It's fairly well known that high-quality preschool programs can have life-altering impacts on disadvantaged children, including reductions in school dropout and crime, and increased earnings. Not as well known is that terrific preschool programs have important academic and social benefits for middle-class children too. Decades of research indicate…

This study investigated the impact of child teacher relationship training (CTRT) on teachers' ability to provide emotional support in the classroom, teachers' use of relationship-building skills, and teachers' level of stress related to the student-child relationship. Teachers and aides from one Head Start school were randomly…

A changing classroom population and lack of English as a Second Language or bilingual instruction at the preschool level has required Head Start teachers to teach English language and literacy skills to English Language Learners (ELLs). The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and validate a new scale to measure preschool teachers'…

Researchers investigated whether the Classroom Assessment Scoring System[TM] reliably characterized prekindergarten classrooms having varying ethnic and language compositions across the instrument's three domains (Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support). They also examined whether the instrument predicted children's…

This exploratory study investigated how 2 years of a coaching-based language and literacy intervention were linked to Head Start teachers' classroom environments and instructional interactions, as well as to the vocabulary, alphabet, and sound awareness learning of their preschool students. In total, 16 Head Start teachers participated in the…

Previous research has demonstrated that informant disagreement is common with the use of rating scales to assess problem behavior in school-age populations. However, much less is known about this phenomenon in preschool populations. This is important because the accurate assessment of problem behavior in preschool is complex due to the rapid…

As part of a renewed focus on early childhood mathematics education, researchers have recently called for increased attention to preschool mathematics curricula. This article, which is based on a multiyear ethnographic study in a rural preschool primarily serving African American children, contributes to this area of interest by documenting the…

The purpose of this study is to describe the conceptions of the Finnish and Estonian pre-school teachers' goals, and the achievement of these goals in their pedagogical work. The study consisted of 60 (30 from each country) interviews with pre-school teachers. The interview data was analyzed phenomenographically. The findings showed that children…

There is a growing body of literature about the potential for early childhood settings to serve as community hubs to develop relationships with families. However, there is limited information about the ways in which families and early childhood staff interface in defining what constitutes "quality" within settings. Researchers have…

Literature suggests that teachers are more likely to have conflictual relationship with children from racially/ethnically diverse background in comparison to white children. One may argue that children from racially/ethnically diverse background may be at disadvantage because the teacher-child relationship in early childhood is a significant…

Shared book reading is a prominent practice in preschools; however, limited research has examined this practice in classrooms with English language learners (ELLs). This study investigated the shared book reading practices of seven preschool teachers of Spanish-speaking ELLs to describe their vocabulary instructional practices before and after…

A growing number of early childhood professionals use the Internet to improve their skills, knowledge, and practice. The Internet may be a practical alternative for providing high-quality, research-based training, information, and resources to these professionals. When designing online materials and Web sites, however, it is important to first…

The aim of this research was to identify continuities/discontinuities in the values of Portuguese mothers with kindergarten children belonging to high and low socio-cultural backgrounds, mothers from different cultures and kindergarten teachers. The sample was composed of sixty-five mothers (fourteen Roma, fifteen Indian, twelve African, and ten…

Every preschool age child in Finland has the right to day care and the expertise of educators is multidimensional. The aim of this article is to clarify the expertise of those early childhood educators, who have the competence of kindergarten teachers (n = 80). The data consisted of the early educators' stories of their growth towards expertise.…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of commercially-available curriculum-based measurement instruments to monitor progress in the area of mathematics in terms of validity and sensitivity to growth when used with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Participants included 43 students who were deaf in pre-kindergarten…