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An approach to early childhood education that integrates visual and performing arts throughout the preschool curriculum-Art as a Way of Learning-was implemented in a program (Promoting and Supporting Early Literacy through the Arts) designed to improve the emergent literacy and school readiness of at-risk young children in community-based preschool settings. A quasiexperimental pre-post treatment-only design was used to explore this program's potential effects in a real-world setting. Preliminary results revealed improvements in young children's emergent literacy on a number of targeted and standardized measures after participation in the program. This arts-integrated approach to the teaching of and learning in young children shows considerable promise and warrants a rigorous test of its effects.

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This article describes the construction of a tire playground on an empty, fenced-in blacktop that had served as the schoolyard for a small primary school. It discusses the parents' and designer's goals for the tire playground, describes the way the playground design supported and reflected these goals, and documents the eventual impact on children's behavior. Construction of the playground led to significant decreases in organized games, uninvolved behavior, and roughhousing, and significant increases in active play and pretend play. Age and sex differences in play behavior are also described.

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