Teachers play a critical role in deciding what curricula are used in their classrooms. We examine the factors that teachers describe as influencing their sustainment or discontinuation of a literacy curriculum, "Zoology One," following their participation in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) examining the curriculum's efficacy. This…

In states that fund public prekindergarten and kindergarten in elementary schools, principals are central to ensuring these programs support children's learning and development. Yet few studies explore how principals position these programs within their instructional leadership and what they perceive should be done by district leaders to support…

Programs that engage young children in movement and song to help them learn are popular but experimental evidence on their impact is sparse. We use an RCT to evaluate the effectiveness of Big Word Club (BWC), a classroom program that uses music and dance videos for 3-5 minutes per day to increase vocabulary. We conducted a field experiment with…

Teachers play a critical role in deciding what curricula are used in their classrooms. We examine the factors that teachers describe influencing their sustainment or discontinuation of a literacy curriculum, "Zoology One," following their participation in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) examining the curriculum's efficacy. This study…

The purpose of the present study was to examine Frog Street Pre-K curriculum efficacy by comparing learning outcomes for pre-K students in schools with access to Frog Street in Texas during the 2021-22 school year to outcomes for pre-K students in Texas schools without Frog Street. This study is designed to replicate and extend those employed by…

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)…

This correlation study investigated the relationship between pre-kindergarten absenteeism and early literacy assessment scores of kindergarten students, focusing on gender, parents' education level, and school setting. The population consisted of 220 pre-kindergarten students from the Midlands region of South Carolina who attended a Title I and a…

This article examines the effects of Montessori music-movement activities on the development of the rhythmic abilities of 59 children from Montessori preschools, aged between 3 and 6 years. Children were deployed into two experimental groups (EG 1 (n = 20) & EG 2 (n = 22)) and a control group (CG) (n = 17). Our intervention consisted of…

In this research, we explore the use of storybooks as an educational tool for fostering a meaningful understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for children and consider how AI should be depicted in storybook narratives to achieve this. We present guidelines for the depiction of AI in narratives for four- to six-year-old children…

The Merdeka Belajar curriculum is the current curriculum developed by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, which should be implemented thoroughly in 2024. Project-based learning is identically engaged with this curriculum, which offers many advantages to enrich the quality of education. This method has been promoted and implemented in several…

Engaging in frequent, meaningful conversation during the early years of schooling is foundational for children's literacy development. Specifically, developing oral language through daily conversations is essential for language comprehension, and eventually, reading comprehension. In this article, we discuss how teachers can use the…

Children's early school experiences shape their learning in future years. The transition from pre-kindergarten, or pre-K, to kindergarten is particularly important. This critical time builds the foundation for children's academic, behavioral and social-emotional skills, as well as families' relationships with their child's teachers for years to…

Engaging in frequent, meaningful conversation during the early years of schooling is foundational for children's literacy development. Specifically, developing oral language through daily conversations is essential for language comprehension, and eventually, reading comprehension. In this article, we discuss how teachers can use the…

Background: Universal Prekindergarten (UPK) programs often expand by offering Pre-K in both public schools and in community-based providers (CBOs). This approach gives families more options and allow UPK programs to increase access more quickly. However, little is known about which CBOs select into these systems. This is an important gap in the…

Researchers have argued that writing skills have significant implications for developing reading skills. A growing body of research has provided evidence that writing skills, in particular invented spelling, provide unique predictive information regarding future reading skills. This study examined which preschool early writing skills (i.e., name…