School Readiness Conference: Recommendations

This paper attempts to summarize and later list the specific recommendations that evolved from the Conference4chool Readiness: Scient@ c Perspectives-conducted on January 24-26, 1992, at Columbia, Maryland, under the support of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. The recommendations were generated in six workshops, each of which had a topical focus corresponding to that of a symposium. Further, despite the conferences explicit focus on the empirical knowledge bases in each area, conference participants were encouraged to broadly consider recommendations along issues relevant to research, policy, and service. Many diverse ideas evolved from the process of generating recommendations. Predominantly, the diversity reflected the disciplinary mix of the Conference participants, which included federal administrators, biomedical, behavioral and social scientists, as well as educators and physicians responsible for educating and caring for children. The disciplinary mix was purposive to assure the varied points of view necessary to inform reconceptualizations of readiness to learn and readiness for school. Collectively, the recommendations express the view that the determinants of readiness to learn in children are many and complexly intenvoven. Acknowledging this underlying complexity from the beginning is conducive to the development of more informed research, policy, and service. While many diverse ideas were reflected in the Conference recommendations, several consistent underlying themes emerged. These were: (1) the need to redefine the concept of school readiness; (2) the need to acknowledge the biological foundations of learning; (3) the the significance of contexts and contextual transitions in learning; (4) the need to expand the role of schools and teachers; (5) the need to more fully integrate the growing cultural diversity of our population into the learning equation; (6) the need to develop new assessment instruments; and (7) the need to provide advice to funding agencies regarding areas of strategic importance. More explicit discussion of these themes follows, With the specific recommendations presented in the Appendix to this paper.