A部分

‘Education To Be More’ was published last August. It was the report of the New Zealand Government’s Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. The report argued for enhanced equity of access and better funding for childcare and early childhood education institutions. Unquestionably, that’s a real need; but since parents don’t normally send children to pre-schools until the age of three, are we missing out on the most important years of all?

A部分：

《教育更进一步（Education To Be More）》于去年8月份发布，这是新西兰政府早期儿童护理和教育工作组的报告。该报告主张加强儿童早期教育机构的平等进入和更好的资金支持。毫无疑问，这是一个真正的需求；但由于父母通常不会将孩子送入学前班直到三岁，我们是否错过了最重要的几年？

B部分

A 13-year study of early childhood development at Harvard University has shown that, by the age of three, most children have the potential to understand about 1000 words – most of the language they will use in ordinary conversation for the rest of their lives.

Furthermore, research has shown that while every child is born with a natural curiosity, it can be suppressed dramatically during the second and third years of life. Researchers claim that the human personality is formed during the first two years of life, and during the first three years children learn the basic skills they will use in all their later learning both at home and at school. Once over the age of three, children continue to expand on existing knowledge of the world.

B部分：

哈佛大学对早期儿童发展进行了为期13年的研究，结果显示，到三岁时，大多数孩子有能力理解约1000个词语，这是他们在日常对话中将使用的大部分语言。

此外，研究表明，虽然每个孩子出生时都具有自然的好奇心，但在第二和第三年的生活中，这种好奇心可能会被大大压抑。研究人员声称，人格形成在头两年里，孩子在头三年里学习了他们将在家庭和学校中所有后续学习中使用的基本技能。三岁以上的孩子继续扩展对世界的现有知识。

C部分

It is generally acknowledged that young people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds tend to do less well in our education system. That’s observed not just in New Zealand, but also in Australia, Britain and America. In an attempt to overcome that educational under-achievement, a nationwide programme called ‘Headstart’ was launched in the United States in 1965. A lot of money was poured into it. It took children into pre-school institutions at the age of three and was supposed to help the children of poorer families succeed in school.

Despite substantial funding, results have been disappointing. It is thought that there are two explanations for this. First, the programme began too late. Many children who entered it at the age of three were already behind their peers in language and measurable intelligence. Second, the parents were not involved. At the end of each day, ‘Headstart’ children returned to the same disadvantaged home environment.

C部分：

普遍认为，来自较贫困社会经济背景的年轻人在我们的教育系统中往往表现不佳。这不仅在新西兰观察到，也在澳大利亚、英国和美国观察到。为了克服这种教育上的不足，美国于1965年开展了一项名为“Headstart”的全国性计划。大量资金被投入其中。该计划将孩子带入三岁时的学前机构，旨在帮助贫困家庭的孩子在学校中取得成功。

尽管资金充足，但结果令人失望。人们认为有两个解释。首先，该计划开始得太晚了。许多三岁进入该计划的孩子在语言和可衡量的智力方面已经落后于其他孩子。其次，家长没有参与其中。每天结束后，“Headstart”孩子回到同样的劣势家庭环境。

D部分

As a result of the growing research evidence of the importance of the first three years of a child’s life and the disappointing results from ‘Headstart’, a pilot programme was launched in Missouri in the US that focused on parents as the child’s first teachers. The ‘Missouri’ programme was predicated on research showing that working with the family, rather than bypassing the parents, is the most effective way of helping children get off to the best possible start in life. The four-year pilot study included 380 families who were about to have their first child and who represented a cross-section of socio-economic status, age and family configurations. They included single-parent and two-parent families, families in which both parents worked, and families with either the mother or father at home.

The programme involved trained parent-educators visiting the parents’ home and working with the parent, or parents, and the child. Information on child development, and guidance on things to look for and expect as the child grows were provided, plus guidance in fostering the child’s intellectual, language, social and motor-skill development. Periodic check-ups of the child’s educational and sensory development (hearing and vision) were made to detect possible handicaps that interfere with growth and development. Medical problems were referred to professionals.

Parent-educators made personal visits to homes and monthly group meetings were held with other new parents to share experience and discuss topics of interest. Parent resource centres, located in school buildings, offered learning materials for families and facilitators for child care.

D部分：

由于越来越多的研究证据表明儿童前三年的重要性以及“Headstart”计划的令人失望的结果，美国密苏里州启动了一个以父母为孩子的第一任教师的试点计划。这个“密苏里”计划是基于研究结果，显示与家庭合作，而不是绕过父母，是帮助孩子在生活中获得最好的开端的最有效的方法。这项为期四年的试点研究包括380个即将迎来第一个孩子的家庭，代表了社会经济地位、年龄和家庭结构的各个方面。其中包括单亲家庭和双亲家庭、双职工家庭以及有母亲或父亲在家的家庭。

该计划涉及到经过培训的家长教育者到家庭中与父母和孩子一起工作。提供关于儿童发展的信息，指导父母在孩子成长过程中应该关注和期待的事物，并指导他们促进孩子的智力、语言、社交和运动技能发展。定期对孩子的教育和感官发展（听力和视力）进行检查，以发现可能影响生长和发展的障碍。医疗问题将被转介给专业人士。

家长教育者会亲自访问家庭，每月还会与其他新父母举行团体会议，分享经验并讨论感兴趣的话题。位于学校建筑中的家长资源中心提供给家庭学习材料和儿童保育的支持者。

E部分

At the age of three, the children who had been involved in the ‘Missouri’ programme were evaluated alongside a cross-section of children selected from the same range of socio-economic backgrounds and family situations, and also a random sample of children that age. The results were phenomenal. By the age of three, the children in the programme were significantly more advanced in language development than their peers, had made greater strides in problem solving and other intellectual skills, and were further along in social development. In fact, the average child on the programme was performing at the level of the top 15 to 20 per cent of their peers in such things as auditory comprehension, verbal ability and language ability.

Most important of all, the traditional measures of ‘risk’, such as parents’ age and education, or whether they were a single parent, bore little or no relationship to the measures of achievement and language development. Children in the programme performed equally well regardless of socio-economic disadvantages. Child abuse was virtually eliminated. The one factor that was found to affect the child s development was family stress leading to a poor quality of parent-child interaction. That interaction was not necessarily bad in poorer families.

E部分：

在三岁时，参与“密苏里”计划的孩子与来自相同社会经济背景和家庭状况范围的一组孩子以及随机样本的同龄孩子进行了评估。结果令人惊讶。到三岁时，该计划中的孩子在语言发展方面明显超过同龄人，在解决问题和其他智力技能方面取得了更大的进步，并在社交发展方面更加成熟。实际上，该计划中的普通孩子在听觉理解、语言能力方面表现出与同龄人的前15%至20%水平的能力。

最重要的是，传统的“风险”指标，如父母的年龄和教育程度，或者是否是单亲家庭，与成就和语言发展的衡量几乎没有关系。无论社会经济条件如何，该计划中的孩子表现同样出色。儿童虐待几乎消失了。唯一影响孩子发展的因素是家庭压力导致了与孩子互动质量较差。贫困家庭的互动未必不好。

F部分

These research findings are exciting. There is growing evidence in New Zealand that children from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are arriving at school less well developed and that our school system tends to perpetuate that disadvantage. The initiative outlined above could break that cycle of disadvantage. The concept of working with parents in their homes, or at their place of work, contrasts quite markedly with the report of the Early Childhood Care and Education Working Group. Their focus is on getting children and mothers access to childcare and institutionalised early childhood education. Education from the age of three to five is undoubtedly vital, but without a similar focus on parent education and on the vital importance of the first three years, some evidence indicates that it will not be enough to overcome educational inequity.

F部分：

这些研究结果令人振奋。在新西兰，越来越多的证据表明，来自较贫困社会经济背景的孩子在入学时发展得较差，而我们的学校系统往往会延续这种不利情况。上述倡议可以打破这种不利循环。与《教育更进一步》报告中提到的关注让儿童和母亲获得托儿服务和学前教育机构的观点相比，与父母在家中或工作地点合作的概念有着明显的对比。从三岁到五岁的教育无疑至关重要，但如果没有类似关注父母教育以及前三年的重要性，一些证据表明这将不足以克服教育不平等。