Greetings from the Editor

The eight early childhood educators who participated in this study were admitted into a 60-credit statewide distance-delivered Associate of Applied Science (AAS) degree program at the University of Alaska. All eight educators were women of Alaska Native ancestry who lived and worked in remote and rural Native communities. Seven of these teachers were employed by Head Start programs and one taught preschool for a rural school district. A major goal of the statewide distance-delivered AAS program is that participants will become skilled observers of children and learn to use observation to make decisions that foster developmentally appropriate and culturally responsive services. All the course work in our AAS degree program involves actively doing and using observations of children. This study is based on a principle that intrinsic changes can occur in program management, curriculum development, and teacher practice when teachers learn how to use observation of children rather than external evaluation to make decisions about their programs.     

Greetings from Advisory Board Members

I welcome Western European Education as a vital addition to the library of students of comparative education who cannot read in the original language but who need to base their work on intimate acquaintance with primary sources.     

Greetings from the Editor 25 (4)

While it is clear that reading is critical to children's success throughout schooling and reading instruction research has dramatically increased over the past 2 decades, few early childhood providers have the necessary knowledge, skills and/or confidence to effectively implement evidence-based, emergent literacy strategies in their settings. This article explores the impact of the Early Learning Opportunities (ELO) initiative that provided funding to train early childhood providers to utilize the HeadsUp! Reading (HUR) curriculum in their settings. Noteworthy in this initiative was the inclusion of a coaching component designed to increase participants' ability to generalize HUR instructional practices into their classroom. Also important here was the opportunity to evaluate teaching outcomes. Results from this study indicate that all participants benefited from their involvement in the professional development activities, and that those who received coaching had an advantage with respect to growth in knowledge, skills, and confidence in implementing the new strategies into their classrooms. Implications for professional development activities suggest that coaching efforts to support implementation of newly acquired skills in the classroom may improve teacher performance.     

小编寄语

Dear all,Glad to see you again in the new issue of Overseas Englishmagazine!这个月,我们有好多故事要告诉你：猫鼬的幽灵故事、愚蠢的犯罪故事、美国有趣的法规……你一定会对这些能边听边读的故事感兴趣。不仅如此,你还能从我们的Glossary boxes里学到很多有用的单词和表达方式。