Family Fun Nights: Collaborative Parent Education Accessible for Diverse Learning Abilities

Quality early childhood education programs have a responsibility to provide enriched educational services to preschool students paired with parent support, education, and outreach. Pearl Buck Preschool, a non-profit organization devoted to the delivery of preschool services for children of parents with intellectual disabilities or learning difficulties, created a unique parent program titled Family Fun Night. This six-session series was developed with a strengths-based, collaborative framework and was connected to the Program-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports implementation in the preschool. The following paper discusses the development, facilitation, implementation, logistics, and assessment of the Family Fun Night series. Barriers to implementation are also discussed.     

Perspectives on Conceptualizing Developmentally Appropriate Sexuality Education

Despite recognition of the importance of a developmentally appropriate approach to sexuality education, there is little direct guidance on how to do this. This study employed in-depth interviews with experienced sexuality educators and developers of sexuality education materials to identify how this concept is understood and applied in the field. Developmentally appropriate sexuality education was conceptualized consistently across interviews to include (a) addressing developmentally relevant topics, (b) adapting content to cognitive development, (c) accommodating developmental diversity, and (d) facilitating the internalization of sexual health messages. However, these views fell short of incorporating the breadth of knowledge offered by adolescent development research.     

A taxonomy of adolescent metacognitive knowledge during the information search process

A case study that took place in Montreal, Canada, used naturalistic methods to investigate the metacognitive knowledge of 10 adolescents as they searched for, selected, and used information for a school-based inquiry project on a topic related to the history of Western civilization. The study identified 13 attributes of metacognitive knowledge related to the information search process: balancing, building a base, changing course, communicating, connecting, knowing that you don't know, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, parallel thinking, pulling back and reflecting, scaffolding, understanding curiosity, understanding memory, understanding time and effort. The results contribute to the understanding of adolescent information-seeking behavior and have implications for information literacy instruction.     

Developmental assessment: lifting literacy through professional learning teams

Outcomes and findings from an evidence‐based approach to targeting primary school students’ developmental reading comprehension levels for effective learning are described. Nineteen schools participated in a literacy assessment project designed to monitor and improve the reading comprehension achievement levels of their students. The project integrated a developmental approach to learning and teaching, information derived from standardised reading comprehension assessments, and professional development for teachers. Reading comprehension achievement across the schools increased at a higher rate than typically expected. Teacher discourse about teaching and learning changed from discrete skill and resource focused, to developmentally focused. The centrality of a professional learning team approach to change for the student, teacher and school is discussed.