base. In
no other field are personal experience and ideology so frequently relied on to
make policy choices, and in no other field is the research base so inadequate and
little used. Comparatively little research is funded, and the task of importing even
the strongest research findings into over a million classrooms is daunting.
In 1996 the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National
Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering (henceforth, the
Academies), launched a study to determine the feasibility of mounting a long-
term, strategic program of research focused on a limited number of topics judged
to be of crucial importance for improving student learning in the nation's schools.

Note: References are not included in this booklet but are available online at
Search under title of report.
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The study was conducted by a multidisciplinary committee composed of

education researchers, practitioners, policy makers and other experts chosen to
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bring the widest possible range of perspectives to this task.

FOUR KEY QUESTIONS
The result of the committee's deliberations is a proposal for an ambitious and
extraordinary experiment: the establishment of a Strategic Education Research
Program (SERP) that would focus the energies of a significant number of
researchers, practitioners, and policy makers on obtaining the answers to four
specific, interrelated questions. The first three questions address fundamental
issues in education:
• How can advances in research on human cognition, development, and
learning be incorporated into educational practice?
• How can student engagement in the learning process and motivation to
achieve in school be increased?
• How can schools and school districts be transformed into organizations
that have the capacity to continuously improve their practices?
The committee selected these three questions for a number of reasons.
Together they lie at the heart of education. It is possible, in seeking answers to
them, to draw on substantial research as well as to imagine the outlines of future
studies. They speak directly to the problems that teachers and school officials
encounter and to the concerns of parents and the public more generally. Perhaps
most important, they hold the potential for leveraging large improvements in
student performance.
How to realize this potential is not self-evident. There is no doubt that
educational practice can be strengthened by careful scientific research. But it is
not clear how to make the integration of research findings an organic part of the
education system. Therefore, the committee proposes a fourth and overarching
research question:
• How can the use of research knowledge be increased in schools and
school districts?
This question, expressed variously as knowledge utilization or knowledge
mobilization, raises issues about the preparation of teachers so that they can be
consumers of research, about the design of schools to create effective learning
environments, and about bringing policy into alignment with new strategies for
teaching and learning. Above all, however, it is about the translation of research
findings into forms useful for educa
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tional practice. It will require large-scale, systematic experimentation and

demonstration to transform knowledge about human learning and the
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development of competence into the working vocabulary of teachers and schools.

THE PROPOSED STRATEGIC EDUCATION RESEARCH
PROGRAM
To address these questions, the committee calls for a large-scale and sharply
defined program of research, demonstration, and evaluation. Much of the work
will need to be embedded in school settings; all of it should be informed by the
needs of the most challenging schools, in particular, high-poverty urban schools.
The likelihood of real accomplishment will be increased to the extent that a
process of continuous incorporation of findings is used to create a flexible design
for the array of SERP investigations.
To initiate and guide these activities, the committee proposes the
establishment of four interconnected networks:
• a learning and instruction network,
• a student motivation network,
• a transforming schools network, and
• a utilization network.
Each network will include distinguished researchers working in partnership
with practitioners and policy makers and supported by a national coalition of
public and private funding organizations and other stakeholders, including
legislators, state education agencies, teacher associations, organizations
representing the research community, and other groups. Members of the four
SERP networks would conduct research designed to help answer each network's
hub question. They would also stimulate other researchers to undertake relevant
studies, synthesize findings from their own and others' work, and plan future
investigations. In addition, a major preoccupation of all four networks, but
especially the fourth, would be to find ways to ensure utilization of the research
by practitioners. A core premise of the plan is that the program of research,
synthesis, and implementation activities will be strengthened by the interactions
among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in the networks.
Given the complexity of the issues, the magnitude of the research challenge,
and the stakes involved, the committee strongly recommends that this program be
implemented with the expectation that it will continue for at least 15 years. The
committee is confident, however, that
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significant contributions to educational systems will be possible within the first

5-7 years because a considerable body of potentially useful research already
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exists in each area.

The committee offers suggestions for organization and management of the
overall program in the body of [the full] report. The suggestions do not add up to a
blueprint for SERP; a detailed plan can only emerge through discussions among
all the professional groups in education and the potential funders of the program
—federal, state, and private. But we are proposing a new model for education
research as the heart of the SERP idea. This new model has six of the crucial
features: (1) promotion of collaborative and interdisciplinary work; (2) provision
of constant, ongoing commitment on the part of core teams of researchers; (3) a
built-in partnership with the practice and policy communities; (4) iterative and
interactive interplay between basic and applied research in a structure that
combines the richness of field-initiated research and the purpose of program-
driven research; (5) a plan that is sustained over a long enough time for results to
be cumulative; and (6) an overall structure that is cumulative in nature—each step
planned to build on previous steps.
Our excitement about the idea of a Strategic Education Research Program
has not blinded us to the risks. It is clear that the quality of both scientific and
organizational leadership will determine its success. The intellectual and
management challenges that will have to be met are formidable and will demand
exceptional talent, commitment, and perseverance on the part of all of those
responsible for it.
How This Plan Differs from Other Efforts
Many individuals and organizations have recognized the potential
importance of research to education. There have been numerous university-based
and district-based efforts to narrow the gap between research and practice. At the
national level, the U.S. Department of Education and the National Educational
Research Policy and Priorities Board have constructed a broad framework for
education research, identifying seven broad challenges that warrant public
investment. All these efforts continue to make important contributions to the
nation's education, but they do not rigorously focus the nation's knowledge,
resources, and energies in order to improve student learning. They do not
promote the systematic use of research by teachers, administrators, and policy
officials to improve student achievement. And because political priorities tend to
change frequently, they tend not to produce sustained and cumulating
knowledge.
The Strategic Education Research Program proposed in [the report]
represents the first large-scale effort of its kind. By design, the SERP plan is
focused, collaborative, cumulative, sustained, and solutions oriented.
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• Focused SERP targets four hub research questions that hold great promise
for strengthening learning in U.S. schools. This strategic focus will help
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harness the nation's powerful intellectual resources and expertise, making

the networks more productive, more closely linked to classroom practice,
and more accountable for demonstrable progress.
• Collaborative Finding answers to each of the hub research questions will
require the combined insights of many fields—including cognitive
functioning, social processes, and organizational change—as well as the
deployment of the full array of research methods. Asking the right
questions will require the wisdom of those who are deeply engaged in
practice and the insights of policy makers. The organization of the effort
through carefully coordinated networks of researchers, educators, and
policy experts will promote the needed cross-fertilization that is commonly
missing from current research efforts.
• Cumulative SERP recognizes that the traditional linear model of research
—from basic research to applications—has not been productive in changing
complex social systems like education. It envisions a new model of
research, combining elements of field-initiated and program-driven
research within a structure that will encourage a continuous process of
taking stock so that each stage builds on what has been learned. Research
or demonstrations in applied settings are as likely to define the next basic
research questions as vice versa.
• Sustained SERP will function over a 15-year period (with decision points
about continuation along the way), with constant, ongoing commitment on
the part of its participants. Network members will maintain their own
identities and activities in their particular professions and disciplines, but
they will commit a substantial portion of their time and effort to network
activities for more than a decade.
• Solutions Oriented SERP involves practitioners and policy makers in
helping to define problems, devise solutions, and monitor the effects of
research-based approaches. This built-in partnership with the policy and
practice communities should have the healthy side-effect of cultivating a
greater readiness on the part of local communities and schools to view
research as a source of solutions for educational problems.
How This Plan Relates to Other Efforts
For the SERP idea to come to fruition, education leaders will need to see its
potential for leveraging existing investments by federal and state governments,
school systems, and private-sector organizations. The idea is not to replace
important research and reform programs, but to strengthen them by finding
unrealized synergies, providing a powerful
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focus for the related activities, synthesizing what is known, and filling in gaps in
the research. SERP could, for example, become a conduit for synthesizing and
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transmitting the findings from research, development, and demonstration projects

supported by the Department of Education through its regional laboratories and
research and development (R&D) centers; by the National Science Foundation
through its cognitive research program, its new technology and learning centers,
its Statewide Systemic Initiative (SSI); and by the National Institute for Child
Health and Human Development, which has a strong program of research on the
mechanisms of cognition and learning. SERP could also support the translation
of research findings into practice by linking up with or supporting demonstration
projects. Not least, it would support fledgling efforts to build better bridges, based
on a foundation of mutual respect, between the practitioner and the research
communities.
Why a Strategic Plan Is Needed
In part, the need for a strategic research plan grows out of the highly
decentralized organization of education in the United States. More concretely, the
answer lies with American students and American schools. Many students
perform at high levels, but the nation's continued vitality as a democracy and its
productivity in a global economy will hinge in coming decades on the knowledge
and skills of the majority—the tens of millions of children who are not realizing
their full capacities and are therefore unable to meet the intellectual demands of
modern life and work.
Imagine what could be accomplished if the nation committed itself to a
concerted effort to find out what needs to be known in order to improve
achievement among these children. Imagine what they might achieve if the
nation's leading researchers and education experts were to concentrate—not just
for a month or a year, but for more than a decade—on how to facilitate and
motivate their learning. That is the mission of the strategic plan for education
research and its utilization presented in this report.
Next Steps
In the Preface [to the full report], Bruce Alberts [President, National
Academy of Sciences] expresses his hope that this report will catalyze major new
investments in education. As a first step, the National Academies propose to
launch a year-long national dialogue during which the idea for a Strategic
Education Research Program is discussed with all of the professional groups
involved in education.
This committee strongly endorses that plan: We urge the federal
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improve education in the United States.

government—in particular, the Department of Education and the National
Science Foundation—major foundations whose mission includes improving

the SERP idea into a productive collaboration to use the power of science to
97

to join the Academies in this year of dialogue to see if, together, we can transform
education, state and local education leaders, and education research organizations
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98
 SELECTED REPORTS ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT, LEARNING, AND EDUCATION 99
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Selected Reports on Child Development,

and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.

Learning, and Education

CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND WELL-BEING

Early Childhood Intervention: Views from the Field: Summary of a Workshop
(2000)
From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development
(2000)
Revisiting Home Visiting: Summary of a Workshop (1999)
America's Children: Health Insurance and Access to Care (with the IOM
Division of Health Care Services) (1998)
From Generation to Generation: The Health and Well-Being of Children in
Immigrant Families (1998)
New Findings on Poverty and Child Health and Nutrition: Summary of a
Research Briefing (1998)
Systems of Accountability: Implementing Children's Health Insurance
Programs (with the IOM Division of Health Care Services) (1998)
New Findings on Welfare and Children's Development: Summary of a Research
Briefing (1997)
LEARNING AND EDUCATION
Adding It Up: How Children Learn Mathematics (2001)
Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers (2001)
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition
(2000)
 SELECTED REPORTS ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT, LEARNING, AND EDUCATION 100
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Improving Student Learning: A Strategic Plan for Education Research and Its
Utilization (1999)
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Educating Language-Minority Children (1998)

How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice (1999)
Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children's Reading Success
(1999)
Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998)
Improving Schooling for Language-Minority Children: A Research Agenda
(1997)
Educating One and All: Students with Disabilities and Standards-Based Reform
(1997)
Every Child a Scientist (1997)
EDUCATION STANDARDS AND TEACHER EDUCATION
Educating Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology: New Practices for
a New Millenium (2001)
Grading the Nation's Report Card: Research from the Evaluation of NAEP
[National Assessment of Educational Progress] (2000)
Mathematics Education in the Middle Grades: Teaching to Meet the Needs of
Middle Grade Learners and to Maintain High Expectations. Proceedings of a
National Convocation and Action Conference (2000)
Designing Mathematics or Science Curriculum Programs: A Guide for Using
Mathematics and Science Education Standards (1999)
Global Perspectives for Local Action: Using TIMSS to Improve U.S.
Mathematics and Science Education (1999)
Global Perspectives for Local Action: Using TIMSS to Improve U.S.
Mathematics and Science Education: Professional Development Guide
(1999)
Inquiry and National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and
Learning (1999)
Selecting Instructional Materials: A Guide for K-12 Science (1999)
Introducing the National Science Education Standards (1998)
Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science (1998)
Improving Student Learning in Mathematics and Science: The Role of National
Standards in State Policy (1997)
Improving Teacher Preparation and Credentialing Consistent with the National
Science Education Standards: Report of a Symposium (1997)
Science Teacher Preparation in an Era of Standards-Based Reform (1997)
Science Teaching Reconsidered: A Handbook (1997)
 SELECTED REPORTS ON CHILD DEVELOPMENT, LEARNING, AND EDUCATION 101
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ASSESSMENT AND TESTING

Tests and Teaching Quality: Interim Report (2000)
and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.

Embedding Questions: The Pursuit of a Common Measure in Uncommon Tests

(1999)
Evaluation of the Voluntary National Tests, Year 2: Final Report (1999)
Keeping Score (1999)
Testing, Teaching, and Learning: A Guide for States and School Districts (1999)
The Assessment of Science Meets the Science of Assessment (1999)
Evaluation of the Voluntary National Tests: Phase 1 (1998)
High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation (1998)
Learning About Assessment, Learning Through Assessment (1998)
The Nature and Role of Algebra in the K-14 Curriculum: Proceedings of a
National Symposium (1998)
Toward Excellence in K-8 Mathematics (1998)
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102
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Michael Feuer

Deputy Director
Deputy Director
M. Faith Mitchell
Executive Director
HOW TO REACH US

Barbara Boyle Torrey

National Academies

Washington, D.C. 20418

National Research Council

Miron Straf
2101 Constitution Avenue N.W., HA 166

202-334-2300
Paula Melville
Deputy Director

[email protected]
Eugenia Grohman

202-334-2201 (fax)
EXECUTIVE OFFICE
How to Reach Us

Administrative Associate
General contact information:
Associate Director for Reports
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE)
103
 HOW TO REACH US 104
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BOARD ON BEHAVIORAL, COGNITIVE, AND SENSORY

SCIENCES AND EDUCATION
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(formerly the Division on Education, Labor, and Human Performance)

Christine Hartel Donna Randall

Director Administrative Associate
Christine Hartel General contact information:
Director 202-334-3026
Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory 202-334-3584 (fax)
Sciences [email protected]
Anne Mavor
Director
Committee on Human Factors

CENTER FOR EDUCATION

Michael Feuer Karen Hollweg

Director Acting Director
Jay Labov Committee on Science Education K-12
Deputy Director Jay Labov
Pasquale DeVito Director
Director Committee on Undergraduate Science
Board on Testing and Assessment Education
Colette Chabbott Kirsten Sampson Snyder
Director Reports Officer
Board on International Comparative Dorothy Majewski
Studies in Education Administrative Associate
Alexandra Beatty General contact information:
Director 202-334-2353
Committee on Educational Excellence 202-334-2210 (fax)
and Testing Equity [email protected]
Gail Burrill
Director
Mathematical Sciences Education
Board
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CENTER FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES

(formerly the Division on Social and Economic Studies)
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Jane Ross Barney Cohen

Director Director
Michele Kipke Committee on Population
Director Myrna McKinnon
Board on Children, Youth, and Families Administrative Associate
Paul Stern General contact information:
Director 202-334-3730
Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global 202-334-3829 (fax)
Change [email protected]
Carol Petrie
Director
Committee on Law and Justice

COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS

Andrew White General contact information:

Director 202-334-3096
Denise Dixon 202-334-3751
Administrative Associate [email protected]