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Today at the World Forum on Early Care and Education in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, researchers from the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation are reporting on the results of the IEA Preprimary Project, a longitudinal, cross-national study of preprimary care and education. The purpose of the study was to identify how characteristics of early childhood settings, such as teaching practices and structural features, are related to children's language and cognitive development at age 7. From observing 1,500 children at age 4 and 7 in 10 countries, four findings emerged that are consistent across all of the countries:

Children's language performance at age 7 improves as:

• The predominant types of children's activities that teachers propose are free-choice rather than personal/social. From greatest to least contribution, activity types were as follows: free-choice activities (teachers let children choose); physical/expressive activities (gross- and fine-motor physical activity, dramatic play, arts, crafts, and music); preacademic activities (reading, writing, numbers, mathematics, physical science, and social science); and personal/social activities (personal care, group social activities, and discipline).
• Teachers' number of years of full-time schooling increases.

Children's cognitive performance at age 7 improves as:

• Children spend less time in whole group activities (the teacher proposes the same activity for all the children in the class �" songs, games, listening to a story, working on a craft, or a preacademic activity).
• The number and variety of equipment and materials available to children in preschool settings increases.

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