Overcoming challenges to quality early education in developing nations, TEACH Rwanda, one high-performing education system, offers a model of childhood learning through sensitive teacher dispositions, child-centred play, and culturally relevant materials. This manuscript provides a unique window into the practices of a quality early childhood…

This work reports, from a qualitative research perspective, the development of an English Corner project for a preschool Children's House classroom in central Mexico over the course of a 3-year period. It shows the transition of a language specialist over six consecutive periods of work, from a traditional understanding and practice of teaching…

This article describes a statewide online alternative teacher preparation program in early childhood special education. The history and evolution of the program is explained along with the programmatic changes that resulted from working with noncertified teachers with a wide variety of backgrounds in both rural and urban districts. Challenges and…

Child- and family-serving programs in community-based settings wield tremendous power for improving the lives of infants and toddlers. In this article, three authors, from Ohio, Montana, and Sierra Leone, describe the principles of adaptive leadership and will share their real-world applications. Their stories explore critical questions for…

Teacher shortages are a pervasive global issue that is expected to continue, especially in low-performing, high-needs schools [O'Connor, E. A., Malow, M. S., & Bisland, B. M. (2011). Mentorship and instruction received during training: Views of alternatively certified teachers. "Educational Review," 63(2), 219-232]. In an effort to…

This report is a description and summarization of the Child Development Associate (CDA) competency-based training approaches designed and implemented by 13 federally funded pilot training projects. Chapter I provides a historical narrative of the program design and implementations in the first seven years of the CDA program. Chapter II describes…

This project came about after discussions with the general manager of the Wellington Region Free Kindergarten Association and Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips (University of Waikato) about setting up a research partnership to support the teachers at Taitoko Kindergarten in Levin. The teachers were establishing an integrated community centre (the whanau…

A two-way bilingual program was developed for children in preschool through second grade. Observation identified gaps between the program that was planned and the one implemented; data indicated few differences in academic gains between the bilingual program and the English-only classrooms. Findings pose implications for how teacher-researcher…

Noting that the transition from preschool to kindergarten presents many challenges to children, families, and teachers, presents a preschool-to-kindergarten planning transition model. The goal of the model is to provide a strategy that assists children, teachers, and families to establish and implement a collaborative transition process. Five…

This report presents information collected at a pre-conference roundtable on various aspects of mentoring programs which are seen as a potential solution to the staffing crisis in early childhood education. Part 1 defines the terms "mentoring" and "mentoring programs." It describes the nature of the relationship between mentors…

These case studies describe the design and implementation of eight selected Head Start Supplementary Training/Child Development Associate (HSST/CDA) programs. (HSST/CDA training programs are intended to prepare Head Start classroom staff to meet the competency requirements of the CDA credential.) Each case study, selected for its training methods,…

Offers two perspectives on starting science programs for children and teachers. The first perspective concerns the development of a science camp for young children. The second describes ways in which teachers bring about conceptual changes in the science education curriculum. Essential requirements for becoming science teachers are considered. (BB)

This volume presents a number of articles on different aspects of the Head Start Strategy for Spanish-Speaking Children written by participants in that effort. The first section describes Bilingual-Bicultural Curriculum Development and Evaluation projects and includes descriptions of four curriculum development projects and an evaluation of the…

Based on the conviction that interaction with homeless people can erode negative stereotypes and be a contributing part of a teacher education curriculum, students enrolled in an Early Childhood Education (ECE) course at Kent State University were allowed to substitute an observation of children at a homeless shelter for other course requirements.…

Teachers who have been trained to work with normal young children (early childhood certification) or with older handicapped children (special education certification) are often unprepared to assume the multiple responsibilities of the teacher of preschool handicapped children. The purpose of this project was to address this need by implementing…