The problem addressed in this study was that many urban minority students in a Midwestern state begin school without the requisite emergent literacy skills. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the instructional approaches used by early childhood education (ECE) teachers in an urban community in a selected Midwestern…

A fundamental question in early childhood mathematics concerns the relationship between young children's own informal signs and the formal abstract symbolic language of mathematics. This study presents research investigating the genesis of mathematical semiosis from a Vygotskian cultural-historical (social-semiotic) perspective. In this study we…

The paper contains two different studies on preschool children's physical activity at indoor playground markings. Both of these studies are designed as two-factor experiments. Participants were children (N=87, 41 females, 46 males; Mage= 66.4 months) from an urban public preschool. Two main hallways of the school were painted with playground…

In this commentary, pedagogical reflection is examined through the lens of a practitioners' personal memories of childhood play. The telling of these stories uncovers and describes the ways in which teachers' personal "play histories" and their reflections upon them could inform their facilitative relationship to, provision for, and…

Drawing from transnational feminism, we describe the interplay of multiple identities influencing teaching and research. By exploring our stories of border crossing as first/second-generation immigrant women, we highlight the importance of building communities of care in collaborative relationships. We explore the reciprocal relationship between…

Research documents that young children in high-quality teacher-child relationships experience better school adjustment and are more engaged in learning. Yet, many American kindergarten (age 5) teachers report spending less time on relationship building and children's social and emotional development given pressure to have students reading and…

In early childhood education, a long-standing debate exists around issues related to school readiness and the transition to school. This paper describes an action research project implemented by teachers in an urban Australian preschool which gathered multiple stakeholder perspectives about school transition. The project was initiated to support…

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…

Early childhood environmental education focusses on expanding children's bio-affinity, developing their environmental attitudes and encouraging them to behave in a more environmentally friendly manner. One example of the educational method that is based on high-quality practices of both early childhood education and environmental education is the…

This article describes how early years practitioners working in different settings, with different experiences and qualifications, can work and learn together. It is a small-scale case study of an eight-month project, with a grass-roots approach, involving early years settings within the reach area of an inner-London Children's Centre. The data…

This study examined the validity of teacher assistant report of children's classroom peer play behaviors using the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS). Participants for the examination of construct validity were 344 urban Head Start children. Exploratory factor analyses resulted in a reliable three-factor solution, corroborating the…