Fostering Learning Potential in Preschoolers

Abstract

A family agency uses professional staff, volunteers, and clients to enhance the development of cognition of children in poor families

Learning through (and from) Mothers

“…The Toy Demonstrator's reliability is taken for granted. Only the heaviest snowstorm can prevent her punctual arrival, an arduous expectation that nevertheless results in almost no attrition among Toy Demonstrators (Levenstein, 1971). The mothers have many more reasons for breaking appointments: the hazards of childhood illnesses, the uncertainties of long clinic waits, the disabling depressed mood that often accompanies poverty.…”

“…Ph vllis Levenstein is Director, Ve'rballnteraction Project, Mother-Child Home Program, Freeport, New York. replications have been supervised (in four other organizations with differing populations) by the Verbal Interaction Project, which created the Program and is studying its social feasibility (Levenstein, 1970;Levenstein and Levenstein, 1971; Levenstein and Sunley, 1968). Each year the Program children have made large cognitive gains (some as much as 40 lQ points) averaging about 17 IQ points by the end of the two-year Program, laying the groundwork for coping with later school tasks.…”