ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study used sequential analysis to investigate teachers’ use of literal and inferential questions and their relation to children’s responses during small-group shared reading in preschool. Participants were 202 dual-language learners (age 3–5 years) and 53 preschool teachers in multiethnic preschool classrooms in Norway. Teacher questions and child responses were coded

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Greater self-regulation has been identified as a protective factor for low-income children’s academic achievement. However, we know less about the long-term protective nature of specific aspects of self-regulation. Data were drawn from predominantly African American and Latino children in low-income communities in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio during early childhood (mean

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Preschoolers’ vocabulary skills and inhibitory control have been demonstrated critical for later school success; however, the ways in which the individual classroom experiences dynamically interchange with these skills is still unclear. In this paper, we examine the role of children’s individual engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks in facilitating children’s skill

ABSTRACT Previous research suggests that the ways in which early childhood classrooms are organized may facilitate children’s language learning. However, different measures of classroom organization often yield inconsistent findings regarding child outcomes. In this study, we investigated multiple aspects of classroom organization across two time points in classrooms where children made varying language

ABSTRACT Quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) are designed to assess, improve, and communicate the quality of early care and education programs. Using administrative data, we investigated whether providers that participated in a county-level QRIS saw increases to their global quality (tier) rating, domain-specific quality ratings, and scores on an observation measure of classroom quality

ABSTRACT This study utilized data from the Family Life Project (FLP) to examine Head Start children’s school readiness skills at the end of preschool in comparison to two other care groups: home-based care and other center-based care. The FLP study enrolled a birth-cohort of 1,292 children born in two historically low-wealth, rural regions of the U.S., with oversampling of children from low-wealth

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Multiple factors likely influence the language development of young children growing up in low-income homes, potentially including stressors experienced by parents. Here, we ask: (1) What is the association between stress (i.e., economic hardship and parenting stress) and toddlers’ language development? and (2) Does number of hours spent in nonparental childcare moderate

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Trust is considered to be a crucial element of effective parent-preschool partnerships and an important prerequisite of parental involvement in their children’s educational processes. The present study examines the role of child and family characteristics and aspects of parent-preschool communication in parents’ trust. 735 families at 169 preschools participated in the study

ABSTRACT Recent research has provided mixed evidence on the promise of classroom-based interventions for supporting young children’s development of executive functions (EF). To advance intervention efforts, it is necessary to identify specific types of interactions that might support the development of EF in early childhood. Through a correlational design, this study explores the relationship between

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Shared-picture book reading can stimulate children’s mathematical development. Evidence of learning-supportive characteristics in picture books is limited in this domain. A first step is systematically analyzing the occurrence of domain-specific features in publicly available picture books. We analyzed the occurrence of general book features, features of numbers and quantitative

ABSTRACT Research Findings: and Practice Preschool teachers’ relationships with children are a critical component of classroom quality. We draw from a sample of N = 2,114 children attending Head Start to examine child-centered profiles of experiences across two dimensions of classroom interaction quality that are often considered separately: individual teacher–child closeness and conflict, and classroom-level

ABSTRACT Research Findings: High quality STEM professional learning is necessary for supporting early educators to implement early childhood STEM education in ways that promote young children’s development. This is particularly important for educators serving young children of color or from under-resourced backgrounds who have few STEM early learning opportunities. The STEM Lab intervention was designed

ABSTRACT Research Findings: We tested whether a universal classroom peer pairing intervention – Buddy Up – would strengthen dyadic peer interactions among preschoolers (N = 140; Mage = 56.49 months; 53.6% boys; 77.9% Latinx). The Buddy Up intervention was informed by Intergroup Contact Theory, which specifies the benefits of exposure to heterogeneous others. Teachers buddied children with other-gender

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Talking about emotions with their caregivers help young children develop emotional competence, and is particularly beneficial for children who display elevated externalizing behaviors. However, prior descriptive work has shown that teacher-child emotion talk in preschool classrooms is scarce. As children are spending increasing amounts of time in preschool programs, there

ABSTRACT This research tested a mediation model, examining whether individual differences in mothers’ school readiness beliefs influenced home literacy practices and children’s later academic achievement among African American (n = 114) and primarily Mexican origin Latina mothers (n = 164) and their children. Mothers of children ages 3–4 years reported school readiness beliefs and home literacy practices

ABSTRACT This study aims to identify early childhood sociability trajectories and examine their longitudinal associations with behavior problems. Using a population-based data set presented by the Panel Study on Korean Children, sociability trajectories from age 2 to age 4 were identified by latent class growth analysis. Associations between sociability trajectories and behavior problems at first grade

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to test a theoretical measurement model representing four proposed dimensions of the classroom ecology in pre-K to third-grade classrooms. The four proposed dimensions of Classroom Composition, Peer Network and Norms, Teacher Practices, and Student Experiences were evaluated using data collected in 182 classrooms and 2,662 students in two districts

ABSTRACT According to the perspective of multiple attachments, children establish significant relationships with individuals outside their family, such as teachers and peers. The aim of this research was to observe which dimensions of attachment behaviors that preschoolers show toward their teachers are associated with greater social preference and social impact regarding peers. Research Findings:

(2022). If Culture is All Around Us, Where Is It In Our Theories and Our Research? Early Education and Development: Vol. 33, Studying Children’s Social-Emotional Development in School and at Home through a Cultural Lens guest edited by Kevin Kien Hoa Chung, Chun Bun Lam and Jeffrey Liew, pp. 739-745.

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Kindergarten is the gateway to education and a point of great variability in children’s knowledge and skills. As a result, there is keen interest in kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) to understand and address gaps in early skills. This study rigorously investigated the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Kindergarten Entry Inventory (PA KEI). Multilevel factor analyses provided

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This review focuses on the use of robotics in early childhood education (ECE), addressing gender and socioeconomic status (SES) differences in young children’s robotics learning. This review systematically evaluates, synthesizes, and displays the research designs, robotic toys, data collection instruments, research methods, and research findings of 15 studies related to

ABSTRACT This study examined racial/ethnic differences in the relations between three dimensions of parenting practices (harsh, lax, and warm parenting) and children’s externalizing behaviors across European American, African American, and Latinx families. Participants included 221 mothers who identified as African American (n = 32), Latina (n = 46), or European American (n = 143). Mothers’ self-rated

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Children’s oral language skills lay the foundation for later literacy and can be fostered through responsive conversations with teachers. However, such conversations are rare in preschool, particularly between teachers and dual language learners (DLLs), or students who speak a minoritized language at home. DLLs benefit when their home language is used and instruction is

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Early childhood teachers’ talk is a key ingredient in children’s early language and literacy development, but there has been little systematic synthesis of observational studies that examine relationships between teacher talk and child oral language. In this systematic review of 54 studies, we investigate and synthesize the kinds of teacher language practices and children’s

ABSTRACT The under-representation of women in science disciplines is a persistent problem for workplaces and educational policy. Girls may start to disengage early from science subjects, partly due to cultural stereotypes around science and gender. Early language interventions which introduce science activities in terms of action (or process) versus identity (or fixed ability) suggest that language

ABSTRACT Research Findings: We examined the association between neighborhood median income, child race/ethnicity, and parental perspectives and practical considerations regarding preschool program location. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of parents in Boston, Massachusetts planning to enroll in preschool (N = 1171). Questions measured parental preferences regarding program location, number of

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Conversing abstract concepts boost children’s language learning. Despite the numerous studies on the linguistic environment of early childhood education settings (ECE), most of this work disregards contextual factors that may influence abstract conversations and omits characteristics of children’s verbal participation in these interactions. We examined how preschool classroom

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IY-TCM) program has shown efficacy in reducing behavioral problems and improving social skills among children experiencing poverty. However, quantitative studies that concentrate on its efficacy in relation to “proximal classroom outcomes” (e.g., classroom emotional and managerial interactions between teachers and children)

ABSTRACT This study investigated associations of three teacher-reported health indicators—hunger, tiredness, and sickness—with kindergarten readiness skills in San Francisco Unified School District (N = 12,423; female = 48%; Mage = 5.47, SDage = 0.30, rangeage = 4.67–7.00; Asian American = 26%, Black = 5%, Latinx = 20%, Multiracial/Other = 23%, White = 18%). Research Findings: Accounting for demographic

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The present study examines the unique and joint effects of individual teacher-child relationships and overall quality of teacher-child interactions on the motivation of 2,745 kindergarten children (51% girls; ages 5–6) from an ethnically and linguistically diverse county. Teachers reported the closeness and conflict in their individual relationships with each child. The

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The present study examined the associations among meeting 24-hour movement behavior recommendations set by the World Health Organization (2019) and young children’s self-regulation and quantity estimation skills in a sample of 123 children (n = 65 female; 4.9 ± 0.7 years) in mid-Michigan. Meeting screen time recommendations alone, meeting physical activity recommendations

ABSTRACT This exploratory, cross-national research study investigated how ten female early childhood educators, five in Nepal and five in Kenya, understood and defined young children’s socio-emotional development (SED). Research Findings: Revealed that teachers’ understandings of SED were influenced by several factors such as ethno-culture, language, and relationships at different ecological levels

ABSTRACT Beside research evidence on the importance of teachers’ emotion socialization behaviors and students’ social-emotional outcomes, there is less evidence on teachers’ discrete emotion socialization behaviors and students’ social and emotional outcomes. The current study investigated early childhood teachers’ self-reported expression of emotions and coping strategies with students’ negative emotions

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Several barriers can impede the use and effectiveness of intensive professional development programs, such as courses and coaching, for educators across today’s mixed delivery early education system. The present study introduces and tests a light-touch text message-based approach to encourage educators’ use of two high-quality practices with children: (a) making transitions

ABSTRACT Early care and education (ECE) teachers are constantly moving throughout their day with varying physical demands akin to those of athletes. Teachers are continuously bending, stooping, and squatting to lift and carry children as well as sitting on the floor or in child-sized furniture—all activities that require substantial fitness. This said, many ECE teachers have health issues including

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Structural racism places Black families at heightened risk for stress, parenting challenges, and child developmental concerns. These impacts on families persist across the lifespan, though Black families also thrive in spite of the oppression they face. Federally funded programs like Early Head Start (EHS) show promise in supporting vulnerable families and children, and

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The aim of this study was to construct and validate “English Picture Vocabulary Test (EPVT)” that aimed to assess the very young learners’ (VYLs) receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge for specific content areas in English as a foreign language (EFL). In this context, EPVT was created in several stages. One of them was initial construct identification with the literature

ABSTRACT Research Findings: We examined the amount of preschool lead/assistant teachers’ English/Spanish language use and relations between quality of teacher-child interactions, and Dual Language Learners’ (DLLs) English/Spanish bilingual vocabulary in 31 English-medium Head Start classrooms. Measures in this study included (a) children’s conceptual English/Spanish bilingual receptive and expressive

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Parents’ academic socialization of their young children is a critical yet understudied area, especially in the context of vulnerable parent-child dyads. The current longitudinal study examined factors that informed mothers’ beliefs and practices concerning children’s kindergarten readiness in a sample of 204 Mexican-origin adolescent mothers (Mage = 19.94). Adolescent mothers’

ABSTRACT The current study examined (1) cross-cultural variations in mothers’ reports of how they would react to their children’s positive and negative emotions as triggered by different interpersonal situations and (2) their relations to children’s emotion regulation competence in Nepal, Korea, and Germany. Participants were 305 mothers whose children were first graders in elementary school. Mothers

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The present study examined the transition practices reported by 59 pre-kindergarten (pre-k) and 186 kindergarten teachers in the rural Southeastern United States, and asked if transition practices related to skills at the beginning and end of kindergarten for 387 children. Analyses indicated kindergarten teachers offered more transition practices than pre-k teachers, and

ABSTRACT Despite being the largest archipelago and the fourth populous country in the world, Indonesia has received limited research attention to the socioemotional development of its diverse child populations. As the corona virus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic significantly interrupted the life of individuals and families all over the world, it is also critical time to better understand the status and need

ABSTRACT During imaginative play, children may learn foundational skills important for academic success. Indeed, imaginative children, high in fantasy orientation (FO), may have advantages in skills that support positive classroom and social behavior. Yet findings are mixed regarding the classroom behavior of children high in fantasy orientation. The purpose of the current study was to examine the

ABSTRACT Given the changing demographics of young children served by U.S. schools, educational equity practices must include ways of sustaining cultural heritage practices of children from ethno-linguistic, minoritized, and under-resourced communities. In the present study, we partnered with a bilingual Head Start serving mostly children of immigrant families from Latin American backgrounds to explore

ABSTRACT This study evaluated the emergent literacy profiles of preschool Spanish-speaking children. Participants included 440 children in dual-language classrooms who were assessed in English and Spanish at the beginning and end of their preschool year. Research Findings: Through latent profile analysis, conducted with fall data, four empirically derived emergent literacy profiles emerged. Further

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The study investigated whether preschool code-related home literacy experiences had direct associations with regular and irregular word reading in the first year of primary school as well as exploring whether there were indirect associations between these experiences and later word reading via children’s language skills or inhibitory control. The parents of 274 preschool

ABSTRACT School-based Social Emotional Learning (SEL) programs emerged in North America and have not traditionally focused on embodied learning processes that are situated in the learners’ contexts and lived experiences. Thus, we present evidence and advance the case that transferable social-emotional competencies are inherently culturally responsive or situated in learners’ authentic experiences and

ABSTRACT This study examined the extent to which the quality of teacher-infant interactions varies across play and routine care activities. In addition, the effects of the quantity of adult involvement in the quality of teacher-infant interactions were investigated. Participants were teachers and infants from 90 infant classrooms in Portugal. Classrooms had, on average, six infants enrolled (M = 6

ABSTRACT In this study we investigated how early childhood teachers’ emotion socialization behaviors contribute to children’s social-emotional competence (SEC), as well as whether these contributions differ by culture. Participants included 117 teachers and 381 preschoolers in US or Italian classrooms. Teachers’ and children’s emotions and reactions to each others’ emotions were observed within small

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The Children’s Social Understanding Scale (CSUS) assesses young children’s theory of mind (ToM). The current study adapted the parent version of the CSUS-short form to Turkish and examined its utility, for the first time, as an assessment tool for teachers. The associations of parent and teacher reports of the CSUS-short form with classical behavioral assessments of ToM

(2022). Special Issue: Narrowing the Digital Divide in Early Childhood: Technological Advances and Curriculum Reforms. Early Education and Development: Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 183-185.

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Community-based playgroups in low-and-middle-income countries increase access to early learning at lower cost than centers. However, evidence of effectiveness is limited. The effects of one, two, or three playgroup sessions per week on children’s performance on the Early Learning Outcome Measure (ELOM) (n = 112; baseline M = 55.32 months) were investigated using a quasi-experimental

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study (N = 300; M age = 44.72 months, SD = 4.39) aimed to elucidate the distinct pathways leading to maladjustment in early childhood by examining whether or not peer victimization differentially predicts aggression and internalizing problems. Hypotheses were guided by the relational vulnerability model, which suggests peer victimization and relational aggression have

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Although work across developmental and educational psychology reveals that trust impacts children’s acceptance of claims and that teacher-student relationships impact learning outcomes, little work has integrated these literatures to better understand how students’ trust in their teacher facilitates learning. In the present work, we conceptualize and measure two distinct

ABSTRACT Early childhood education and care (ECE) type (e.g., center-based care, home-based care, informal care) and quantity (i.e., time spent in ECE) have been linked to observed behavioral challenges in children. However, there is a dearth of research on this association in New Zealand. Using data from 6,536 children from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal birth cohort, the current study

ABSTRACT The current study assessed (1) the importance of six caregiver interactions skills (sensitive responsiveness, respect for autonomy, structuring and limit setting, verbal communication, developmental stimulation, and fostering positive peer interactions) as rated by several stakeholders, (2) the quality of caregiver interactive skills, and (3) the effectiveness of a training program in early

ABSTRACT Research Findings: While leadership is not a novel concept, child leadership is still an under-cultivated field. Despite nearly nine decades of research on play leadership in preschool children, there still remains a paucity of empirical studies examining this developmental area, especially considering that leadership in the preschool years is an essential aspect of social competence. To ascertain

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This study provides psychometric validation of the Classroom Engagement Scale (CES), a 14-item, teacher-report, formative assessment of behavioral engagement. It is currently used for all kindergarten children in a large, urban school district where it is embedded in the report card. Multi-level factor analysis revealed two distinct dimensions of the measure – academic engagement

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The goal of this longitudinal study was to examine persistence development during the transition to school. The sample consisted of N = 88 children from Caucasian, middle-class families (51% female). Participants were recruited through advertisement in public kindergartens and were tested twice, in kindergarten (mean age = 73.4 months) and second grade (mean age = 94.6 months)

ABSTRACT Research Findings: The study examined the relationship between Spanish-speaking DLL children’s engagement within the preschool classroom with teachers, peers, and tasks and their school readiness skills compared to monolingual English-speaking peers. Results suggested that DLL children had lower language skills and phonological awareness by the end of the preschool year. However, children’s