Maternal Socialization and Kindergarten Children’s Behaviors from Jordanian Mothers’ and Teachers’ Perspectives

This study investigated whether Jordanian mothers’ self-reported parenting practices were associated with their kindergarten children’s prosocial or anti-social behavior based on three parental patterns: nurturance, respect, and power assertion. The participants were 95 mothers with children in the kindergarten level in Jordan. Additionally, 13 teachers of these 95 kindergarten children were also participants. This Parenting Styles Inventory Scale, and the Prosocial and Anti-Social Behavior Rating Scale, developed by Lin (Influences of parenting and teaching styles on young children’s prosocial and anti-social development in Taiwan. Unpublished dissertation, Arizona State University, USA, 1995), were used as instruments. Results indicated that nurturance was the most frequent and preferred parenting pattern of participants. Mothers who are warm and nurturing were more strongly associated with prosocial behavior in their children. An unexpected finding was that mothers with more children were more assertive and strict towards them.     

Children’s Voices on Bullying in Kindergarten

Research suggests that bullying does occur in kindergarten. The extent of bullying in Norway and other Scandinavian countries is estimated to be about 12 %. The purpose of this study is to investigate children’s understanding and experiences of bullying. We use a qualitative approach and have conducted individual interviews and focus group interviews with a total of 31 children, 5 year-olds, in 4 different kindergartens. Additionally, observations were made of 4–5 year-olds in the same kindergartens, 142 children in total. The results show that the children describe bullying as doing or saying “something mean”. Exclusion from play is what all the children fear the most. This study shows that 1–2 children in each kindergarten are systematically excluded from play, and these children are overlooked by both other children and the adults in kindergarten.     

Children’s Daily Routines During Kindergarten Transition

Routines are an important feature of family life and functioning in families with young children. Common daily routines such as dinnertime, bedtime, and waking activities are powerful organizers of family behavior and may be instrumental to children and families during times of transition, such as elementary school entry. Daily routines were examined in 132 families with children entering kindergarten. Although the majority of families reported regular daily routines for their children, parents anticipated that their child’s daily routines would substantially shift upon kindergarten entry, including changes in children’s sleep habits. Significant changes in child and family routines have been implicated in adjustment difficulties during kindergarten transition. Results of this investigation are discussed in terms of aligning family daily routines with kindergarten expectations. Furthermore, educational professionals in early childhood education and elementary school can partner with families to promote seamless kindergarten transitions for all children.     

Pakistani Teachers’ Perceptions of Kindergarten Children’s Learning: An Exploration of Understanding and Practice

This paper considers perceptions of children’s learning and classroom practice to support learning in the Pakistani early years educational context. In Pakistan, there is a growing focus on quality provision of early childhood education and building early childhood education teacher capacity. Over the course of one academic year, data were collected from kindergarten teachers in a Pakistani urban school through interviews and classroom observations as part of a larger study. Findings presented in this paper are based on the interview data of two teachers in the sample, a novice and an experienced teacher. Data analysis examined their perceptions of kindergarten children’s learning and of their practice to support kindergarten children’s learning, taking into consideration the gender perspective. The results showed tensions in the teachers’ perceptions which contrasted between a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach. Perceptions of their practice reflected a formal, teacher-directed approach rather than a constructivist approach and a teacher-directed skills approach to teaching. Several factors, including deep-rooted perceptions as well as curriculum structure, time, number of staff and resources, contributed to this.     

Early Childhood Teachers as Socializers of Young Children’s Emotional Competence

Young children’s emotional competence—regulation of emotional expressiveness and experience when necessary, and knowledge of their own and other’s emotions—is crucial for social and academic (i.e., school) success. Thus, it is important to understand the mechanisms of how young children develop emotional competence. Both parents and teachers are considered as important socializers of emotion, providing children experiences that promote or deter the development of emotional competence. However, compared to parents, early childhood teachers’ roles in socializing young children’s emotional competence have not been examined. Based on the findings from research on parental socialization of emotion, in this theoretical review we explore possible teacher roles in the development of young children’s emotional competence. Additionally, we suggest future research focusing on early childhood teacher socialization of emotion, and discuss theoretical and practical benefits of such research.     

A Phonetic Study of Young Children’s Speech

Abstract. The author examined the effectiveness of training in symbolic logic for improving students' deductive reasoning. A total of 116 undergraduate students (approximately equal numbers of men and women) enrolled in 1st-year university philosophy courses in symbolic logic participated in 2 studies. In both studies, students completed booklets of categorical and conditional syllogisms at the beginning of the course and again at the end of the course. In Study 2, students also specified their reasoning strategies. Results indicated that students' strategies changed with training (students increased their use of mental models and mental rules with categorical and conditional syllogisms, respectively), but their reasoning performance improved only moderately. The educational implications of these results are explored.     

Using Literature to Support Low Literate Parents as Children’s First Literacy Teachers

Parents are viewed as children’s first literacy teachers. As such, they are often encouraged to book share and read with their young children. Low literate parents may lack not only basic reading skills, but also second order skills related to sharing books successfully. Early childhood professionals are encouraged to form a dynamic, reciprocal relationship with parents wherein everyone learns and supports the literacy needs of children. Seventeen current children’s books are reviewed and recommended for sharing with children and families.     

Kindergarten Teachers’ Conceptions of Environmental Education

A written questionnaire was used to obtain information regarding Greek kindergarten teachers’ personal views on the concept of Environmental Education (EE). The questionnaire was also designed to obtain the teachers’ views relative to a series of theoretical and methodological issues concerning the application of EE. It was ascertained that the prevalent conception of the kindergarten teachers includes the following: (a) it is directed towards a knowledge-centered type of EE, (b) it is primarily centered on nature and its protection in terms of EE content, (c) it aims not only to shape citizens willing to adopt environmental measures recommended by the experts, but who will also actively participate in social actions for the protection of the environment, (d) it favors learning procedures in the environment with field study activities, (e) it must be compulsory in the kindergarten level.     

Children’s Models about Colours in Nahuatl-Speaking Communities

This paper presents the development and structure of indigenous children’s ideas about mixing colours as well as their ideas about each colour, derived from their traditions. The children were interviewed both at school and outside it, and an educational proposal was implemented. Ideas expressed in the school context were analysed using the partial possible model, which states that the inferences and explanations used to describe a subject consist of constricting ideas, rules of correspondence, and a set of phenomenological inferences about processes. After identifying these components in the children’s ideas, we developed models to describe their conceptions about mixing colours. We employed a different approach to analyse children’s ideas related to their cultural context. The results showed that children change from a conception that focuses on colours as entities that do not change and as properties of objects (model 1) to the idea that colour represents a quality of substances or objects that can be modified by mixing colours (model 2). Cultural context analysis showed that stories are independent from one another and that they are not connected to colour mixing processes, only to the actions of colour on people. We concluded that students generate independent constructions between school and cultural knowledge.     

Sensorimotor Control of Speech and Children’s Reading Ability

Studies of the role of phonological representations in learning to read have almost exclusively focused on speech perception. In the current study, we examined links between sensorimotor control of speech, reading, and reading-related abilities. We studied two languages, English and Dutch, which vary in the regularity of their spelling-to-sound mappings. There were 236 American and Dutch children, 4 to 8 years old, who performed an altered auditory feedback task in which the first formant of the /?/ vowel was altered. A stronger response to altered feedback for literate relative to preliterate children was observed, and this was particularly the case for the Dutch children. Moreover, the magnitude of the responses was related to precursors of reading in preliterate children and to reading skill in literate children. We propose that these findings could be related to changes in children’s speech production skills that facilitate the integration of orthographic and phonemic information.     

Teachers’ and Children’s Perceptions of Creativity In High- and Low-Anxious Children

Abstract

Expectations of citizens for the role of the school board with respect to four educational concerns were examined with educational attainment and family income of citizens as independent variables. The population for the study was 1,794 citizens in twelve Wisconsin school districts. Citizens were placed in one of five education and one of five family income groups and mean expectation scores were treated statistically with analysis of variance and the Sheff6 post hoc means test. Expectation scares were obtained from responses to four sets of interview questions scaled from conservative to liberal. Generally, the higher the educational attainment and family income of citizens, the more liberal were their expectations for the role of the school board.     

Children’s Narrating as a Way of Learning About Other People’s Beliefs in Interaction with Teachers

As a genre of talk, narratives represent important building blocks in children’s learning in many fields. The purpose of the study presented in this article is to examine how teachers can encourage children’s learning about people’s beliefs through narrating. Narratives play an important part in children’s learning to understand other people and how they will act according to what they believe, think or know. This study is based on video observations of six children, 3 and 4 years old, and their spontaneous personal narratives told to teachers over a period of 8 months. The narrative analysis revealed that in most of the narratives the teachers were passive listeners or were concerned about the structure of events. The teachers seldom asked questions about the children’s mental state or disagreed with the child in ways that revealed their different beliefs. Suggestions about implications of this study are that early childhood teacher education should focus on talking with children about what they may think or believe concerning narrated events, and also reveal what they think and believe themselves.     

Validation of Preschool Teachers’ Recall of Children’s Behavior

A multiple-choice behavioral observation scale designed to be used by preschool teachers (N = 424) was factor analyzed to obtain factor coefficients. The four factors obtained were cognitive skills, self-control, relationship with achievement model, and dependency. The factor coefficients were then applied to the ratings of 153 preschool disadvantaged children by 33 teachers and 64 teacher aides. Three multi-trait, multi-rater matrices were analyzed using Campbell and Fiske’s convergent discriminant validation procedures. The analyses supported convergent and discriminant validity of three of the four traits.     

Preschool Teachers’ Explanations for Hygiene Habits and Young Children’s Biological Awareness of Contamination

Research Findings: Preschools have many norms and rules children are supposed to follow. Among them, behavioral norms associated with mealtime are of great consequence because eating is an essential life function. The present study examined young Japanese children’s understanding of hygiene norms and rules at mealtime from the standpoint of their awareness of contamination. Previous studies on contamination sensitivity have mainly focused on children’s knowledge itself and have paid little attention to the origins of such knowledge. However, the present study examined how adults talk to children about contamination as 1 possible source of children’s knowledge. Practice or Policy: Study 1 involved 32 days of observations during lunchtime at 3 Tokyo preschools. The teachers frequently told children to adhere to hygiene habits such as washing their hands. Although preschool teachers attached much weight to hygiene, their explanations were not precise. They often used 1-word or 1-phrase directions (e.g., “Dirty”) or just input-output explanations such as “Please wash your hands, or you’ll get sick.” Explanations of why breaking hygiene norms would lead to sickness were seldom offered to children. In Study 2, 26 children age 3 (M age = 3.7) and 22 children age 5 (M age = 5.7) were asked to explain why breaking hygiene norms would lead to sickness. In contrast with teachers’ simple expressions in Study 1, even 3-year-old children frequently generated contamination mechanism explanations (e.g., referring to germs and disgust transmission spontaneously).     

A Quantitative Study of Head Start Children’s Strengths,Families’ Perspectives,and Teachers’ Ratings in the Transition to Kindergarten

This study examined the association between preschool children’s social-interpersonal skills and their transition to school in the beginning months of kindergarten. One hundred and thirty-three preschool children participated in this study. During the spring of the pre-kindergarten year, children’s social-interpersonal skills were assessed as well as rated by teachers. In the follow-up year, parents/guardians and teachers reported on children’s adjustment to kindergarten. The results of this study found no association between parents’/guardians’ and teachers’ reports of children’s adjustment and readiness in kindergarten. Children’s social-interpersonal skills were negatively associated with teachers’ reports of children’s kindergarten readiness difficulties. The findings of this study indicate that children’s early social skills, developed prior to entering kindergarten, are important for children’s readiness for school.     

Children’s school placement in Germany: does Kindergarten attendance matter?

The positive effects of Early Childhood Programs (ECP’s) on children’s school success have been demonstrated in the literature. However, most studies were completed in the U.S.A., where ECP’s vary widely, based on differing auspice, regulation, cost, and other factors. In European countries, ECP’s are generally far more homogenous. This is particularly true for Germany where most programs are community-based Kindergartens operated under similar structural conditions.In this study, we examine the relationship between Kindergarten attendance and the 7th grade school placement of children in West Germany, differentiating associations for the children of German citizens as compared to those of immigrants. Using information from a representative population sample, the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), different models were estimated. The results indicate that there is no significant relationship between Kindergarten attendance of children of German citizens and children’s later school placement. However, for children in immigrant households the reverse is true: later school placement was significantly associated with Kindergarten attendance prior to school enrollment. Additionally, the analysis showed that controlling for Kindergarten attendance changed the level of significance for other well-known “school attainment determinants,” such as father’s education and household income.     

Welcome to BOBO’s Kindergarten

虽然每年的年龄都在长,不过,大家的童心并没有随之越来越少,每年的六一,有很多"超龄儿童"依然过得不亦乐乎,我们这里的两位——井宝同学、包子同学,聊起小时候的事情也是童心未泯。     

Reasoning as a Pedagogical Tool: Tolstoy’s Real Happening Stories for Children

Viewing Tolstoy’s works from psychological and intellectual perspectives demonstrates his approach to children’s literacy and especially the development of reasoning, which he presents in his writing for children and the stories he includes in his New ABC book (1875a) and four Readers (1875b). This article examines Tolstoy’s reasoning approach in education and its application in his real happening stories for children. Some of Tolstoy’s ideas about upbringing that are expressed in his stories are similar to ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) and a Swiss developmental physiologist contemporary to Tolstoy, Jean Piaget (1896–1980). Tolstoy’s real happening stories treat situations that a child might actually experience; they propose and teach scenarios that might influence a child’s or an adult’s thinking about ways to obtain an education. Thus, in Tolstoy’s approach to children’s education, reasoning becomes a pedagogical tool, used to develop knowledge, experience and critical thinking ability.