Districts across the country are using Preschool to Third Grade (P-3) approaches to address long-standing barriers to achieving positive outcomes for young children, for example by helping increase children's readiness for elementary school. P-3 approaches are promising for realizing these results because they demand investments in the systems…

For many years, researchers studied executive functions (EFs) in the laboratory with a focus on understanding an individual child's development and brain processes in a controlled environment. Building on this foundational research, there is a growing interest in EFs in the context of a child's dynamic, social world, and the contextual and…

Developmental delays in cognitive flexibility early in elementary school can potentially increase vulnerability for subsequent externalizing and internalizing psychopathology. The first goal of the current study was to identify latent subgroups of children characterized by different developmental trajectories of cognitive flexibility throughout…

This study explored transactional associations among visuomotor integration, attention, fine motor coordination, and mathematics skills in a diverse sample of one hundred thirty-five 5-year-olds (kindergarteners) and one hundred nineteen 6-year-olds (first graders) in the United States who were followed over the course of 2 school years.…

To address the lack of research in early science learning and young children's informal science experiences, this exploratory case study investigated a 7-year-old girl's (Abigail) emergent science competencies and how they are related to her science experiences in everyday family contexts. Data sources included observations, interviews, parent…

The present study examined Japanese children's and adults' awareness of the effects of psychological taste experiences on biological processes such as growth and illness. Studies 1 and 2 showed the following: (1) preschoolers tended to assume that good-tasting experiences would make one grow taller and gain more weight, while adults seldom…

A successful transition from kindergarten to 1st grade requires a positive combination of multiple dimensions of child competence. Using latent class analysis, we simultaneously examined the academic skills, work attitude, and social/behavioral competence of a large sample of Dutch kindergarten children to identify profiles of kindergarten…

In the earliest days of American education, leaders in educational theory and practice believed that the curriculum should revolve around the child's lived experiences. Geography, therefore, should hold a prominent place in the curriculum since it is through geographic concepts that children first experience the world around them. Reading and…

Much research on early measurement learning is small-scale and dependent on the items used. While such research is helpful for indicating the key aspects of learning length, it does not give teachers a clear indication of the expectations for student learning of them. This paper presents substantial data from a large project that used individual…

This study proposes to shift the current theoretical framework in which teachers practise a guarded approach regarding the touching of children in early childhood settings, towards a practice of acceptance. A brief historical context of touching is presented and supplemented with a survey of 63 currently practising K-3rd grade teachers. The survey…

A number of studies have identified school mobility as one form of school disengagement that is disproportionately harmful for young children enrolled in large urban districts. However, there is substantial variation in these findings, with some studies actually evidencing positive associations between school mobility and academic outcomes (Mehana…

Research into students' understanding of complex systems typically ignores young children because of misinterpretations of young children's competencies. Furthermore, studies that do recognize young children's competencies tend to focus on what children can do in isolation. As an alternative, we propose an approach to designing for young children…

This study explores young children's images of science and scientists, their sources for scientific knowledge, and the nature of their science-related experiences. A cross-sectional design was used to study how students' ideas differ over the first three years of elementary school. A modified version of the Draw-a-Scientist Test (DAST) and a…

The emphasis on inclusion of diverse learners presents challenges to early-years teachers, particularly those whose understandings have been framed by notions of school readiness and of special education for children with disabilities. This mixed-method study of children and teachers in early-years classes across three school sites in Australia…

Recognising school readiness as a national priority, the National Education Goals Panel identified the development of young children's approaches to learning as essential for achieving readiness. Approaches to learning include inclinations, attitudes, and learning styles. Despite wide agreement that learning approaches are critical for school…