The Brain at Birth, an article from the Los Angeles Times series, The Brain: A Work in Progress
(http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/SCIENCE/REPORTS/THEBRAIN/newborn.htm).

Brain Development, from the National Network for Child Care Web site (http://www.exnet.iastate.edu/Pages/families/nncc/Child.Dev/brain nc.html).

Brain Development, from the Neuroscience for Kids Web site at the University of Washington (http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/dev.html).

Brain Research Provides New Evidence for Early Intervention, from the Los Angeles Times series, The Brain: A Work in Progress (http://www.kidnetflorida.org/starting_points/brain.htm).

The Dana Foundation's Web site provides information on brain diseases and disorders, and includes the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, and organization of 170 pre-eminent neuroscientists (http://www.dana.org/brainweb/).

Early Childhood Development and Learning: What New Research on the Brain Tells Us About Our Youngest Children, from the White House Conference, April17, 1997 (http://www.exnet.iastate.edu/Pages/families/nncc/wh/whconf.html#anchor238265).

Explore A Child's Mind, a series from the Raleigh, North Carolina News and Observer (http://www.newsobserver.com/2little2late/).

I Am Your Child is the national public engagement campaign to inform the public about the critical importance of the first few years of life (http://iamyourchild.org/).

Learning Windows and the Child's Brain, from Superkids Educational Software Review and the Parent's and Teacher's Guide to Software. During a child's development, there are a series of time periods, or "windows," in which a child can best learn or refine a particular ability, such as speech. After this time period is over it becomes much more difficult, sometimes impossible, for the child to learn the same thing. A good example is language development. We've all heard that young children find it much easier than adults to acquire a second language -- and it's true (http://www.superkids.com/aweb/pages/features/early1/early1.shtml).

Starting Points Initiative, (Starting Points: Meeting the Needs of our Youngest Children) sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation of New York, is a grant of more than 3 mlilion dollars awarded to 16 states and cities. This Web site describes each of the state's efforts (http://carnegie.org/starting_points/).

Across the United States, we are beginning to hear the rumblings of a Quiet Crisis. Our nation's children under the age of three and their families are in trouble, and their plight worsens every day. Their parents' anxieties about inadequate child care and the high cost of their child's health care can be heard in kitchens, playgrounds, pediatricians'waiting rooms, and workplace cafeterias across the nation (http://carnegie.org/starting_points/startpt1.html).

Being Three: Milestones for Early Growth and Development. The importance of the first three years of life lies in the pace at which the child is growing and learning. In no other period do such profound changes occur so rapidly: the newborn grows from a completely dependent human being into one who walks, talks, plays, and explores. The three-year-old is learning and, perhaps more important, is learning how to iearn (http://carnegie.org/starting_points/startpt1.html#three).

Surprising Truths: The Implication of Brain Research. Research on the brain and learning is providing exciting insights for teachers, in many ways providing new understandings, in other ways giving authoritative confirmation for classroom practices. Below are intentionally provocative statements, each with a brief description of how this implication can be drawn from the research (http://www.nauticom.net.www/cokids/brain.html).

Welcome to the Brain Lab, from New Horizons for Learning. How would it affect educational systems if everyone truly believed that the human brain could change structurally and functionally as a result of learning and experience--for better or worse? How would it affect how we teach and how students learn if everyone believed that the kinds of environments we create for learning, how we teach, and the learning strategies we offer students could result in better mental equipment they will use throughout life? In the Brain Lab you will find articles that support the validity of this concept, as well as articles of current interest on various other aspects of brain research and its implications for education (http://www.newhorizons.org/blab.html).

Kidnet is Florida's Web site for local "Brain Resources" (http://www.kidnetflorida.org/kids/startingpoints/).

Brain Research Interactive. Elsevier Science, Amsterdam. Reports amd full text articles in PDF format (http://www1.elsevier.nl/journals/bres/doc/what.htm).