Empathy can be a powerful means for positive social change and for caring action toward wildlife and nature. Thus, there is a need for interventions that build the capacity of early childhood educators to support empathy development in young children, given the critical developmental period of early childhood and the relevance of empathy to…

This study explored and analyzed the phonological and phonemic awareness components of a teacher edition of a school district's kindergarten language arts curriculum material. Criteria for this pragmatic content analysis were derived from the research on phonological awareness and the sequence of instruction and intervention (Schuele and Boudreau,…

This article compares findings from two national surveys of remote learning for children 2-5 years old during school year one (2019-2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic to school year two (2020-2021) of the COVID-19 pandemic. The refined survey contains 45 closed-ended and five open-ended items covering seven domains: (a) demographic information; (b)…

The author draws on Lev S. Vygotsky's conception of play and Gunilla Lindqvist's methodology concerning the aesthetics of play to discuss play practice in early childhood classrooms. Based on the study of an educational experiment at a primary school, she discusses how children in a school setting simultaneously engage in developed forms of…

This study examined the interrelationships among playfulness, prosocial skills, and school readiness of Hong Kong kindergarten children across time. Participants were 106 local children (55.6% boys, mean age = 60.0 months) and their parents and teachers. At time 1, parents reported their child's age, gender, and playfulness. Six months later at…

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between motor skills and fluid intelligence in children aged 5-7 years. In this cross-sectional study, 115 children between 5 and 7 years of age (preschool children with sports skill learning) were included (51 boys, 44.34%), and fluid intelligence was measured using the Wide Range of Intelligence…

Family childcare (FCC), one of the most widely used childcare provision, is important to children's short and long-term development. FCC quality is receiving more attention in policy and international studies, although additional literature reviews are needed. This study is a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify relevant literature on…

Many scholars have argued that mathematics classrooms often offer narrow conceptions of mathematical excellence, recognizing only some kinds of thinking and some kinds of people as valuable, and conflating mathematical aptitude with overall intelligence. Play offers the potential to disrupt such classroom mathematical practices, by offering new…

During a five-week research study, a kindergarten class of 14 five- and six-year-old children learned to sing and play soprano ukuleles. The study had a dual purpose: to teach the children foundational music skills, and to teach them to read lyrics at the emergent reader level. Csikszentmihalyi (2009) cites one of the pitfalls of traditional music…

The Finnish education system has garnered significant international interest due to its consistently high rankings for decades. However, the same level of interest has not been extended to the country's early childhood education system. In Finland, early childhood education and care are regarded as the cornerstones of the Finnish education system,…

A body of research that investigates the social, cognitive and emotional effects of digital technologies on the development of children reports that digital technologies are limiting activities that connect children with people. On the other hand, there is a great amount of research on the positive role of digital play. However, digital games per…

Relational language is thought to influence mathematical skills. This study examines the association between "relational language" and "number relation skills"--knowledge of cardinal, ordinal, and spatial principles--among 104 U.S. kindergartners (5.9 years; 44% boys; 37% White, 25% Black, 14% Asian, 24% other) in the 2017-2018…

This study investigated differences between the ability to judge surface emotions and real emotions in pretend/deceptive situations. Using the scenario approach, our results showed that the ability to judge surface/real emotions is affected by pretend and deceptive situations in children aged 4--6 years. We found that in pretend situations, the…

The early childhood stage is a time of basic foundation in which children are engaged in pretend play and creative activities. The objective of this study was to explore the role of pretend play on the creativity development of preschool children. Data were collected from four purposefully selected preschool children (two male and two female)…

The objective of the current study was to identify an effective learning environment for kindergarten students as they acquire an initial understanding of scientific inquiry activities (SIA) and a simple (idealized) scientific inquiry cycle (SIC). The study aimed to examine (a) the effects of instructional support and (b) the role of similarity…