This paper reports on a study concerning the social nature of young students' informal inferential reasoning. Employing inferentialism as a background theory, we examine cognitive and sociocultural aspects of reasoning that arose during group discussions as well as trace relations between those aspects. Following a design experiment approach, we…

Research into early childhood children's understandings in science has a long history. However, few studies have drawn upon cultural-historical theory to frame their research. Mostly, what is known has come from studies which have examined individual understandings of science concepts, without reference to culture, context or the collective nature…

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether systematic instruction of informational texts can enhance kindergarteners' cognitive involvement in text discussion and comprehension skills. The sample consisted of 15 children aged 5-6 years old in a kindergarten classroom located in a rural area in Rethymno, Crete. A four-phase…

This study examined young children's cognitive engagement during classroom book reading with different types of books in Greek kindergarten schools. Twenty teachers read four books--two fiction (familiar/unfamiliar story format) and two information books (expository/narrative text). As expected, children's and teachers' cognitive engagement was…