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The Savvy Source's Learning Resource was developed in partnership with a wide range of experts on preschool-age development, including researchers, teachers and parents.

The Savvy Quiz is adapted from The Core Knowledge Foundation's Preschool Sequence, a comprehensive outline of the way young children develop knowledge and skills. Since preschool-age children often spend most of their time at home rather than school, The Savvy Source has adapted the Preschool Sequence for the benefit of parents and other care-givers.

The Preschool Sequence itself is the result of a long process of research both in the United States and abroad. It represents a synthesis of exemplary practice and experience, and is based on studies of the current nature of early childhood experiences; new research on how children learn; specific preschool practices in the U.S., including well-known models like Montessori; and preschool practices in several other countries, including France, Japan, Korea, and Italy. The Preschool Sequence has been reviewed by nationally recognized experts in the areas of early childhood development, language, emerging literacy, and math, as well as preschool and kindergarten teachers and administrators throughout the U.S.

Recommendations in The Savvy Source's Learning Guide are drawn from:

• Preschool Sequence-designed activities
• The parent-generated Savvy Activities Encyclopedia
• Toys that have won awards from The Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, Dr. Toy and Parent's Choice
• Books recommended by Directors at some of the most highly regarded preschools in the country
• And Savvy Picks from our Book and Toy Editors

Distinguished experts who contributed to the creation of the Preschool Sequence that formed the basis of the Savvy Quiz include:

Dr. Marilyn Jager Adams

Visiting Scholar
Graduate School of Education
Harvard University

Adjunct Professor
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences
Brown University

Adjunct Professor
Center for Reading Research
Stavanger College, Norway

Dr. Adams received her Ph.D. in cognitive and developmental psychology from Brown University and has been working on issues of education and cognition ever since. In 1995, she was presented with the American Education Research Association's Sylvia Scribner Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education through Research. In addition to publishing numerous journal articles and book chapters, she is also the author of Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print. This book, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, provides a comprehensive examination and critique of beginning reading practices in light of theory and research in education, psychology and linguistics. Adams is also the principal author of the primary levels of a new classroom reading program, Collections for Young Scholars (Open Court), and of Odyssey: A Curriculum for Thinking, an experimentally validated program on thinking skills, originally developed for Venezuelan barrio students. She has also developed a diagnostic test of decoding skills and has co-authored a book on how preschool and kindergarten teachers can help children develop phonemic awareness.

Adams is currently the Vice President of the American Education research Association. Other professional affiliations and appointments include serving on the National Academy of Science's Study Committee for the Prevention of Reading Difficulties, the College Board's Advisory Committee for Research and Development, the Consortium on Reading Excellence, the Neuhaus Education Center, The Orton Dyslexia Society, and the Society for Scientific Studies in Reading. She is the literacy consultant for Sesame Street. She also is or has been a member of the Editorial Advisory Boards for a variety of journals, including Applied Psycholinguistics, Language Arts, Journal of Educational Psychology, Memory and Cognition, Reading Research Quarterly, Scientific Studies of Reading and The Reading Teacher.

Dr. Lucia French

Associate Professor of Education and Human Development
University of Rochester

Dr. French, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, is a developmental psychologist with interests in the cognitive and language development of young children. She has co-authored two books and has published and lectured extensively on these facets of early childhood development. She received a Fulbright-Hays Research Fellowship to study early childhood education in Korea in 1991-1994. Observations in Korea sensitized Dr. French to the important role that receptive language skills and attention management skills play in academic achievement. Since returning from Korea, Dr. French has helped to establish a Head Start Demonstration Center where teachers implement both a process-curriculum, focusing on attention management, listening comprehension, problem solving and communication, and a content-curriculum that presents hands-on science activities enabling children to learn about the world around them using scientific reasoning.

Dr. French has served on the Editorial Board of Child Development. She is also a member of the Society for Research in Child Development, American Educational Research Association, Jean Piaget Society, American Psychological Society and the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

Dr. David C. Geary

Professor of Psychology
University of Missouri at Columbia

Dr. Geary received his Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of California at Riverside. He has held faculty positions at the University of Texas at El Paso and the University of Missouri at Rolla in addition to his current position. He has published more than 60 scientific articles on a variety of topics and has authored one book, Children's Mathematical Development. His research currently focuses on the source and nature of the mathematical achievement gap comparing East Asian nations, specifically China and the United States; cognitive and neuropsychological deficits that contribute to arithmetic-related learning disabilities; changes in cognitive performance in adult aging; and, the application of the principles of evolutionary biology to understanding human social and cognitive development.

Dr. Craig Ramey

Professor of Psychology Pediatrics, Sociology and Maternal and Child Health
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Director of Civitan International Research Center

Dr. Ramey is a developmental psychologist with a 25 year specialty in early intervention to prevent or treat disabilities in children. He received his Ph.D. in lifespan developmental psychology from West Virginia University and completed postdoctoral research on human learning mechanisms at the University of California at Berkeley. He joined the Faculty at the University of Alabama in 1990 after 20 years on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has developed systems-based theoretical models of early development that emphasize the dynamic interactions of risk and protective factors in intellectual development especially during the first 8 years of life. These models have been tested in numerous long-term intervention studies. He is the founding Director of the Abecedarian Project and Project CARE- two programs that have demonstrated the efficacy of prevention of developmental disabilities in high-risk samples. For example, the Abecedarian Project has reported prevention of intellectual declines and associated academic competence in reading and mathematics through age 15 attributable to preschool intervention. More recently, Dr. Ramey was the founding director of the Infant Health and Development Program, a successful 8-site randomized controlled trial of early intervention. Presently, he is directing research and evaluation of a 31-site, randomized trial of education reform for 12,000 children in a study known as the Head Start/ Public School Transition Demonstration Project.

He has published extensively in the area of early intervention, written over 175 scientific and educational articles and edited two books on high risk children and children with disabilities.

Dr. Sandra Scarr

Former Chief Executive Officer KinderCare Learning Centers, Inc.
Commonwealth Professor of Psychology
University of Virginia

Dr. Scarr, who received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Social Relations at Harvard University, has held faculty positions as Professor of Psychology at Yale University and the University of Minnesota; she was also the Kerstin Hesselgren Visiting Professor in Sweden. Her research on behavior genetics, intelligence, and child development has been published in more than 200 articles and four books on intelligence, child care, and family issues. In 1985, she won the National Book Award of the American Psychological Association for Mother Care/ Other Care. She has received two awards for her research contributions: The Distinguished Contributions to Research and Public Policy Award (American Psychological Association, 1989) and the James McKeen Cattell Award (American Psychological Society, 1993).

She has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Psychological Society and the American Psychological Association. She has served as editor or on the Editorial Board of several professional journals, including Current Directions in Psychological Science, Developmental Psychology and American Psychologist. She has also served on the Steering Committee on Prevention Research for the National Institute of Mental Health, and has been a consultant to many organizations to improve early education, child care, and family relations.

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