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 program performed equally well regardless of socioeconomic 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 parentchild interaction. That interaction was not necessarily bad in poorer families.

　　These research findings are exciting. There is growing evidence in New Zealand that children from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds are arriving at school less well developed and that our

　　school system tends to perpetuate (使永存) 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 institutionalized 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.

　　1. The skills learned by children at age of three will be used in all their later learning in life.

　　2. The ‘Headstart’ program finally succeeded in its aim.

　　3. The ‘Missour’ program supplied many forms of support and training to parents.

　　4. Most ‘Missouri’ program threeyearolds scored highly in areas such as listening, speaking, reasoning and interacting with others.

　　5. ‘Missouri’ program children of young, uneducated, single parents scored less highly on the tests.

　　6. The richer families in the ‘Missouri’ program had higher stress levels.

　　7. Educational inequity cannot be overcome for children from different family backgrounds.

　　8. The aim of ‘Headstart’ program is to help children from poor families overcome ____________________.

　　9. The most effective way of helping children get off to the best possible start in life is ____________________.

　　10. The concept of working with parents in their homes contrasts quite markedly with the report of the Early Childhood Core and ____________________.