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Preschool Teachers' Beliefs Concerning the Importance of Various Developmental Skills and Abilities

Abstract Head Start, public school preschool, and preschool special education teachers were surveyed to investigate their beliefs concerning the importance of various developmental skills and abilities. Teachers were presented with 54 items representing different skills and abilities and asked to rate each with respect to how important they thought it was for preschoolers to learn. The items represented three key domains of early functioning: social-emotional, language and literacy, and early math. A comparison of teachers' mean item ratings indicated that teachers in all three groups felt that the social-emotional items were more important for preschoolers to learn than were the language and literacy and early math items, which were rated similarly. Preschool special education teachers placed a slightly higher premium on social-emotional functioning than did Head Start teachers. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance for teacher education and providing programming for young children.