Describes an action research project involving primary teachers who explored how to use selected children's literature to enhance young children's emergent literacy and numeracy development. Discusses selection criteria for books that effectively support emergent literacy and numeracy simultaneously. Presents teaching strategies that maximize the…

Notes that allegations of sexual abuse against early child care providers are serious, but relatively rare. Presents guidelines for preventing sexual abuse in child care and early childhood programs; guidelines include attention to staff selection, training, and supervision, and good parent-staff relations. Also offers advice for dealing with both…

This is the second part of an article that explores key questions about the role of technology in early childhood training, continuing education, and professional development, and identifies issues and challenges of teaching online. This part focuses on specific strategies and effective practices faculty and trainers can use to create a community…

Describes collaborative project between an art specialist and kindergarten teacher to develop take-home art appreciation kits for kindergartners. Discusses benefits of the collaboration for teachers, children, and families. Focuses on aesthetic inquiry approach to the art kits to develop inquiry and critical thinking skills. Describes the kits'…

University faculty members, an elementary teacher, and a school psychologist used bookmatching, an innovative form of action research, to help a kindergartner cope with sexual abuse. The project created dramatic breakthroughs in the student's behavior. His classmates all grew in their knowledge of strategies to apply if confronted by abuse. (SM)

Relates one kindergarten teacher's experiences while participating in a research project on the incorporation of portfolio assessments into student progress reports to parents. (BB)

Describes how Drake University Head Start, the largest Head Start agency in Iowa, provides extensive support for staff and parents in developing high levels of professional competency. Education and employment opportunities are provided through: a parent university; teacher associate/bus associate workshops; employment and tuition waivers;…

Presents strategies to make planning-through-play activities a fun and integral part of the preschool developmental curriculum. Strategies are influenced by a Piagetian approach and an information processing approach that focuses on development of decision making. Specific suggestions are based on a model preschool program in Brookline,…

Describes a preschool curriculum unit that includes activities designed to help prepare young children for medical treatment, visits to hospitals, and health care. (BB)

Explores the ideas of teacher Vivian Paley about social justice in the kindergarten classroom. Reviews her book "You Can't Say You Can't Play." Once kindergartners begin to grapple with questions of rejection and exclusion, Paley extends the debate to older children to encourage schoolwide conversations about justice and democracy. (SLD)

Offers a report on Visions for Children--an early childhood demonstration program with the goal of facilitating intellectual development and academic achievement and enhancing self-concepts of African-American preschoolers. Base-line data from the first two phases of child testing comparing program participants and control group children is…

Uses stories of families in one early childhood program to illustrate educators' challenges to communicate with families whose backgrounds are different from theirs, including low income families. Identifies strategies for supporting and involving families, including using empathy and patience to forge relationships, linking families with needed…

Describes how engaging preservice and inservice teachers in the process of documenting children's learning in preschool and primary classrooms enhances learning, promotes reflective thinking, and encourages professional growth. Explains that documentation provides teachers opportunities to observe children more closely; focus on children's…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) states that "Communication is an essential part of mathematics and mathematics education" (2000, p. 60). In fact, communication is one of the five process standards emphasized by NCTM. The communication standard highlights the importance of young children communicating their mathematical…

Computers have become an increasingly accepted learning tool in the early childhood classroom. Despite initial concerns regarding the effect of computers on children's development, past research has indicated that computer use by young children can support their learning and developmental outcomes (Siraj-Blatchford & Whitebread, 2003; Yelland,…