The aim of this research was to study how children's play behaviour was related to their cognitive skills and vocabulary development in integrated early childhood special education (ECSE) groups. The longitudinal study is part of the LASSO research project, which concerns children's stress regulation, learning and quality of early childhood…

In the quest for quality in early childhood education, it is important to explore the subtleties that define socio-culturally relevant pedagogy. A qualitative, multi-case study approach was used to explore perspectives of teachers about socio-cultural influences on their teaching in kindergarten classrooms in Ghana. Four teachers from two…

Publicly funded center-based preschool programs were designed to enhance low-income children's early cognitive and social-emotional skills in preparation for kindergarten. In the U.S., the federal Head Start program and state-funded public school-based pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs are the two primary center-based settings in which low-income…

As the United States experiences greater income inequality, more and more students experience an early science achievement gap. This study tested several competing theoretical models of early science achievement with a longitudinal sample of 14,624 children who were followed from kindergarten entry to the end of 1st grade. To understand why and…

The use of tests is a well-established tradition in the study of children's learning. Most of these tests claim to establish a child's general understanding, independent of situations and well-known contexts. I have studied narratives told by a four-year-old boy who failed to pass a false belief test (a test designed to examine whether a child is…

Ten kindergarten and 46 first grade children were given two-choice object discrimination problems, during which a prompt indicated the positive (rewarded) object, P. Guided by the prompt, all Ss subjects displaced P and therefore observed only its reward value; no direct observation was made of the reward value of the negative (nonrewarded)…

Eleven kindergarten children, nine of whom had been identified at risk, were administered tasks involving word and sentence reading with and without pictures, writing of words and a sentence, print awareness, and book handling skills. Results suggested that children expect words to be a label for pictures, that articles and prepositions are not…

This is a followup study of second and third grade children who experienced differential treatment during their kindergarten year. A total of 72 disadvantaged black children comprised the sample which was divided into three groups. Group A received a special sequential Learning to Learn Program. Group B participated in a traditional kindergarten…

Reports the influence of piano harmonic accompaniment on singing ability of 203 kindergarten students during 1 year of instruction. Finds that no significant differences in singing ability occurred in the groups. Suggests that musical aptitude develops gradually and extensive musical exposure and instruction may be necessary to improve singing…

This policy brief explores kindergarten readiness observation and its benefits to local and state level stakeholders; highlights efforts by California counties and other states to measure school readiness; and makes recommendations for moving toward statewide use of kindergarten readiness observation tools. Key points include: (1) Early efforts to…

A study investigated a model that takes into account the influence of conceptual, cultural, and linguistic variables in formation of verbal and nonverbal concepts in bilingual children. This triple-interaction model states that concepts are represented in three ways: (1) nonverbally as abstract categories; (2) symbolically by means of…

In order to investigate developmental changes in multiple classification, a matrix task was administered to 80 kindergarten first, second, and third grade children. Correct solution of the incomplete matrices, comprised of three pictures in a row and three pictures in a column meeting at a blank intersection, required identification and…

This study examined transitional knowledge during literacy development, hypothesizing that there are times when the integration of reading and writing knowledges into literacy knowledges is problematic for children because these knowledges are out of synch with one another. Data were gathered from 46 kindergarten pupils, each of whom wrote and…

Describes the effects of one community's concept of readiness for school on children in a kindergarten class. Of particular interest was the effect on children's understanding of their roles as students. The concept of readiness provided the framework for instructional activities and helped parents understand their children's roles as students.…

Discovered that the introduction of piano keyboarding into elementary school music instruction produced a positive effect regarding children's sentiment towards school. No discernible effect was revealed concerning memory skills. Includes statistical data and description of survey questionnaires. (MJP)