Inferential talk during teacher–child interactions in small-group play

This study examined teachers’ questions and children's responses during a play-based activity implemented in small groups within preschool classrooms. The first aim of this study was to describe teachers’ questions in terms of four levels of abstraction (i.e., a continuum of literal to inferential questions) and children's responses to these questions. The second aim was to examine the relations between teachers’ questions and children's responses using sequential analyses, to include children's level of abstraction and mean length of utterance (MLU). Participants were 39 teachers and up to six children from their preschool classroom. We found that teachers’ questions made up an average of 25% of their talk to children during play, and were relatively balanced between literal and inferential questions. Furthermore, significant sequential associations were found between the level of abstraction of teachers’ questions and the level of abstraction of children's responses (e.g., teachers’ inferential questions tended to elicit children's inferential responses). Finally, we found that teachers’ inferential questions were not related to children's MLU; that is, teachers’ more abstract questions did not elicit longer utterances from children. These findings suggest that play is a valuable context in which teachers may promote children's use of inferential language.     

Children's Reasoning as Collective Social Action through Problem Solving in Grade 2/3 Science Classrooms

Research on young children's reasoning show the complex relationships of knowledge, theories, and evidence in their decision-making and problem solving. Most of the research on children's reasoning skills has been done in individualized and formal research settings, not collective classroom environments where children often engage in learning and reasoning together to solve classroom problems. This study posits children's reasoning as a collective social activity that can occur in science classrooms. The study examined how children process their reasoning within the context of Grade 2/3 science classrooms and how the process of collectivity emerges from classroom interactions and dialogue between children as they attempt to solve their classroom problems. The study findings suggest that children's reasoning involves active evaluation of theories and evidence through collective problem solving, with consensus being developed through dialogical reasoning.     

Making sense of science in the reception class

In the context of growing awareness of young children's capabilities, and debates about the nature of their reasoning in science, this study set out to explore the ways in which reception children make sense of classroom experiences in science. A particular challenge of the study was to develop appropriate and productive approaches to investigating young children's developing thinking. The first phase of research, reported in this paper, concentrated on the topic of electricity. A series of case studies was undertaken to examine children's learning in a classroom context. Classroom sessions were video recorded and transcribed to examine the development of children's practical competence in circuit making, and interviews were carried out to elicit children's views about electric circuits. Analysis of the classroom sessions revealed children's growing competence in circuit making through their self‐directed efforts. The interviews prompted predictions and explanations that were not offered spontaneously. Responses indicated a range of models of the circuit and forms of explanation for what was happening in the circuit. The relationship between children's practical competence, predictions and explanations was not straightforward. Analysis revealed marked differences in models of the circuit and forms of explanation in children with the same levels of practical competence. This has important implications for the ways in which children's views are assessed.     

Teacher education and PK outcomes: Are we asking the right questions?

Recent studies do not find consistent relationships between teacher degree, major, and certification, and PK outcomes (Early, D. M., Bryant, D. M., Pianta, R. C., Clifford, R. M., Burchinal, M. R., Ritchie, S., et al. (2006). Are teachers’ education, major, and credentials related to classroom quality and children's academic gains in pre-kindergarten? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21, 174–195; Early, D. M., Maxwell, K. L., Burchinal, M., Bender, R. H., Ebanks, C., Henry, G. T., et al. (2007). Teachers’ education, classroom quality, and young children's academic skills: Results from seven studies of preschool programs. Child Development, 78, 558–580), raising questions about the impact of the degrees and certifications of PK teachers on children's learning. The researchers note that these findings do not support the conclusion that teacher education does not matter for children's learning. However, they do not provide specific directions for policymakers who decide on the minimum requirements for teacher qualifications in PK programs. This commentary raises issues for researchers and policymakers about whether PK is part of a K-12 educational continuum, how teachers are prepared to teach, how research is designed to inform policy, and the importance of developmental science in policy-relevant education research. As part of a future PK-16 education system, we propose that the BA be the entry requirement for PK as it is for K-12 teachers, followed by professional education combined with extensive classroom experiences.     

The impacts of an early mathematics curriculum on oral language and literacy

Competence in early mathematics is crucial for later school success. Although research indicates that early mathematics curricula improve children's mathematics skill, such curricula's impacts on oral language and early literacy skills are not known. This project is the first to investigate the effects of an intensive pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum, Building Blocks, on the oral language and letter recognition of children participating in a large-scale cluster randomized trial project. Results showed no evidence that children who were taught mathematics using the curriculum performed differently than control children who received the typical district mathematics instruction on measures of letter recognition, and on two of the oral language (story retell) subtests, sentence length and inferential reasoning (emotive content). However, children in the Building Blocks group outperformed children in the control group on four oral language subtests: ability to recall key words, use of complex utterances, willingness to reproduce narratives independently, and inferential reasoning (practical content).     

Instructional support predicts children's task avoidance in kindergarten

This study examined the role of observed classroom quality in children's task-avoidant behavior and math skills in kindergarten. To investigate this, 1268 children were tested twice on their math skills during their kindergarten year. Kindergarten teachers (N = 137) filled in questionnaires measuring their professional experience and also rated the children on their task-avoidant versus task-focused behaviors. Trained observers used the CLASS instrument (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008) to observe 49 kindergarten teachers (out of 137) on their emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. The results of multilevel modeling showed that kindergarten classrooms differed in terms of children's task-avoidant behavior and math skills. Moreover, the more instructional support was evidenced in the classroom, the less children were rated as showing task-avoidant behavior. Task-avoidant behavior then predicted children's low levels of math skills. The findings of the present study emphasize the importance of quality of instructional support for children's adaptive classroom behaviors.     

Children's Behavioral Adjustment in Pre-Primary Schools in Tanzania: A Multilevel Approach

Research Findings: The present study concerns children's behavioral adjustment in the context of pre-primary schools in Tanzania. Twenty teachers and 320 children from 20 pre-primary schools participated in the study. Teacher–child relationships, children's behavioral adjustment, and teachers' cultural beliefs were reported by teachers; classroom emotional support was measured through classroom observation. The multilevel findings revealed that high-quality teacher–child relationships and high-quality teacher sensitivity were related to children's prosocial behavioral adjustment. In contrast, observed low-quality teacher–child relationships and low-quality teacher sensitivity were found to be related to children's aggression and anxiety. In addition, teachers' cultural beliefs, concerning play in particular, were found to be related to children's anxiety. The findings support the ecological theory regarding the importance of child characteristics and classroom context in shaping a child's behavioral adjustment in schools. Practice or Policy: The results have implications for pre-primary school teachers in Tanzania, to consider their relationships with children and their sensitivity to children as important aspects for children's behavioral adjustment in schools. They also inform policymakers about the role of pre-primary school teachers in the country.     

Preschool teachers’ literal and inferential questions and children's responses during whole-class shared reading

This study examined the extent to which preschool teachers used literal and inferential questions during classroom-based shared reading. Specific foci included (a) investigating the association among the level of literal or inferential language in the text, teachers’ text-related questions, and children's responses using sequential analysis, and (b) examining the relation between teachers’ inferential questioning and children's vocabulary outcomes. Participants included 25 preschool teachers and 159 four-year-old children. Teachers videotaped their whole-class shared reading of an informational narrative text. Teachers and children's extratextual talk was analyzed and children completed standardized vocabulary assessments in fall and spring of the academic year. When reading this informational narrative text, teachers posed, on average, slightly more inferential questions than literal questions. Significant sequential associations were observed between the level of teachers’ questions and child responses, with inferential questions consistently eliciting inferential child responses. Few characteristics of teachers’ questions were associated with children's vocabulary outcomes. Results suggest that preschool teachers can use inferential questioning to encourage children to participate in conversation at complex, inferential levels; informational texts appear to provide a successful context for this inferential discourse. Implications for teachers and allied professionals are discussed.     

Parental Conceptions of School Readiness: Relation to Ethnicity,Socioeconomic Status,and Children's Skills

Research Findings: This study analyzed the school readiness beliefs of parents of 452 children from public pre-kindergarten and the relations of these beliefs to socioeconomic status and children's readiness skills. Parents conceived readiness largely in terms of the ability to name objects, letters, or numbers, but few included inferential skills. Readiness beliefs were related not to socioeconomic status but to ethnicity. Readiness beliefs about the importance of independence, social competence, nominal knowledge, and inferential skills were related in expected ways to children's skills. Practice or Policy: Infrequent inclusion of inferential skills among parents' readiness beliefs may not bode well for children. Informational programs for parents about the critical role of higher order cognitive skills and ways to promote them are needed.     

The impact of HeadsUp! Reading on early childhood educators’ literacy practices and preschool children's literacy skills

This study evaluated the effects of HeadsUp! Reading (HUR), a professional development literacy workshop series, with and without supplementary mentoring on early childhood educators’ (ECEs) practices and its subsequent effect on preschool children's literacy skills. ECEs who served children in high poverty communities participated in a 15-week satellite broadcast training series. Pre- and post-assessments were completed for both the control and intervention groups. Participants in HUR and HUR + mentoring significantly exceeded the control ECEs on the quality of their classroom environments. Children's literacy skills improved more in the HUR classrooms than in control classrooms. Mentoring did not enhance preschool children's literacy skills more than HUR alone. The treatment was equally effective for Spanish- and English-speaking children. Early childhood educator participation in HeadsUp! Reading can enhance the effectiveness of classroom literacy practices and has subsequent benefits on language and literacy skills of preschool children from poverty backgrounds. These findings further support the crucial role of high quality programs for the development of children's literacy skills.     

Developing Model‐Based Reasoning

Key elements of the structure and function of models in mathematics and science are identified. These elements are used as a basis for discussing the development of model‐based reasoning. A microgenetic study examines the beginnings of model‐based reasoning in a pair of fourth‐ and fifth‐grade children who solved several problems about chance and probability. Results are reported in the form of a cognitive model of children's problem‐solving performance. The cognitive model explains a transition in children's reasoning from tacit reliance on empirical regularity to a form of model‐based reasoning. Several factors fostering change in children's thinking are identified, including the role of notations, peer interaction, and teacher assistance. We suggest that model‐based reasoning is a slowly‐developing capability that emerges only with proper contextual and social support and that future study should be carried out in classrooms, where these forms of assistance can also be part of the object of study.

Model‐based reasoning is a significant intellectual milestone because it bridges the worlds of personal, intuitive knowledge, on the one hand, and mathematical‐scientific theory, on the other. However, across disciplines, consensus is still forming about what model‐based reasoning comprises, and there is little knowledge about its ontogenetic origins or how it develops. We consider analogy as the core of modeling, because in model‐based reasoning a system in one domain is used to understand a system in another. To understand how models come to play a role in reasoning, it is important to initiate study of their origins. Accordingly, we report a microgenetic study examining the beginnings of model‐based reasoning in a pair of young children solving problems about chance and probability. In this study we are engaged in the enterprise of modeling the development of modeling. That is, we report our results in the form of a cognitive model of children's problem‐solving performance that explains a transition in reasoning from a tacit reliance on empirical regularity to a form of model‐based reasoning. It is important to note the two distinct meanings for the term model used in this article. The first describes how children come to understand and appropriate a system of reasoning exemplified in practices of modeling. The second describes a research tool, a model of human reasoning—specifically, how children in this study began to use models of probability to reason about uncertain events. In this report, we use the terms model or model‐based reasoning to refer to the former interpretation, whereas references to a cognitive model denote the simulation of children's thinking—in this case, implemented as a computer program.

Before describing the empirical work, we first identify some key elements of the structure and function of models. Next, these elements of modeling are used as the basis for generating some conjectures about the development of model‐based reasoning. We describe a task that we used as a window to understanding progression in student reasoning toward reliance on models as tools for thought. We present our rationale for developing cognitive models of student performance and explain some choices concerning the implementation of the cognitive model reported here. Finally, we turn to the children's performance on chance and probability tasks and explain how that performance illuminates both what children do not understand about models and the kinds of relevant knowledge that they are acquiring.     

Playing with others: Head Start children's peer play and relations with kindergarten school competence

Time-sampled observations of Head Start preschoolers’ (N = 264; 51.5% boys; 76% Mexican American; M = 53.11 and SD = 6.15 months of age) peer play in the classroom were gathered during fall and spring semesters. One year later, kindergarten teachers rated these children's school competence. Latent growth models indicated that, on average, children's peer play was moderately frequent and increased over time during preschool. Children with higher initial levels or with higher slopes of peer play in Head Start had higher levels of kindergarten school competence. Results suggest that Head Start children's engagement with peers may foster development of skills that help their transition into formal schooling. These findings highlight the importance of peer play, and suggest that peer play in Head Start classrooms contributes to children's adaptation to the demands of formal schooling.     

Ecological contexts and early learning: Contributions of child,family, and classroom factors during Head Start,to literacy and mathematics growth through first grade

The current study investigated the extent to which child, family, and classroom factors during Head Start are related to children's literacy and mathematics skills at the beginning of preschool and through first grade. Children and families (n = 945) were participating in the Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), a large-scale data collection effort that assessed children's developing skills as well as their family and classroom environments. Longitudinal growth models revealed that Head Start children began their academic careers well below their more advantaged peers in literacy and mathematics, although by the end of first grade, their scores were nearly on par with national averages. Demographic characteristics of children, as well as their early language and social skills, were the strongest predictors of children's initial status and growth in both early academic domains. Results highlight key foundations and specific promotive factors of early school success for the nation's most disadvantaged children.     

Classroom Age Composition and Vocabulary Development Among At-Risk Preschoolers

Research Findings: The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the relationship between classroom age composition and preschoolers’ vocabulary gains over an academic year and also to examine whether these relations were moderated by classroom quality. In this study (N = 130 children in 16 classrooms representing a subset of all children enrolled in these classrooms), results showed a significant cross-level interaction between classroom age composition and children's age, suggesting positive effects of greater variance in classroom age composition for younger but not older children. The interaction between behavior management (1 dimension of classroom quality) and classroom age composition was also significant, indicating that a wider distribution of classroom age composition was positively related to children's vocabulary gains within classrooms characterized by better behavior management. Practice or Policy: Findings underscore the importance of children's social interactions with more knowledgeable conversational partners in promoting their vocabulary development and signify the need to help teachers learn how to manage children's behaviors so as to provide a classroom that is optimal for child learning.     

Relations among preschool teachers' self-efficacy,classroom quality,and children's language and literacy gains

This study examined the relations among preschool teachers' self-efficacy (n = 67), classroom quality (instructional and emotional support), and children's (n = 328) gains in print awareness and vocabulary knowledge over an academic year in the US. Results indicated that teachers' self-efficacy and classroom quality served as significant and positive predictors of children's gains in print awareness but not vocabulary knowledge. However, results also showed a significant interaction among teachers' self-efficacy, classroom quality, and vocabulary gains: for children of teachers with higher levels of self-efficacy, higher levels of classroom quality (emotional support) were associated with higher vocabulary gains.     

Mathematical language and mathematical abilities in preschool: A systematic literature review

It is well established that early general language during preschool is critical for children's mathematical abilities. In an attempt to further characterize this association between language and mathematics, an increasing number of studies show that one specific type of language, namely mathematical language or the key linguistic concepts that are required for performing mathematical activities, is even more critical to children's mathematical abilities. The purpose of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence on mathematical language and mathematical abilities. We focus on preschool children as nearly all of the existing work has been done at this age. We first explain how mathematical language has been defined across studies, and report how it has been evaluated in studies in preschool. Next, we present the results of our systematic review. Following the PRISMA guidelines and after a critical appraisal, we ended with a set of 18 papers that were all of sufficient methodological quality. In these studies, mathematical language was defined as terms that are about numbers and operations on numbers (e.g., nine), but also included linguistic terms that do not directly refer to numbers, yet are important to understand mathematical concepts (i.e., quantitative and spatial terms such as fewest and middle, respectively). Some of these studies evaluated children's performance on mathematical language tasks, while others evaluated the mathematical language input provided to the child by their (educational) environment (teachers/parents/interventionists). Mathematical language correlated positively with children's mathematical abilities, concurrently and longitudinally. It also directly affected children's mathematical abilities, as was shown by intervention studies. We discuss potential directions for future research and highlight implications for education, arguing for more support for teachers and parents to improve the use of mathematical language in the classroom and in home settings.     

Children's shyness,popularity, school liking,cooperative participation,and internalizing problems in the early school years

Aims of the present study included understanding the manner in which shyness during the first year of formal schooling predicts early popularity in the peer group, as well as the manner in which children's shyness and popularity uniquely contribute to later school liking, cooperative participation, and internalizing problems. Structural equation modeling using parents’, teachers’, and children's reports suggested that children's (N = 291; 46% girls) kindergarten shyness predicted lower school liking and lower cooperative participation during second grade through its negative association with first grade popularity. Shyness during the first year of formal schooling may relate to difficulties in the classroom during later years due to problematic peer relations. The indirect relation of kindergarten shyness to second-grade internalizing problems through first-grade popularity was not statistically significant. Kindergarten shyness was also directly related to higher cooperative participation, which suggests that relations between early shyness and classroom engagement may be more complex than previously assumed.     

The Capricious Nature of Theory of Mind: Does Mental State Understanding Depend on the Characteristics of the Target?

Using a between-groups design and random assignment, this study examined 214 Turkish children's (M = 11.66 years) mindreading and general reasoning about in-group members (Turks), similar out-group members (Syrians within Turkey) and dissimilar out-group members (Northern Europeans). Children heard four mindreading and four general reasoning stories with in-group or out-group members as targets. Whereas children's general reasoning about three groups was equivalent, accuracy of mental state inferences differed by target with more accurate mindreading of in-group targets compared to both sets of out-group targets. In this Turkish sample, mindreading of Syrian targets was the least accurate. Prejudice and perceived realistic threat predicted lower mindreading. These findings have important implications for understanding how similarity and intergroup processes play a role in children's mindreading.     

From Parental Involvement to Children's Mathematical Performance: The Role of Mathematics Anxiety

This study examined whether children's mathematics anxiety serves as an underlying pathway between parental involvement and children's mathematics achievement. Participants included 78 low-income, ethnic minority parents and their children residing in a large urban center in the northeastern United States. Parents completed a short survey tapping several domains of parental involvement, and children were assessed on mathematics anxiety, whole number arithmetic, word problems, and algebraic reasoning. Research Findings: The results indicated that parents influence children's mathematics achievement by reducing mathematics anxiety, particularly for more difficult kinds of mathematics. Specifically, the mediation analyses demonstrated that parental home support and expectations influenced children's performance on word problems and algebraic reasoning by reducing children's mathematics anxiety. Mathematics anxiety did not mediate the relationship between home support and expectations and whole number arithmetic. Practice or Policy: Policies and programs targeting parental involvement in mathematics should focus on home-based practices that do not require technical mathematical skills. Parents should receive training, resources, and support on culturally appropriate ways to create home learning environments that foster high expectations for children's success in mathematics.