Due to an increasing number of children under the age of three attending early childhood education and care (ECEC), there is an increasing need for high-quality care settings. In addition to primary caregivers, ECEC teachers are important socializers of children's emotional development and may become children's attachment figures. Early preventive…

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…

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) has a crucial contribution to the future life of children, and overall quality of learning and development of a country. Even though there are no well-established international criteria to evaluate the quality of ECCE programmes because of the variability in nations' economies, workforces, political…

This case study, part of a larger qualitative research project, involved 24 kindergarteners and their teacher in the design, development, and evaluation of a research project built around the I-LEARN model (Neuman, "Learning in information-rich environments: I-LEARN and the construction of knowledge in the 21st Century." Springer, New…

Many early childhood assessment practices involve table top testing that requires young children to behave like an adult (e.g., follow adult directives, attend to task, and answer questions). Research and professional policy standards have identified and mandated alternatives. Authentic assessment is the alternative to conventional testing…

The brief explains how exposing young children to early math concepts supports their development of reasoning and problem solving skills and later success in and out of school. It describes the unique ways each of five family engagement programs funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation developed, tested, and integrated early math learning into…

This brief identifies important elements of high-quality early childhood education programs as indicated by research and professional standards. These include: (1) Early learning standards and curricula that address the whole child, are developmentally appropriate, and are effectively implemented; (2) Assessments that consider children's academic,…

The Foundation Phase is a Welsh Government flagship policy of early years education (for 3-7 year-old children) in Wales. Marking a radical departure from the more formal, competency-based approach associated with the previous Key Stage 1 National Curriculum, it advocates a developmental, experiential, play-based approach to teaching and learning.…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of a small-group intervention based on the naturalistic approach on 220 children from 3-5 years of age. All kindergarten children received weekly sessions delivered by a SLP in collaboration with the kindergarten teacher. These sessions included various book related activities. Two…

Research Findings: Big Math for Little Kids (BMLK) is a mathematics curriculum developed for use with 4- and 5-year-old children. To investigate the BMLK curriculum's effect on children's mathematics knowledge, this cluster-randomized controlled trial randomly assigned child care centers to provide mathematics instruction to children, using either…

In the United Kingdom tensions have existed for many years between the pedagogical traditions of pre-school, which tend to adopt developmentally oriented practices, and the more formal or subject-oriented curriculum framework of primary school. These tensions have been particularly acute in the context of Northern Ireland, which has the earliest…

This report explores the extent to which states (and several large cities) are positioned to provide high quality preschool education on a large scale. States and cities that are already doing so or that could do so with modest improvements offer opportunities for advocacy to advance access to high quality early education as well as for rigorous…

This paper has been developed by the Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children to serve as a companion document to the 2003 joint position statement "Early Childhood Curriculum, Assessment and Program Evaluation-Building and Effective, Accountable System in Progams for Children Birth through Age 8" of National…

Background: In 2000 the so-called "Reception" class was re-conceived (in curricular terms, at least) as the second and final year of the Foundation Stage, a distinctive educational phase for children aged 3 until entry to key stage 1 at 5 or 6 years old. The "Curriculum guidance for the Foundation Stage" endorses a play-based,…

There continues to be a need for providing teachers of young gifted learners with best-practice approaches for the development of curriculum in gifted education programs. Too often, early childhood gifted programs have focused on academic acceleration, and neglect to consider developmentally appropriate approaches to designing curriculum and…