When the author stepped into the lead specials teacher role at a private elementary school in Charlotte, North Carolina, he was convinced that early childhood educational experiences could shape students' later cognition. He asked himself the question: What novel task might he set for the students that did not rely on rote learning, logic, or…

A design experiment where students in Grade 5 (11-12 years old) play the Color Run game constitutes the context for investigating how students can be introduced to informal hypothesis testing. The result outlines a three-step hypothetical learning trajectory on informal hypothesis testing. In the first step, students came to favor sample space…

This article reports on a study in which third-grade students (8-9 years) were given a degree of agency in conducting chance experiments and representing the outcomes. Students chose their own samples of 12 coloured counters, ensuring all colours were represented. They predicted the outcomes of item selection, tested their predictions, explained…

Informational text (IT) is a type of nonfiction designed to convey information about the natural or social world. Reading IT with young children increases knowledge of content area vocabulary and concepts and helps children build the background knowledge for success with future reading. However, children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may…

This study investigated the causes of modifications on "Tradescantia zebrina" leaves due to environmental effects by inquiry-based and long-term observations. These observations started with restricted face-to-face education at school during the COVID-19 and continued under the teacher's guidance in distance education. All the study…

Developing multiplicative reasoning is an important milestone for elementary school students, which influences their learning of later mathematical concepts (Hackenberg and Tillema 2009). For children to conceptually understand multiplication, one should move beyond merely counting by ones to dealing with composites (twos, fives, etc.) and other…

The aim of this study is to determine the effect of the emotion "happy" as induced by colors on the addition performance of grade 1 pupils. The experiment involved the pupils in the experimental group (n=80) were taught addition, using modules developed by the researcher which utilized seductive augmentation of learning materials through…

Word boundary information is not marked explicitly in Chinese sentences and word ambiguity happens in Chinese texts. This introduces difficulty to parse characters into words when reading Chinese sentences, especially for beginning readers. In an eye-tracking study, we tested whether explicit word boundary information as provided by alternating…

Block building activities help develop students' spatial reasoning, but few studies focus on the development of block building skills beyond preschool. We worked with four kindergarten, four first grade, and four second grade students to learn more about their Lego block building. We compared students' accuracy, building strategies, and spatial…

A commonly used method for supporting the writing of students with learning disabilities (LD), graphic organizers have been shown to effectively support instruction for students with LD in a variety of content areas (Dexter & Hughes, 2011). Students with LD often struggle with the process of developing their ideas into organized sentences; the…

This column provides background science information for elementary teachers. This month's issue helps teachers to understand color mixing so that they can teach this information to students.

The aim of this study is to examine the effect of rhythm training in basketball on the lay-up skill and visual attention ability of 9-10-year-old school children. 56 primary school children (28 experimental groups and 28 control groups) receiving education in the Republic of Macedonia took part voluntarily in the study. At the beginning of the…

Participation in a classroom-based study provided Grade 4 students with multiple opportunities to develop their visual meaning-making skills and competences, as well as their aesthetic understanding of and critical thinking about multimodal ensembles. Intentionally-designed instruction during the multifaceted research included a variety of…

This manuscript elaborates the value of looking beyond the written and spoken word in science education research and practice at the early childhood level. We examine one plurilingual child's descriptions of a science activity to explore the "diversity of resources" that she used while expressing her understandings of a sound…

The efficacy of a research-based fraction sense intervention for sixth graders with or at risk for mathematics difficulties (N = 52) was examined. The intervention aimed to build understanding of fraction magnitudes on the number line. Key concepts were taught with a narrow range of denominators to develop deep understanding. The intervention was…