The research has the purpose of analyzing the experience of the students of the first course of the Early Childhood Education Degree on the methodology of the Dialogic Literary Circles. The aim is to examine the variables that influence the academic performance of the future teacher, as well as the conditions that have an impact on their…

Background: To succeed in school, young children must acquire the domain and vocabulary knowledge needed to read complex texts. Despite the growing literacy demands in the 21 century, fewer than 5% of US school children in the early elementary grades can evaluate complex nonfiction texts and there are larger gaps based on family income and student…

On a summer afternoon in early August 2017, representatives from 20 states came to together on the campus of Saint John's University in Collegeville, MN, for 2nd Annual Alliance Reflective Supervision/ Consultation (RS/C) Symposium. The 128 participants represented a very diverse group of professionals: supervisors and staff from infant and early…

Teachers balance many goals when selecting texts for small-group reading. The author explored the impact of one variable that teachers consider, quantitative text difficulty, on students' participation, discussion, comprehension, and fluency in small-group discussions of informational science texts. Six bilingual third graders identified as…

This article explores how a second-grade teacher's strategic talk moves supported her multilingual students, many of whom were designated as English Learners (ELs), to engage with complex content using purposeful, authentic communication during a 14-week read-aloud unit focused on historical changemakers. Collaborative coding of whole-class and…

It is known that parent involvement contributes to children's overall educational achievement as well as their literacy development. Home literacy, in particular, is critical in helping children who read below grade level. Studies also found that the quality of the interaction between the child and parent is as important as interactive…

This paper investigates an institutional practice of the educational conversation that is a part of the undergraduate kindergarten teacher education program at a Norwegian university. The formal goal connected to this practice is to facilitate students coping with their courses of study. Thus, this paper reconstructs the perspectives of the…

This study sought to examine the experience of early childhood pre-service teachers participating in facilitated research analysis with discussion-case application. Specifically, we were interested in the impact on teachers' knowledge of and attitude towards the role and value of play in the classroom. This study describes the qualitative phase of…

This research examined the critical incidents of 10 United States (US) early childhood student teachers during a three-week university-sponsored international field experience conducted in three urban preschools in Kathmandu, Nepal. The purpose of employing the critical incident technique was to allow the US student teachers to reflect critically…

Classroom instruction in China and in the United States have sharp differences. Typically, constructivist learning theory shapes American classroom instruction whereas Confucian educational culture shapes Chinese classroom instruction. Furthermore, typically, Chinese classrooms adopt a direct instructional approach whereas American classrooms…

Reflective functioning has been referred to as the ability to understand intentions, motives, and actions in both oneself and others. This study explored reflective functioning in African American single mothers of infant and toddler children. Mothers were asked to participate in four psycho-educational group discussions that included information,…

A "sense of self-efficacy" is defined as the process of linking knowledge to action, as the assessment of the ability to execute a behavior leading to a certain outcome. A person's perception of self-efficacy has behavioral and emotional implications. When people doubt their own abilities, they tend not to persevere, give up rapidly when…

Although scholarship in New Literacies increasingly emphasizes multimodal reading, some traditional perspectives on comprehension pedagogy continue to advocate for focusing discussion on linguistic content of texts, concerned that allowing students to discuss illustrations could siphon attention from the words (linguistic content). Largely absent…

The isolation related to the COVID-19 pandemic is causing both physical and mental health concerns for children worldwide. When the pandemic is over, schools and kindergartens represent a crucial context that can play an important role in promoting young people's well-being. This paper presents a school re-entry program aimed at creating an arena…

Primary school practices are often bound by traditions that perpetuate compliance and skills-based, decontextualized, rote memorization activities. These histories of practice, prevalent in schools serving mostly Black and Brown children, make it inordinately difficult for students to author themselves as knowledge builders (i.e., with epistemic…