Nothing is more fulfilling than a school library full of students hungry to learn--especially when they have all the tools and resources they need and, more importantly, a school librarian ready to help them gain the knowledge and understanding they need to apply technology to become fully digitally literate citizens. Therefore, it was very…

Research Findings: Computational thinking (CT), which is defined as the systematic analysis, exploration, and testing of solutions to open-ended and often complex problems, is an important skill to foster in early childhood. However, little is known about teachers' role in fostering CT in early childhood classrooms. To address this gap, we…

The purpose of this research was to explore how beginning middle school teacher candidates describe their emerging visions for teaching. This collective case study of one cohort of teacher candidates in a middle grades teacher education program was informed by the literature on vision and by standards for middle level education. Twenty-two…

The question of 'developmental appropriateness' in education can be both empowering and inhibiting. When are students 'ready' to talk about social injustices and systemic inequalities? How might educators introduce social inequities using developmental findings about reasoning? This article presents social domain theory as a lens through which…

Developmentally appropriate practices aim to promote success in students and provide a framework for teaching for teachers (NAEYC, 2009). These developmentally appropriate practices are found in research and support the growth and development of young children. One of the most important developmentally appropriate practices for the birth to 8…

In this study we investigated the effects of two naturalistic 2- to 4-year-old children's intervention programs aimed at promoting children's Spontaneous Focusing On Numerosity (SFON) and early numerical skills. The study consisted of a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design with a delayed posttest and an active control group participating in…

We might call this decade the era of early childhood. In the US, federal and state governments invest in the creation of public pre-kindergarten (preK) programs and create standards that articulate goals for practice and benchmarks that can be used to evaluate success. How have these trends provided a context for the evolution of preK curriculum?…

The field of early childhood education (ECE) is currently unable to reach consensus on the extent to which ECE should be based on child development. One manifestation of this situation is the dilemma that early educators purportedly face between teaching the whole child and the curriculum, between developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) and…

To provide guidance to governors looking to advance juvenile justice reforms, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices convened leading national experts--state juvenile justice directors, governors' criminal justice policy advisors, governors' cabinet secretaries, juvenile justice experts and academics--to discuss the latest…

First-grader students engaged in a guided historical inquiry about Abraham Lincoln. The teacher carefully intertwined historical content, close reading, critical thinking, and text-based writing during Reading, Writing, and Social Studies classes. Students scrutinized secondary sources, which were largely biographies of Lincoln, to build their…

Children face increased demands for interpersonal as well as learning-related social skills, especially by the vulnerable stage of school entry, due to the more structured setting, new academic requirements, and the fact that children are supposed to interact successfully within a larger and heterogeneous peer group. Although a plethora of…

Infant and early childhood mental health interventions and treatment take place in many different settings including clinics serving adults and children, primary care centers, pediatric clinics, private practice offices, homes, early intervention offices, and child care centers. In addition, the types of evaluations and services offered in these…

Six kindergarten teachers in the Greater Toronto Area were interviewed on their understandings of and approaches to culturally responsive education (CRE) in their classrooms. Teachers generally reported believing that CRE is important in kindergarten, and the practices they implemented fell into two categories: structured components of their…

Although the number of homeschool students in the United States has increased to approximately 2 million K-12 students as of spring 2010, there has been limited research on homeschool families and physical education. In particular, investigations of parent perceptions of homeschool physical education programs are lacking. The purpose of this study…

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…