An evaluation of curriculum, setting, and mentoring on the performance of children enrolled in pre-kindergarten

An alarming number of American pre-school children lack sufficient language and literacy skills to succeed in kindergarten. The type of curriculum that is available within pre-kindergarten settings can impact children's academic readiness. This work presents results from an evaluation of two language and literacy curricula (i.e., Let's Begin with the Letter People and Doors to Discovery) from a random assignment study that occurred within three settings (i.e., Head Start, Title 1, and universal pre-kindergarten) and included a control group. The design included a mentoring and non- mentoring condition that was balanced across sites in either curriculum condition. A pre and post-test design was utilized in the analyses, with children (n = 603) tested before the intervention and at the end of the year. Multilevel growth curve modeling, where the child outcomes (dependent measures) are modeled as a function of the child's level of performance and rate of growth between pre and post-testing, was used for all analyses. Results indicated that in many key language/literacy areas, the skills of children in classrooms using either one of the target curricula grew at greater rates than children in control classrooms. This was especially true in the Head Start programs. The findings from this study indicate that at-risk children can benefit from a well-specified curriculum. Additionally, findings demonstrate that a well-detailed curriculum appeared to be less important for children from higher income families. The impact of mentoring was less clear and seemed dependent on the type of skill being measured and type of program.     

Contemporary perspectives of the child in action: an investigation into children’s connectedness with,and contribution to,the world around them

Childcare within Australia has undergone significant reform as a result of the implementation of the nationally mandated Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework [EYLF] (Department for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations [DEEWR]. 2009. Belonging, Being and Becoming. The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia. Canberra: Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations). The EYLF articulates contemporary perspectives of the child through its principles, practices and learning outcomes. Educators are required to promote these principles, practices and learning outcomes with children aged from birth to 5 years. This paper reports the findings from a research project that sought to investigate how educators applied their understanding of learning outcome two of the EYLF (children are connected with and contribute to their world). The focus of this research was educators working with children aged two to three years within childcare centres operating on school sites, in metropolitan Western Australian. The research design was qualitative and situated within the interpretivist paradigm. Observations were used as the method for gathering data and these were analysed through a process of coding. This paper presents the observational findings of educators’ practices within learning outcome two. Composite vignettes from the voice of the child are included to present the observational findings. In centralising the voice of the child, contemporary perspectives are made explicit.     

Not Yet Identified: The knowledge,skills, and training needs of early years professionals in relation to children's speech and language development

This article draws on a research project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, looking at early years professionals' knowledge about speech and language development and their confidence and skills in assessing normal and delayed language development. Key findings, based on 829 questionnaires and 50 interviews, reveal very limited training in speech and language difficulties as part of initial training and low levels of post-qualification training in children's speech and language. Practitioners are aware of the need for early identification of children's communication difficulties but lack the tools with which to perform this identification. In order to provide a context for these results, a content analysis of the curricula from a variety of initial training routes explored the extent to which there was a focus explicitly on assessment and identification of children with speech and language difficulties. The role of professional journals and key texts in supporting practitioners in making judgements about children's language development was also investigated. The access to, and provision of, post-qualification training to support the assessment process is identified as a key area for development.     

儿童气质活动性与父母教养因素相互作用研究的新进展

气质活动性是影响儿童心理行为发展的重要因素,探讨儿童气质活动性和父母教养因素的相互作用已经成为气质心理学研究的热点问题。本文集中介绍了国内外关于儿童气质活动性及其与父母教养因素相互作用研究的新进展,并对未来的研究工作作了展望。     

Worthwhile work? Childcare,feminist ethics and cooperative research practices

Interdisciplinary research collaborations are often encouraged within higher education while the practicalities of such collaborations are glossed over. This project specifically addresses the praxis of research collaborations, exploring how feminist academics within different countries and disciplines came together to explore their mutual concern about the perceived worth and well-being of early childhood practitioners. Engaging in a formal methodological dialogue over eight months, seven academics discussed, analysed and dissected their different investments in research methods and intents, with the aim of agreeing to a common methodological framework. Unexpectedly, what emerged was not a product, but a process. We argue that this process offers much to those seeking deep collaboration in and through shared research. Building on a collective research interest, we found ourselves in a process of becoming, germinating the seed of a transnational research cooperative, based on trust and mutual respect, rather than the arid methodological contract originally envisioned.     

Making Sense of Place: Sarah’s Story

Written from the vantage point of both a mother and teacher educator, the author recounts the journey taken by Sarah, her 4-year old daughter, as she is introduced to and explores map making as a means of representing and making sense of familiar and unfamiliar places. Offering Sarah’s experience as context, the author offers both a practical and theoretical discussion of children’s emerging geographic literacy, its relationship to identity development and the importance of understanding children’s experience and socio-emotional development to inform pedagogy.

明初诗学与李东阳的"格调"论

明初诗坛对诗歌形式的探讨，形成研究诗体、诗法、诗格的文艺思潮，技术性的阐释在这段时期达到了一个顶峰。在这样的氛围中，李东阳的诗学理论难以脱离时代风气的影响，其“格调一论看似是对侈言“诗法”的反拨，其实是对诗歌创作中声调使用的技术性阐释，是改头换面的诗法。     

Project InterActions: A Multigenerational Robotic Learning Environment

This paper presents Project InterActions, a series of 5-week workshops in which very young learners (4- to 7-year-old children) and their parents come together to build and program a personally meaningful robotic project in the context of a multigenerational robotics-based community of practice. The goal of these family workshops is to teach both parents and children about the mechanical and programming aspects involved in robotics, as well as to initiate them in a learning trajectory with and about technology. Results from this project address different ways in which parents and children learn together and provide insights into how to develop educational interventions that would educate parents, as well as children, in new domains of knowledge and skills such as robotics and new technologies.

Mirroring governance: archives,inventories and political knowledge in early modern Switzerland and Europe

The comparative study of archival inventories in early modern Switzerland reveals that three major regimes of inventorying logic emerged from the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century. Early inventories constructed as lists gave way first to ideal-topographical inventories that relied on a double mapping of conceptual spaces against archival space and inventory pages, succeeded eventually by taxonomic inventories oriented around an active state apparatus and its needs. Synchronic and diachronic comparisons that focus on major reorganizations have proven effective in illustrating the scope and effectiveness of each of the successive regimes. A similar approach applied to major inventory projects across early modern Europe may identify further systems for making accumulating documents accessible to rulers, and may also allow us to trace genealogies of inventory practice regimes as they appeared in different regions, at different scales, and in diverse political contexts.

Mothering and intellectual disability: partnership rhetoric?

This paper is about mothering an intellectually disabled child identified with special educational needs. It specifically looks at the parent partnership rhetoric that has dominated UK government policy and directives for nearly three decades and yet research suggests parents and more often mothers have to battle to be recognised as legitimate experts. This paper engages with sociological analysis as it highlights via qualitative narratives that mothers are weighed down by the sheer number of professionals involved in their day-to-day life. Moreover, mothers whose children are not identified in the early years are often blamed in the first instance for playing a part in their child’s difficult behaviour. This research ultimately suggests that partnership work is important and necessary for practice within health, education and social work professions, not least of all because the emotional roller-coaster that mothers experience during the assessment and statementing process is disabling.