A 7-month mathematics proficiency program was conducted in a primary Australian Indigenous community school. This paper focuses on outlining the specific methodologies employed to explore how students' mathematical proficiency changed throughout the implementation of the program in Years 2 to 4 (~ 7 to 9 years old). A mixed methods research design…

This paper focuses on school situations students experienced as meaningful and how these experiences can guide educational improvement. Participants included 15 students in grade 3 from a Swedish school. In this qualitative study, the data consisted of drawings, multimodal productions, interviews, and field notes. The analysis resulted in four…

The main contribution of this paper is to highlight the pedagogical orientations of reception teachers in Norwegian schools. I explore reception teachers' approaches and their understanding of their own approaches when interacting with newly arrived minority language pupils (NAMLPs). The theoretical basis of the paper is L.S. Vygotsky's work,…

Lauren Hennig is a relatively new third grade teacher in Charleston, Illinois. She knows that patiently listening to others and respectfully sharing one's own opinion is a learned skill that's essential for promoting and sustaining our democracy. This is the story of how Lauren works to help her students develop this skill through student-led…

Many scholars and practitioners have asserted the value of opportunities for young children to participate in projects that inspire positive civic engagement. A National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Position statement stresses civic engagement as an important focus for powerful and purposeful learning in elementary social studies. The…

Although well-designed scaffolding may assist students to accomplish learning tasks, its insufficient capability to dynamically assess students' abilities and to adaptively support them may result in the problem of overscaffolding. Our previous project has also shown that students using scaffolds to solve mathematical word problems for a long time…

Research in the field of literacy has identified choice as a key component affecting students' reading habits and their resulting literacy growth. This article discusses an in-school independent reading project in which students are provided the freedom to choose books, use ambient music, and engage in book talks. The children showed increased…

In this essay, Jennifer Keys Adair aims to clarify the concept of "agency" as a tool for improving the educational experiences of young children in the early grades. She conceptualizes agency in the context of schooling as the ability to influence what and how something is learned in order to expand capabilities, drawing on economic…

Across the nation, educators continue to face challenges as they work to individualize instruction to meet the specific needs of their students. However, theory suggests that teachers who possess a clear vision for teaching creatively weave their personal convictions for teaching with instructional practices. Drawing upon a teacher's (first…

This article is the result of an action research project conducted in 2014 in a primary school in the city of Vaasa in Finland. The project focused on developing the practice of integrating enterprise education as a part of everyday teaching in Grade Three. The project involved three class teachers, the headmaster and a university researcher. This…

The current study was primarily aimed at verifying the effect of a combined computer-assisted and pencil-and-paper training that was developed to empower visuo-spatial abilities in primary school pupils. One hundred and twenty third grade (mean average: eight years old) and fourth grade (mean age: nine years old) students attending several Italian…

This paper explores how five third-graders constructed meaning in three school-based literacy participation structures, also examining teachers' invitations and the space they make for students' talk and students' comprehension practices. High-stakes assessments and mandated reading curriculum influence how comprehension is framed and how students…

Describing students with disabilities as presenting "challenging behavior" is common in US schools. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the discourse utilized by teachers in order to understand their beliefs and practices surrounding young students considered to present challenging behavior. This study examines teachers' language in…

The 160 third, seventh, and eleventh-graders involved in this study agreed, almost unanimously, that reading was "important." Participants cited the empowering benefits of reading as they justified this opinion. However, with regards to the enjoyment of reading, fewer middle and high school participants reported "liking"…

This study examined how the use of African American literature that depicts Black males influences the reading comprehension and the reading motivation of Black boys as demonstrated through oral, written, and creative expressions. Studies have been conducted using children's literature with Black boys to examine their social interaction with the…