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hood, preschool education could be a very demanding and interesting major course of study, but it is seldom presented as such.

In many states, certification requirements for early childhood education are nonexistent. Preschool teachers have a generally low rate of pay (compared, for example, with elementary school teachers); they are generally seen to have lower status than elementary school teachers both in practice settings and in universities and other practitioner preparation settings.

Little systematic attention has been paid to in-service education and other options for professional development for preschool teachers. There are, however, some thought-provoking programs for preparing people to focus on literacy with preschool children, and they raise interesting problems. Box 9-1 is an example of one such program.

Preschool teachers are an important resource in promoting literacy. In view of the power with which language and literacy skills at elementary school entry predict children's responsiveness to early reading instruction, the ability and commitment of early childhood professionals to support the skills that provide a foundation for reading need to be taken seriously. Programs that educate early childhood professionals should include in their curricula information about:

·      how to provide rich conceptual experiences that promote growth in vocabulary and reasoning skills;

·      lexical development, from early referential (naming) abilities to relational and abstract terms and finer-shaded meanings;

·      the early development of listening comprehension skills, and the kinds of syntactic and prose structures that preschool children may not yet have mastered;

·      young children's sense of story;

·      young children's sensitivity to the sounds of language;

·      developmental conceptions of written language (print awareness);

·      development of concepts of space, including directionality;

·      fine motor development; and

·      means for inspiring motivation to read.