Experts generally agree that taking all opportunities to read books and other material aloud to children is the best preparation for their learning to read. The pleasures of being read to are far more likely to strengthen a child's desire to learn to read than are repetitions of sounds, alphabet drills, and deciphering uninteresting words.

All children, are born with the disposition to make sense of their experiences.

Science is a particular way of thinking about things.

Children involved in project work are encouraged to serve the group needs and share responsibility for what's accomplished.

In both cooperative learning and project work, the teacher encourages children to talk to one another. This helps them pay attention to each other's efforts and ideas. Children take to these kinds of exchanges very readily, but the teacher really needs to encourage this interaction.

Each of us must come to care about everyone else's children. We must recognize that the welfare of our children and grandchildren is intimately linked to the welfare of all other people's children. After all, when one of our children needs lifesaving surgery, someone else's child will perform it. If one of our children is threatened or harmed by violence, someone else's child will be responsible for the violent act. The good life for our own children can be secured only if a good life is also secured for all other people's children.

Of course children benefit from positive feedback. But praise and rewards are not the only methods of reinforcement. More emphasisshould be place on appreciation--reinforcement related explicitly and directly to the content of the child's interest and efforts.