Wise teachers of infants and toddlers know how concerned, helpful, empathic, cooperative, and friendly--that is, how prosocial--very young children can be. Teachers see older infants crawl or toddle over to "friends" arriving later in the morning and greet them as if they had not seen them in weeks. Teachers and families know that these young…

As part of a research study on collaborative writing, this paper discusses defining and facilitating features that occur during face-to-face collaboration, based on the literature and research. The defining features are mutual interaction, negotiations, conflict, and shared expertise. Facilitating features include affective factors, use of L1,…

Counselors utilize many strategies, techniques, and tools when building a therapeutic alliance or addressing children's issues. Due to the serious nature of discussing problems or perhaps because of the fear of seeming insensitive, counselors often overlook humor as a means to enhance therapy. Whether deliberate or spontaneous, humor can add…

The promotion of language and social skill development for young children occurs in multiple contexts with a range of empirically validated methods. One specific intervention strategy used to promote language and communication would be to arrange the environment so that it is structured to elicit a range of communicative functions, such as…

For most teachers, more important than supplies and a spacious classroom is a happy learning environment in which each child feels welcome and safe. That is why it is so dismaying that according to one recent study, 43% of students worry about going to the restroom for fear of encountering a bully. The same study reported that a child is bullied…

According to one principal, an attention-getting fourth-grader's quick wit, creative excuses, and impish pranks demonstrated a high degree of thinking. Although the student's intellectual prowess defied testing and he was never viewed as a "smart" kid, he had a special kind of intelligence not often appreciated in school. (MLH)