The Curricula of the Behaviourist Program: Kindergarten and Year One. Discussion Papers Numbers 5 and 6.

These two papers are products of the Mount Druitt Early Childhood Project, a project established to develop, implement and evaluate five different early childhood programs for disadvantaged children in a suburban area of Sydney, Australia. The programs enrolled children from preschool age through kindergarten and first grade. The first document describes and evaluates the preschool curriculum components of one of the five programs. The second continues the program's curricular descriptions for the subsequent two years. The teaching strategies and learning content are said to be based on behaviorist early childhood programs developed in the U.S.A. during the 1970s. Program objectives for children, their teachers and parents are specified. Social reinforcement techniques, especially descriptive praise statements, and their implementation are indicated. Evaluation results suggest that the preschool program was successful in developing language competency and task mastery as well as promoting prosocial behavior. Mastery of terminal tasks was generally achieved by kindergarten students in the areas of reading, writing and number skills; and first grade students in the areas of number, reading comprehension, writing and spelling. The technique of providing descriptive praise appeared the most difficult skill for teachers to master. (Author/RH)