The Department of Early Learning (DEL), in partnership with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and Thrive Washington, has published the Early Learning and Development Guidelines (guidelines) for children from birth through third grade. The guidelines replace the Early Learning and Development Benchmarks, which were first…

The joint contributions of child effortful control (using inhibitory control and task accuracy as behavioral indices) and positive teacher-student relationships at first grade on reading and mathematics achievement at second grade were examined in 761 children who were predominantly from low-income and ethnic minority backgrounds and assessed to…

The study purposes were to describe throwing form and gender differences before and after instruction during a game. Children's (ages 6-8, n = 105) throwing form was assessed while they played a game (snowball) using the Body Component Assessment for Throwing in Games to determine the modal developmental levels for the step, trunk, and forearm…

Although it is well established that Black male students are underrepresented in gifted educational programs in the United States, due to a scarcity of longitudinal prospective research, little is known about the protective factors at the child, family, and school level that increase the probability of Black male students being identified as…

Controlled Drawing Observation (CDO) was developed by Tove Krogh and it has been used in Denmark, Finland and Estonia for assessing a child's readiness for school. CDO is a group test, it gives information about a child's functioning in an educational setting and it serves as a starting point for later individual assessment. The goal of the study…

To compare the efficacy of three different short-term service delivery methods on first grade children with soft neurological signs who suffer from visual-motor difficulties. One hundred and forty seven first grade students who scored below the 21st percentile on the Visual-Motor Integration Test (VMI) were recruited from schools and randomly…

This study examined whether fine motor skills were related to the initial scores and growth rate of mathematics achievement in American kindergartners and first graders. Participants were 244 East Asian American and 9,816 European American children from the US-based Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K). To control sampling bias, two…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between time-related variables of the physical education lesson and skill concepts acquisition and retention. One hundred and four students aged 6.4 to 7.9 years, and their six physical educators participated. The motor behavior of thirty-six selected students was videotaped during a…

The National Standards for Physical Education (National Association for Sport and Physical Education, 2004) and many state physical education standards include a standard that is focused on development of movement patterns, which includes rhythmic skills. The newly adopted Physical Education Model Content Standards for California Public Schools…

Holidays present the perfect opportunity for physical educators to utilize creative TAG (Teaching Active Games) games to offer maximum physical activity opportunities for their students. The TAG ideas in this article offer physical education teachers quick, instant activities that involve very little equipment, time management, or instruction. At…

The purpose was to examine the effect of Brain Gym on learning the overhand throw among 42 first grade students. Participants from two intact classes were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition. Students were tested before and after a 5-week intervention using the object control subtest from the Test of Gross Motor Development-2…

Three studies evaluated Tier 1 early intervention for handwriting at a critical period for literacy development in first grade and one study evaluated Tier 2 early intervention in the critical period between third and fourth grades for composing on high stakes tests. The results contribute to knowledge of research-supported handwriting and…

This article provides an overview of medicine ball training. Specifically, it describes "Medicine Ball for All," a physical activity program designed to provide children and teenagers with a meaningful learning experience that is consistent with their developmental needs. The article focuses on developing a safe, successful, and inexpensive…

The author investigated age- and gender-related changes in self-evaluative judgments of 87 children followed from preschool through 2nd grade. Focusing on cognitive, physical, and peer competence assessed by the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PSPCSA; S. Harter & R. Pike, 1984), the author tested PSPCSA subscale…

Mindfulness is the cognitive propensity to be aware of what is happening in the moment without judgment or attachment to any particular outcome. This concept flies in the face of modern, Western philosophical outcomes-based thinking about events and activities. This article presents results of a formative evaluation of whether participation in a…