Early childhood teachers are well-positioned to maximise preschoolers' development in oral language and emergent literacy; both of which are vital predictors of academic success at school. Research investigating their pre-service training in language and emergent literacy remains limited. This issue is addressed in the present study, with the…

The Direct Method, a pedagogical approach for teaching additional languages through immersion, emphasizes oral interaction and everyday language usage to facilitate language acquisition. This method discourages reliance on translation and minimizes emphasis on grammatical rules. However, a fundamental question arises about the effectiveness of…

Background: Early childhood teachers (ECTs) play a significant role in equipping children with oral language and emergent literacy skills ahead of school entry. They are well positioned to play a vital role in ensuring preschool children receive a high-quality preschool curriculum to prepare them for later literacy learning. Aims: The purpose of…

Evidence suggests that educators are not sufficiently prepared to teach foundational literacy concepts. With early childhood educators (ECEs) on the front lines of children's early literacy development, the present study assessed both pre-service and in-service ECEs' early literacy knowledge and self-efficacy for early literacy instruction. The…

We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate reading-writing relations. Beyond the overall relation, we systematically investigated moderation of the relation as a function of linguistic grain size (word reading and spelling versus reading comprehension and written composition), measurement of reading comprehension (e.g., multiple choice,…

Efforts to improve classroom language practices and children's language learning, as a means of supporting reading comprehension, may depend on teachers' knowledge about language structures and language development. To date, however, educational researchers and teacher educators have little understanding about teachers' knowledge about oral…

We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate reading-writing relations. Beyond the overall relation, we systematically investigated moderation of the relation as a function of linguistic grain size (word reading and spelling versus reading comprehension and written composition), measurement of reading comprehension (e.g., multiple choice,…

As part of a joint European-Israeli project for developing modernised curricula on migrants' lives (DEMO), academic courses were adapted to meet the needs of a population served by a Palestinian teacher-education college in Northern Israel. Arab minority students, in many cases descendants of displaced people, attended two courses within the…

Two experiments investigated whether exposure to Chinese characters and pinyin would facilitate oral vocabulary learning for Chinese as a first (L1) and second (L2) language learners. In Experiment 1, 48 second Chinese graders studied 15 made-up associations between spoken labels and pictures accompanied either by no orthography, by pinyin, or…

Large-scale standardised, early reading assessments abound at the international and national levels, but research into urgent problems facing practitioners remains scarce. Practice-inspired research involves university-researchers in partnership with teacher-researchers undertaking high-quality research to provide relevant and useful knowledge.…

This article reports on collaborative action research in twelve northern rural and Indigenous communities in four Canadian provinces. Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, grade one, and Aboriginal Head Start teachers worked with university researchers in three universities to create action research projects with the aim of supporting children's oral…

In recent years there have been significant changes in education across the globe, largely as a result of changing demographics, technological developments, and increased globalization. Relatedly, the changing needs of societies and families, along with new research findings, provide new directions in early childhood education. Consequently, early…

Undergraduate teacher education program students have the opportunity to work with diverse student populations in a local school district in the Four Corners Area in the Northwest part of New Mexico. The family oral history practicum is a way to connect theory and practice while recognizing the issue that language is not a neutral landscape. What…

Broadly speaking, the teaching of spoken language in Spanish schools has not been approached in a systematic way. Changes in school practices are needed in order to allow all children to become competent speakers and to understand and construct oral texts that are appropriate in different contexts and for different audiences both inside and…

The English Language and Literacy Acquisition--Validation (ELLA-V) study was a five-year evaluation of a program that provided professional development, coaching, and curricula that targeted English-as-a-second-language (ESL) instruction for teachers of K-3 English learners (ELs). ELLA-V was implemented in 10 school districts in Texas in the…