Research Findings: Research has demonstrated the developmental and educational benefits of play. Despite these benefits, teacher-directed academic instruction is prominent in kindergarten. There is increasing acknowledgment in curricula and policies of the challenges presented by a lack of play in classrooms and the need to support academic…

This study explored the support for play in public school kindergarten classrooms in a single urban school district in the Northwest region of the United States. Through a three-phased data collection approach that included an online survey, in-person interviews, and classroom observations, the researcher gathered information to describe how…

Despite concerns about the importance of teachers learning to care for their students, most teacher education programs do not utilize relational pedagogy and place little emphasis on caring. In the current study, the authors used conversational interviews with one kindergarten teacher and photo-elicitation interviews with her 22 kindergarten…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to introduce MEDIA PROTECT, a multi-modal intervention for parents and teachers with six components preventing problematic, and in the long run addictive, use of screen media by children; second, to present results of a formative evaluation of the teacher training, an important component of the…

The field of publicly funded early childhood education continues to evolve into a discipline in which early educators are expected to teach a more culturally and linguistically diverse student population a standardized set of knowledge and skills so that they can meet policymakers' academic achievement requirements. This creates a range of…

This research is based on interviews that explore the reflections of 10 Norwegian kindergarten practitioners with regard to the importance of their involvement in children's physically active outdoor playtime. The data were analysed from a qualitative phenomenological perspective and resulted in basic themes that describe the practitioners'…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to gain a better understanding of how induction programs might effectively support STEM K-8 teacher preparation. American schools are not producing competent STEM graduates prepared to meet employment demands. Over the next decade, STEM employment opportunities are expected to increase twice as fast…

A group of teacher educators and practitioners in mathematics education and early childhood education generalized a set of inquiry-based mathematics models for Taiwanese young children of ages 3-6 and designed a series of inquiry-based mathematics curriculum tasks in cultivate the children's diverse mathematical concepts and mathematical power. In…

This study was conducted in order to identify gifted children attending kindergartens of elementary schools, determine how successful families and teachers were in selecting these children, and see how consistent their opinions were with children's actual performance. Participants were children attending kindergartens of elementary schools, their…

This study explores (1) how parental and teacher scaffolding and children's coping strategies contribute to children's adjustment during the transition from preschool to school; and (2) how children's perception of stress and coping are constructed over time. The sample included 216 six-year-old children, their parents and teachers. The parents,…

Globally, the child-centred approach to education has influenced practitioners' views of young children as having democratic rights. A key principle of this concept is the belief that each child is unique and can only be compared in relation to their own performance. Here we employ a feminist poststructuralist approach to critique the…

This article describes how kindergarten students represent their understanding of mathematical knowledge. The study examines the students' use of oral expressions, drawings, written language, and gestures when communicating mathematically with their classmates and teacher.

In computer gaming situations in kindergartens, the pre-school teacher's function can be viewed in a continuum. At one extreme is the teacher who takes an intervening role and at the other extreme is the teacher who chooses to restrict herself/himself to an organising or distal role. This study shows that both the intervening position and the…

Abu Dhabi Education Council's new school model recognizes the value of play, although anecdotal evidence suggests that there are challenges to play in the preschool context. This article reports on challenges from the English Medium teacher perspective. Findings show that challenges are related to: (a) children meeting teacher expectations for…

More than 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, scholars and educators continue to engage with histories under socialism and re-evaluate the consequences of those education systems for everyday lives then and in the present. This article develops an understanding of how kindergarten teachers understand their historical work in the socialist…