Play is a highly valued pedagogy in early learning settings around the world. Supporters of play have emphasised the benefits of this approach in promoting children's development and learning and their alleged freedom to choose, explore, and follow their interests. Feminist research, however, has shown that play contexts can be key sites that…

Reanna, Janet, and Jaimyka are early childhood educators who are recent graduates of the Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) Diploma program in Aurora College in the Northwest Territories of Canada. They used storytelling and related follow-up activities to teach their Indigenous language, Tlicho, in their early childhood field placements in…

The goal of the present study was to investigate the performance of four Filipino--English bilingual kindergarteners with language difficulties on a dynamic assessment of English narratives. Using a multiple case-study design, we examined the children's modifiability by detailing their responsiveness, level of skill transfer, and the amount and…

This study aims to bridge a gap between Vygotsky's seminal framework on the importance of make-believe play and adult scaffolding in children's cognitive development (e.g. executive function [EFs]) and research in cognitive neuroscience. Kindergarten children (N = 160) and teachers (N = 12) took part in the study. EFs skills and make-believe play…

This qualitative action research study in a Canadian urban public elementary school proposes teachers and early childhood education integrate different types of nature journaling into the Kindergarten Program. In this study, analysis of data collected from weekly classroom lessons and student work samples through two action research cycles led to…

Teacher-facilitation of play is proposed as an effective method for supporting early literacy learning, however, educators remain uncertain how to balance child-autonomy in play while also directing play toward explicit academic objectives. In response, this study sought to understand how kindergarten teachers can successfully facilitate play to…

In this study, we make the case for using texts children create as part of their play as a means for assessing their developing print literacy knowledge. We assessed 4- and 5-year-old children's authentic texts using categories and criteria from the "Assessing Young Children's Marks/Drawing/Print" tool, a research-based, classroom…

This research examines the use of teaching triads to the classroom-wide implementation of "Stay, Play & Talk" a peer-mediated social skills program for children in an inclusive Kindergarten classroom in Ontario, Canada. This research used prompting through peers to increase initiations and responses between children identified as…

Children identified with developmental disabilities or delays (DD) are increasingly being educated in inclusive mainstream classroom environments. At the kindergarten level, there have been pedagogical shifts towards the promotion of play-based learning, with few resources addressing how teachers can support inclusion in play. Forty-two Ontario…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the verbal interventions produced by teachers to support pupils' development of orthographic knowledge through invented spelling in three research-based intervention conditions: conventional (C condition), proximal (P condition), and progressive complexification (PC condition). We recorded six…

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted educational systems throughout the world. School closures, virtual schooling, and strict safety protocols for in-person learning changed instructional approaches to teaching. These changes were particularly disruptive in early childhood education which relies on play-based learning to support…

This paper implements a feminist new material lens to illuminate how the spaces and objects of play are actively involved in the enactment and normalisation of gender violence in kindergarten. Findings from data collected in two Canadian kindergartens show how the familiar and mundane spatial-material arrangements of play, namely the use of…

Background: Teachers' perspectives provide crucial insights into classroom practice in early childhood education settings. Although many kindergarten programmes emphasise play "and" assessment to support children's learning and development, recent research suggests that there are some disparities between teachers' articulated role of…

This research examines the effects of a computer reading program as a supplement to classroom instruction for Kindergarten students across Study 1 and Study 2 (N = 55 and 88, respectively). Students attended schools in suburban settings and all students received their typical balanced literacy programming. Students in the treatment condition used…

During their kindergarten placements, teacher candidates are learning to teach with young children who may be experiencing linguistic and racial hierarchies in a formal institutional setting for the first time. The purpose of this research is to understand how teacher candidates make sense of the socially constructed boundaries of language and…