Recent studies report high levels of physical inactivity among most of the global population, including young children. As young children spend a large fraction of their time in school, early childhood teachers have important roles in promoting adequate physical activity (PA) among children. This scoping review aims to synthesise existing evidence…

Background: Early childhood development (ECD) practitioners are essential in governing foundational aspects, such as gross motor development and participation in physical movement. Aim: This study aimed to determine ECD practitioners in Vanderbijlpark's awareness of gross motor milestone acquisition and movement guidelines for children birth to 4…

"I think I can, I think I can' puffed "The Little Engine That Could." The American folktale taught the value of optimism and hard work reflecting a growth mindset belief about abilities. A growth mindset positively impacts academic achievement, motivation, and children's agency for learning. Few studies have explored how early…

Empathy can be a powerful means for positive social change and for caring action toward wildlife and nature. Thus, there is a need for interventions that build the capacity of early childhood educators to support empathy development in young children, given the critical developmental period of early childhood and the relevance of empathy to…

Childhood trauma is a significant concern in Australia and internationally. Professionals working in the early childhood education sector (i.e., providing early childhood education and care to infants, toddlers, and children from birth to age eight) are positioned to provide valuable support for children affected by trauma. However, there is less…

Circle time is commonplace in traditional preschools, yet there are few references to the practice in Montessori's writings or in major Montessori organizations' and teacher education standards. This article investigates whether circle time is frequent in Montessori 3-6-year-old classrooms using data from a widely distributed Qualtrics survey. The…

The use of tablets by young children is increasing and more research is needed to understand how to evaluate and map the emergence of digital writing. To explore this, children (aged 2-5 years; N = 48) were asked to write on an iPad using a drawing app (1×10-minute session/week over 9 weeks). Traditional frameworks for early writing development…

This study aimed to adapt and examine the cross-cultural validity and reliability of the Coping with "Children's Negative Emotions Scale -- Teacher Version" (CNNES-T), which assesses the levels of early childhood (EC) teachers' perception of their reactions towards young children's negative emotions. For this purpose, two studies were…

This study addresses the dearth of research on preparing pre-service early childhood educators to support young children's language development. Taking a design-based approach to an undergraduate course for early childhood majors, qualitative data analysis examined the seven participating pre-service teachers' knowledge of, perspectives on, and…

Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members), have an important role in supporting young children's learning through play in early childhood. However, little consideration has been given to the relationship between these significant adults' perspectives of play and the play experiences of young…

Autism/takiwatanga causes differences in the way people develop and learn. This research, using case study methodology, focused on teacher interactions with young autistic children in different early childhood education and care settings. The findings indicated most of the teachers included the autistic child through the use of acceptance, good…

The purpose of this study was to (1) explore demands and resources among centre-based and Family, Friend and Neighbor (FFN) early childhood education (ECE) caregivers, and (2) investigate how these factors are associated with the quality of caregiver-child relationships. ECE caregivers (n = 257) completed a survey that assessed demands, resources,…

Early literacy skills are essential for children's academic development. This research used a comprehensive approach that included observations, assessments, and interviews with children and educators from various kindergartens, which involved 1040 children and 99 teachers from 71 early childhood institutions. The comparison of difficulties in…

The practice of reading aloud to children is ubiquitous in early childhood classrooms. Teachers read aloud to young children to entertain, to build early literacy skills, to develop domain specific content knowledge and vocabulary, to promote social and emotional development and well-being, and to draw children into community with each other and…

Early childhood forms the fundamental basis for developing various social-emotional skills and represents a unique opportunity to lay the foundation for healthy development. Insensitive learning environments in early childhood may lead to social-emotional difficulties, increasing the risk of developing severe behavioral problems. However,…