This article advocates an approach to outdoor exploration that begins by welcoming the unknown and quite possibly disorientating aspects of wild places. It proposes that one of the major ways in which young children make lasting connections with landscape is through imagination and the power of invention, and argues for the rights of children to…

Until recently, reading instruction for early grades has focused on fiction. However, the Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards both emphasize the reading of nonfiction texts to gain specific skill sets for analyzing information. Research has shown that gifted students and children with culturally/linguistically…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of using a social story intervention to improve social interaction skills in three students with autism aged between 7-8 years. A multiple-baseline-across participants design was used. To achieve the purpose of the study, the social stories were implemented. The intervention included reading…

Science education is crucial to young children's discovery and understanding of the world around them. This third edition of Science in Early Childhood has been substantially updated to include the most current research, bringing together an author team of respected science education researchers from across Australia. New chapters address changing…

In recent years, a new movement to raise awareness about early math learning has been growing in the U.S., driven by research showing that foundational math knowledge is more predictive of later success in school than nearly any other indicator, including literacy. This awareness of the importance of early math has led to an increasing focus among…

Sustainability education is increasingly understood as necessary for young children. An important aspect of early childhood sustainability education is associated with how best to integrate the conceptual basis of sustainability education with existing play-based pedagogies. Play-based pedagogies can be understood as occurring along a continuum,…

The author has been thinking a lot about happiness lately. This started in earnest when she watched researcher Shawn Achor's 7-minute TEDX talk, entitled "The Happy Secret to Better Work," with parents and staff. Afterward, she was compelled to buy his book to learn more. "The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That…

With the increase of preK programs in public schools, music educators are increasingly more involved in teaching 3- and 4-year-old students. Many music educators find this difficult, as teaching young children requires different--and often unfamiliar--training and experience in child development and appropriate early childhood methodologies. This…

Alphabet knowledge is consistently recognized as the strongest, most durable predictor of later literacy achievement. Recent research offers practical implications for increased effectiveness of teaching alphabet knowledge to young children. In this article, we outline Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge instruction (EAK), a method of practical…

This study describes the social contexts in which four-year-olds undertake practitioner-assigned cognitive/learning tasks within preschools and the different experiences these contexts provide for children. Data was collected in 34 preschool settings in South East England, using a phenomenographic mapping of activities and social groupings during…

Research in second language acquisition has paid little attention to preliterate children learning a language which is absent from their environment outside the language class. This study examines the acquisition of English words by 24 French-speaking children aged 35-59 months, who were introduced to 57 words, embedded in stories and songs. Four…

The study characterized children's literacy, mothers' beliefs, and writing mediation of homeschooled compared to formally schooled kindergartners. Participants were 60 children (ages 4-6) and their mothers (30 in homeschooling). At the children's home, we assessed children's literacy, maternal beliefs, and video-recorded mother-child joint writing…

This research examined whether a memorable and unexpected change (deviation details) presented during 1 instance of a repeated event facilitated children's memory for that instance and whether a repeated event facilitated children's memory for deviation details. In Experiments 1 and 2, 8-year-olds (N = 167) watched 1 or 4 live magic shows.…

Many early childhood assessment practices involve table top testing that requires young children to behave like an adult (e.g., follow adult directives, attend to task, and answer questions). Research and professional policy standards have identified and mandated alternatives. Authentic assessment is the alternative to conventional testing…

The focus of this research was on examining a play-based, child-centered instructional technique known as story telling/story acting (ST/SA) within a Canadian preschool setting. The goal was to examine the changes that occurred in the narrative features of preschool children's stories, and to investigate whether ST/SA fostered emerging literacy…