Background: Teachers' perspectives provide crucial insights into classroom practice in early childhood education settings. Although many kindergarten programmes emphasise play "and" assessment to support children's learning and development, recent research suggests that there are some disparities between teachers' articulated role of…

During a classroom-based study that featured wordless and almost wordless picturebooks, instruction and adult mediation communicated to Kindergarten children that elements of visual art, design, and layout are fundamental to meaning-making when transacting with this format of literature. The illustration techniques described by Ray (2010) were…

This study explored the similarities between the philosophies and techniques used by select high school athletic coaches and select elementary reading teachers. The study shows parallels between the psychology behind coaching methodology within high school athletics and differentiated instruction within the elementary reading classroom. The…

Professional literature suggests that many primary (K-3rd) teachers have a flawed understanding of the structure of the English language. However, the extent to which specific strategies can effectively address these misconceptions is not well known. This mixed methods study examined primary (K-3) educators' perceptions of the structure of the…

Given the hegemony of developmentalism in early childhood education and care, this article uses a poetic juxtapositional approach to bewilder Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Critical consideration of how the theory of cognitive development has contributed to the imagining of a universal, ahistorical child and childhood(s) are discussed…

Purpose: Both fictional oral narrative and expository oral discourse skills are critical language competencies that support children's academic success. Few studies, however, have examined African American children's microstructure performance across these genres. To address this gap in the literature, the study compared African American…

This study examined vocabulary intervention--in terms of targets and techniques--for children with language impairment receiving speech-language therapy in public schools (i.e., non-fee-paying schools) in the United States. Vocabulary treatments and targets were examined with respect to their alignment with the empirically validated practice of…

Analysts often examine the black-white test score gap conditional on family income. Typically only a current income measure is available. We argue that the gap conditional on permanent income is of greater interest, and we describe a method for identifying this gap using an auxiliary data set to estimate the relationship between current and…

Using extant data, the purpose of this study is to examine methods for determining response to intervention (RTI) in a sample of kindergarten English Learners (ELs). Three commonly used methods for determining RTI--(a) benchmark criteria, (b) slope discrepancy, and (c) dual discrepancy--are investigated. Participants included 117 ELs. Students…

In experimental studies, researchers are often interested in secondary research questions that explore important aspects of main findings, such as whether or not program effects vary according to the level of fidelity in which the program has been implemented; or according to the dosage received by individuals participated in the program. In this…

Judgmental standard setting methods have been criticized for the cognitive complexity of the judgment task that panelists are asked to complete. This study compared two methods designed to reduce this complexity: the yes/no method and the single-passage bookmark method. Two mock standard setting panel meetings were convened, one for each method,…

The purpose of this study was to describe the assumptions, beliefs, perceptions, practices, and visions that P-3 leaders from disparate settings hold in regard to system alignment as a means to identify effective bridges for P-3 programs in California. The researcher employed qualitative methods, including field notes, semi-structured interviews,…

Background: Disorders in the acquisition of morphological agreement phenomena, e.g. case marking, are characteristic of German children with specific language impairment (SLI). Although the success of individual therapy has already been documented, there are general doubts about the success of grammar facilitation in the classroom. Aims: To…

Introduction: In this document we stress the importance of developing in children a structure for advanced numerical-algebraic thinking that can provide an element of control when solving mathematical situations. We analyze pupils' conceptions that induce errors in algebra due to a lack of control in connection with their numerical thinking. We…

This article describes a methodology that local educators can use to conduct structured analytic research on the quality of primary education. The methodology has been developed by four twenty-person teams of local educators who carried out studies in rural regions of Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda. In addition to describing the…