Instructional coaching is an innovative approach to professional development that, while challenging, has significant benefits for teachers and children. Using reflective practice strategies--including posing open-ended questions to teachers and videotaping classes--coaches help teachers analyze their teaching and its impact on children. Coaches…

Discusses how unit building blocks can be used to enhance five major interrelated aspects of child learning, namely, physical, emotional, social, intellectual (cognitive), and intuitive development. Also presents six ways to encourage good block playing among children. (BB)

Argues that choice with responsibility belongs to the child, there must be a gradual continuous assumption of responsibility, and the choice with responsibility is a learning process. It is important to avoid offering choices that are not authentic. Adults also have responsibilities in fostering children's growth along these lines. (BF/JH)

Shows how several principles from Piaget's theory have a number of implications for the classroom learning environment, curriculum development and teacher role. (BF/JH)

Article attempts to describe a program which seeks to foster the development of persons who can respond constructively, responsibly, imaginatively and humanely to life's vicissitudes. (Author/RK)

FirstSchool is a school reform approach to early schooling for children 3 to 8 years old. It was developed over the past five years through a collaborative partnership among families, schools, communities, and institutions of higher education. The approach responds to the needs of all young children--especially in African American or Latino…

Reviews research on prosocial behaviors (kindnesses) in children. Emphasizes emotional factors, modeling, and moral principles in the development of prosocial behavior. Discusses the relationship of kindness to cognitive and social behavior. Editor/DR

Notes the dangers of "generic" early childhood curricula. Draws on a teacher's journal to describe letting preschoolers build their own learning from "natural" learning materials--including plastic and cardboard pipes, palm branches, buckets, chains and pulleys--and how the teacher supported their growth. (HTH)

Play is children's work. Alice Honig enumerates from the heart 10 ways in which children learn through play, including building dexterity; social skills; cognitive and language skills; number and time concepts; spatial understanding; reasoning of cause and effect; clarification of pretend versus real; sensory and aesthetic appreciation; extended…

A discussion of the teacher's responsibility to strengthen the "inner-connectedness of experience." (BF)

Presents an annotated bibliography which is especially valuable for parents, teachers, and others who want to learn more about how young children grow and learn. This sampling of recent and classic books, brochures, and periodicals represents the burgeoning knowledge about early childhood education and child development. (Author/BB)

A nursery school teacher shares some of her collection of spontaneous language phrases of preschoolers, and shows how they reflect the characteristics of what Piaget calls the natural reasoning processes of young children. (CS)

In this article, the author discusses playdough. Playdough is a staple play material in the early childhood classroom which provides enjoyable and satisfying experiences for young children. But, it is not merely a "fun" activity, it also provides valuable hands-on, active-learning experiences and supports children's growth and learning in many…

In this article, the author reviews the research on young children's emerging writing and presents a comprehensive synthesis of this research on emergent writing. She discusses children's early writing knowledge; writing skills development; the social process of learning to write; teacher support; and a supportive environment. She also lists six…

Reviews how emphasis on thought and feeling, cognition and affect have been balanced in early childhood education at various periods in the last half century. (Author/MP)