Relations of Children's Effortful Control and Teacher-Child Relationship Quality to School Attitudes in a Low-Income Sample

RESEARCH FINDINGS: The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of children's effortful control and quality of relationships with teachers to school attitudes longitudinally in an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged sample. Data were collected as part of a larger intervention project during mid-fall, winter, and late spring (ns = 823, 722, and 758, respectively) for 2 cohorts of 3- to 5-year-olds (collected during 2 different school years). Children's effortful control was assessed in the fall with parents' and teachers' reports and 2 behavioral measures. Teacher-child relationship quality was assessed mid-year with teachers' reports of closeness and conflict. Attitudes toward school were assessed in late spring using teachers' and students' reports of school avoidance and liking. Effortful control, in general, was positively correlated with teacher-child closeness and school liking and negatively correlated with conflict and school avoidance. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for sex and ethnicity, we found that effortful control was positively related to teacher-child relationship quality, which in turn was positively related to school attitudes. Furthermore, the relation of effortful control to school attitudes was mediated by teacher-child relationship quality. PRACTICE OR POLICY: Results provide evidence for the importance of relational processes that take place within the classroom context and have implications for teachers and clinicians working to increase school success in ethnic minority and low-income children.     

Mathematics in Early Childhood: Research-Based Rationale and Practical Strategies

Mathematics education is a critical part of the curriculum for students worldwide. The foundation for understanding mathematical concepts related to number sense begins early in life, and early childhood classrooms can provide the seeds for mathematical skills that will be needed later in life. In this article, the authors make a case for meaningful and developmentally appropriate mathematics experiences for young children in diverse early learning settings. Instructional and curricular methods inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach are described as effective ways to teach number concepts to young children from preschool through primary age. Strategies for teachers of young learners are presented in order to strengthen the mathematics curriculum in contemporary early learning settings. The authors’ analysis and recommendations are informed by their extensive experiences including studies in Reggio Emilia early childhood settings (infant toddler, preschool, and primary schools) and their work in early childhood teacher education at their respective universities.     

Going Outside in Winter: A Qualitative Study of Preschool Dressing Routines

The exploratory study focused on describing typical routines of preparing for winter outdoor play with preschool children and their teachers. Naturalistic observations, interviews and photographs resulted in extensive examples of children’s development in cognitive understanding of winter and winter-related concepts. Observations of teachers and assistants revealed task-oriented perspectives including detailed strategies and planning. Asynchronous communication and directive language were typical of teacher/child communication. Photo analyses confirmed physical skills used by preschoolers to accomplish dressing tasks and extensive curricular changes to indoor environments.     

Transforming Teacher Constructs of Children and Families Who Are Homeless

The focus of this article is on articulating the importance of teacher development of constructs about homeless children and families and examining factors that influence teachers’ perceptions of children and families who are homeless or at high-risk of becoming homeless. The article also explores some strategies to support teachers in transforming their perceptions of homeless children and provides case examples of how this process can work. Three case studies explore how teacher educators and practicing teachers can work together to reflect on their own perceptions of homeless children from high-poverty backgrounds and how educators were able to transform their own perceptions in being able to better serve their students.     

Teenage pregnancy: a small comparison group of known mothers

To obtain confirmation of the findings of the authors' earlier comparison of ever-pregnant and nonpregnant Black high school students from Tennessee, 16 students confirmed to be pregnant were substituted for the 33 subjects in the original study whose pregnancy status was based solely on self-report. The nonpregnant control group of 251 teens was utilized in both analyses. Although the confirmed pregnant group was too small to repeat the regression analysis, striking concordance of findings between the 2 studies emerged for all dependent variables except the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire anxiety scale. The lower anxiety scores recorded among subjects in the original study may be either a statistical artifact or a reflection of the fact that these pregnant teens remained in school while subjects in the second study were enrolled in programs centered around their pregnant status. Sexual activity scores were strong or moderate significantly more often in both groups of pregnant teens compared to their nonpregnant counterparts. Interesting was the finding that 81% of pregnant teens regarded romance novels and soap operas to be accurate portrayals of real-life dating relationships compared to only 49% of nonpregnant teens. On the other hand, only 56% of the pregnant subjects regarded their own relationships to have this romantic quality. In a future study, the role of such uncritical romantic ideals in adolescent pregnancy risk will be investigated in a larger sample.     

Topicalization and the Processing of Expository Prose by Children: mediating effects of cognitive styles and content familiarity

This study assessed the effects of text topicalization conditions (initial position, final position, or no topic sentence) on the comprehension of main ideas and specific passage information for middle school readers. Also of interest were interactions of topic familiarity and readers’ cognitive styles (degree of field independence) with text topicalization. One hundred and seven subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three topicalization conditions and read three familiar and three less‐familiar multipleparagraph expository texts. Main idea comprehension was assessed with both a sentencesummary (generation) and best‐title (recognition) task. Comprehension of specific passage information was evaluated with multiple‐choice items. Text topicalization effects were observed for main idea comprehension (with initial position best, followed by final position), while topic familiarity resulted in higher comprehension scores for specific passage information. Moreover, a cognitive style‐text topicalization interaction was found on the best‐title task; in this case, relatively field dependent readers were assisted by a final topic sentence placement. Implications are drawn for future research concerning the complex interplay of texts, tasks and readers in prose‐processing.