As a result of the association of autism with speech and language difficulties, autistic school children can be subject to interventions ostensibly intended to remedy these problems. However, my study, based in five mainstream primary schools in England, which incorporated the views and experiences of school staff (n = 36), autistic children…

Background: Traditional measures of school readiness are labour-intensive and do not assess family support. Aims: The current study used the newly developed Brief Early Skills and Support Index (BESSI: Hughes, Daly, Foley, White and Devine 2015) to examine 6-month longitudinal stability and change in teachers' ratings of young children's school…

This article addresses findings about knowing rather than assuming dialogical interactions between children. Understanding the nature of relation indicates the form of children's interaction within participatory pedagogy. During a Dialogical Approach to Observation two-year-old children, their parents and key person practitioners also enact…

This paper examines the cultural construction of disability detailed within school reading schemes. The study by the employment of proto-text analysis followed the "reading journeys" that a four- and five-year-old child experienced during the course of one academic year. The study examined 61 reading books that contained 2199…

This study examines the perspectives of a group of 10 UK undergraduate students and one Master's student on a residential field trip to four Danish forest kindergartens. Two dimensions are examined: the impact of collaborative reflection and co-construction of knowledge on student learning; and the influence of cultural assumptions on…

Technocratic accountability, which is impacting ECEC practices in England, is where the government favors evidence-based knowledge to work with children. As a result, the emotional aspect of ECEC work and emotional labor have become increasingly complex and are sometimes unrecognized. In this paper we highlight the importance of more relational,…

By the time children are 8 years of age, their attitudes, values, identities and beliefs are shaped and becoming solidly formed. Early childhood educators are uniquely positioned in children's lives to promote positive values and beliefs and to foster authentic appreciation of difference. This important work is challenged by a discourse in wider…

The author provides an overview of several theories of numeracy acquisition that, despite criticisms, have withstood the passage of time and continue to influence policy and practices in schools. These are followed by a brief review of some recent research in the domain of numeracy learning and teaching. The article ends with some of the current…

This paper focusses on peer education and specifically on young women peer educators working within the charity Home-Start in the north of England. This work is undertaken in a social context where educational achievement is increasingly measured by certification and occupational hierarchies have been 'professionalised' whilst notions of…

Well-being is a significant concept in research, policy and practice in education, but consensus about what it is is challenging. In addition, the well-being of children under eight is under-researched. Using online surveys, this paper looks at the perspectives of 155 parent/carers and 285 practitioners in England on young children's well-being.…

This paper draws on data from a study of a four-year-old child, Gareth, in his first year of formal schooling in England. The aim of the study was to identify the nature of Gareth's literacy practices across home and school spaces. The focus for this paper is an analysis of one aspect of Gareth's home digital literacy practices: his repeated…

This paper sets out to explore the thinking underpinning young children's earliest drawings, often regarded as "scribbling." It questions whether the physical satisfaction of making marks is sufficient reward for this often repeated activity, or whether with each repetition children intend deeper meanings not apparent to the eyes of the…

The aim was to investigate the policy-to-practice context of delays and difficulties in the acquisition of speech, language and communication (SLC) in children from birth to five in one local authority within the context of Bronfenbrenner's bio-ecological model. Methods included a survey of early years practitioners (64 responses), interviews with…

Aim: This study sought to identify the impact of a maths intervention aimed at enhancing performance, self-concept and self-regulation, while reducing negative emotional responses. Method: A quantitative, between-group repeated-measure experimental design was used to investigate differences between the groups over time. One-hundred-and-forty-four…

The academy has tended to marginalise young children as researchers (YCAR), even in matters affecting them, which denies young children agency and amounts to social injustice. Drawing on the YCAR study, which adopted a qualitative "jigsaw" methodology to co-research with children aged four to eight years (n = 138), their parents,…