Today parents are faced with increasing expectations to attend to their young children's learning and cognitive development. South Korea and Singapore are well-known for their competitive education systems and for consistently topping international student assessment tests. They also share an inflated private tuition industry, fuelled by the…

Thanks to urbanization, some developing countries have a large migrant population. Academic performance of migrant children is usually far from satisfactory, much to the concern of educators and legislators. Meanwhile, research has attested to the importance of reading skill development by the end of third grade for later academic achievement.…

The amount of intentional, instructional, purposeful play has decreased in primary grades, and didactic, test-driven instruction has increased. Emerging neuroscientific evidence is beginning to highlight the significant effects the toxic stress from poverty has on developing brains. Almost half of American children can be considered to come from…

In a world where children are likely to experience early-life trauma, relationships matter, and trust is a key in forming healthy working relationships. Intentionally teaching adults and teachers how to evoke calmness in ourselves and breathe to handle negative situations, trusted educators can then teach children to do the same. It is important…

While we are seeking new ways to ensure students' academic success, we must ensure that we are not neglecting their need for physical activity. As we innovate to improve academic success, we can also seek ways to overcome the challenges of space, time, and behavior management to reap the benefits of movement, which include increased student…

The New York State Department of Education (NYSED) has been supporting selected districts in the planning and implementation of PreK-3rd Grade systems. NYSED is supporting the use of the Framework for Planning, Implementing, and Evaluating PreK-3rd Grade Approaches developed by Kauerz and Coffman (2013). Recognizing the ultimate goal of PreK-3rd…

Prior work demonstrates the importance of introducing young children to programming and engineering content before gender stereotypes are fully developed and ingrained in later years. However, very little research on gender and early childhood technology interventions exist. This pilot study looks at N = 45 children in kindergarten through second…

Guided by a risk and resilience framework, the current study examined the associations between Latino adolescents' ("n" = 219; "M" [subscript age] = 14.35; "SD" = 1.75) perceptions of ethnic discrimination in multiple settings (e.g., online, school) and several domains of adjustment (e.g., mental health, academic),…

In "Beyond Test Scores: Leading Indicators for Education," Foley and colleagues (2008) define leading indicators as those that "provide early signals of progress toward academic achievement" (p. 1) and stress that educators "need leading indicators to help them see the direction their efforts are going in and to take…

Kindergarten has changed significantly in the last two decades: children now spend more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to…

Current theory on mentoring describes the process as a mutual learning relationship in which both the mentor and the mentee gain knowledge. Many research studies have supported the benefits of mentoring programs for at-risk elementary school children. One particularly interesting mentoring project with preschool children is Jumpstart, a national…

Students are under pressure from teachers, parents, and college admissions counselors to maintain high grade point averages, score well on high-stakes tests, participate in a variety of extracurricular activities, and gain admission to top colleges. In fact, surveys have found that most students identify academic pressure as the main reason for…

This research investigated the effects of two contrasting pre-k curricula, relative to practice as usual, on subsequent academic achievement. One curriculum had a strong literacy focus, the other was a less didactic "developmentally appropriate" curriculum that allowed children to have more influence on classroom activities. The purpose…

The purpose of this study was to determine if an association existed between student achievement scores and classroom practices used among third-grade teachers in Upper East Tennessee. The variables included classroom environment, instructional context, and social context, employing developmentally appropriate practices (DAP). Teacher…

This study examines how rural elementary school administrators perceive the effects of high-stakes testing in comparison to suburban and urban elementary administrators. High-stakes testing had a greater impact, both positively and negatively, on rural administrators than on their counterparts in suburban and urban schools. Specifically, the…