This article takes a practice perspective on professional learning to contribute through an empirical example of how professional learning can be arranged to enable change in and for professional practice, as well as for nurturing praxis. The theory of practice architectures is used to analyse the process of an action research (AR) in which…

Smart Start Illinois is a multiyear plan to provide every child with access to preschool, increase funding to child care providers to raise wages and quality, and reach more vulnerable families with early support. Launched with a $300 million investment in the fiscal year 2024 state budget, Smart Start Illinois has already yielded results. The…

Given early childhood is a critical period for acquiring the twenty-first-century skills, the present study aimed to examine the effect of design-oriented STEM activities on the twenty-first-century skills of preschool children in line with the experimental design. A mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) of 3 (time: pre-test, post-test and…

Lutheran schools transform students, families, congregations, and communities. While effective school leadership is crucial for this potential transformation, the difficulties of school leadership continue to increase. Leaders of Christian schools face challenges unique to the parochial context. The purpose of this study was to explore how…

Educational intervention is known to enhance learners in general, including deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) learners in particular. This study is a systematic review to identify educational interventions in Arab experimental studies published from 2008 to 2019 concerning deaf and hard-of-hearing children in preschool. The study used Google Scholar…

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 level of reading competency in children makes a difference in their academic progress, and subsequently such progress influences their quality of life. The excellence of pre-primary education is based on curricular and procedural quality. The aim of the research was to find out how preschool teachers develop reading literacy in preschool…

The present study aimed to examine the effect of a dialogic book reading program on preschool children's perspective taking skills. In line with this aim, a dialogic book reading program was designed, and its effects were tested in a quasi-experimental study involving both pre/post and follow-up tests. The study group consisted of 42 five-year old…

It is well recognized and codified into law that families are an important part of early childhood evaluations; how families are included in evaluations in practice is less clear. To learn about family involvement, a nationally distributed survey focused on early childhood professionals' (n = 1,118) use of family-centered practices before, during,…

This book synthesises research on very early language learning in pre-primary organised instruction settings such as kindergarten, nursery or afternoon classes. Using a framework of ecological development, it investigates the nested systems in which very young learners operate, the other agents involved in each of these systems and the influence…

Educators and instructional designers have used the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to guide their design of inclusive instruction for students with and without disabilities. Despite UDL having entered its 4th decade of development and research, there have been ongoing critiques of UDL for lacking clarity in definition, challenges…

Emotion-focused teaching in early childhood promotes children's early academic and social-emotional development and can occur through planned or informal classroom interactions. We observed video recordings of preschool teachers engaging in typical teaching practices and carrying out researcher-assigned book reading and social-emotional learning…

Early childhood educators' math anxiety and its relation to their frequency of pedagogic actions was examined through a questionnaire completed by 352 participants (aged 21-65) representative of the Swedish municipality where the study was conducted. Our sample contained 189 certified preschool teachers and 163 preschool caregivers who…

This article reports how Swedish teachers' aims and practices were modified by an ecosystem services development project that introduced insect hotels, bird boxes and planting to ten preschool yards. Teachers' understanding of ecosystem services, human--nature relationships and the impact of these on nature connectedness showed that their…

Preschool teachers are an essential part of the education system in the United Sates. The problem is that research and data about the development of literacy skills exist for kindergarten and upper grades, but there is minimal research on preschool teachers' perceptions on the development of literacy skills in a play-based learning environment.…