During early childhood, children start developing their cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioural skills, laying the foundation for life-long learning. Cognitive skills are usually taught in traditional classrooms through the use of textbooks and worksheets. The learning content in these textbooks and worksheets is static pre-authored content…

Caregivers play an outsized role in shaping early life experiences and development, but we often lack mechanistic insight into "how" exactly caregiver behavior scaffolds the neurodevelopment of specific learning processes. Here, we capitalized on the fact that caregivers differ in how predictable their behavior is to ask if infants'…

To assist Teach For All network partners in understanding their successes and challenge areas, RAND researchers conducted evaluations of Teach For All partner programs in two developing countries. The first evaluation examined Teach For Nigeria. In the second evaluation (the focus of this brief), RAND researchers conducted a one-year mixed-methods…

Children's microcultures consist of small peer communities that they develop with distinct rules and roles operating outside of traditional daily activities. Presently, there is little understanding for how children may develop microcultures during competitive play, where they attempt to outperform their peers. In this study, we address the…

Some parents experience concerns relating to their child's development and seek clinical assessments for their child's behaviour. We sought to understand the concerns that led parents to seek a general clinical assessment where some children were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. We conducted a systematic review to identify the types of…

Spatial ability is a significant component of mathematical ability and a foundation for children to master mathematical knowledge. Although many studies have confirmed that technology can enhance children's learning, few have explored the use of technology in the area of children's spatial learning. In this study, we adopted a paradigm for…

Children entering elementary school require considerable transition support from parents and teachers. However, most studies on preschool-elementary school transition have focused on Western contexts. Therefore, this study investigates children's perceptions of elementary school in South Korea before and after entering school. The study sample…

Purpose: This mixed-methods study examined how differences in parental time, knowledge, and economic constraints, as well as community socioeconomic contexts, may contribute to differences in home language environment and child language ability outcomes between peri-urban and rural households in China. Method: We conducted an explanatory…

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the student's experiences of social and emotional learning in a community-based youth soccer program grounded in the hybridization of the teaching personal and social responsibility model and the cooperative learning model. Methods: This research was guided by a case study design. Qualitative data were…

People use different communication patterns based on the context and who they are addressing. These differences, known as linguistic register, are common across human speech and recognized early in development. Here, we examine 4-11-year-old American children's (N = 227) ability to use linguistic registers to determine a speaker's addressee as…

This qualitative case study explores the affordances of home-based multimodal literacy activities through the case of Mason's (pseudonym) home writing experiences, a six-year-old bilingual kindergartener. Utilizing a play-based family literacy framework, the study examines 15 handmade mini-books created by Mason, revealing three key themes: (1)…

This paper presents the development of a participatory digital platform designed to promote nature-based experiences for children aged 0 to 3 years. The project responds to the growing reduction of young children's opportunities to engage with nature in their daily lives, despite the critical role such experiences play in early development.…

The importance of outdoor learning to support children's learning and development has been recognized by research and policy. It carries the potential for social interactions, and authentic, informal, and playful learning. It fosters curiosity and creativity and develops the ability to deal with uncertain and risky situations. The Israeli Ministry…

This study aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the role of children's media in the construction of cultural and economic identity through two characters: "Caillou," a Canadian production, and "Nasreddin Hoca Zaman Yolcusu," a Turkish production. Based on the premise that media serves not only as a source of entertainment…

Questions are an essential aspect of decision-making by families and early educators in a range of contexts, and are particularly important during the informal assessment and collaborative planning that characterize home visits. Yet recommendations for questions tend to focus on form alone, such as encouragement to ask open- rather than…