‘Row,row, row your boat’: singing,identity and belonging in a nursery

The concept of belonging is widely recognised as a fundamental part of human development and a key element of early childhood curricula. The research presented here explores the role of singing in the development of children's sense of belonging in a day nursery for children aged from six months to two years. The research design incorporated ethnography and portraiture, an approach to narrative inquiry. Data were collected over seven months, with the researcher adopting a participant observer role during regular visits to the nursery. Observation and interpretation of singing focused on relationships between children and adults and between peers. Themes of identity, togetherness, intersubjectivity and communicative musicality were identified in the analysis of data. The portrait shows the intrinsically interactive nature of singing, providing rich evidence of ways in which singing both supports and reflects the children's relationships and hence their sense of identity and belonging. This research contributes to literature on the musical lives of infants and toddlers that supports the value of music, especially singing, in early childhood.     

Toddlers' use of peer rituals at mealtime: symbols of togetherness and otherness

Mealtimes and their associated rituals are recognised as important aspects of human socialisation; however, much of the research about mealtimes in early childhood education settings has focused on health or on adult–child discursive exchanges. The present study aimed to investigate children's interactions with each other and their influence on the structural aspects of mealtime. The participants were four toddlers and their teachers at one community-based childcare in New Zealand. Narrative data were interpreted from video observations and discussions with teachers. Findings showed that the toddlers playfully cooperated with each other in order to develop their own ritual. This ritual subverted the routine, communicated togetherness and reinforced the toddlers’ identity as separate to that of the adults. This article posits that teachers should seek to understand and respond sensitively to toddlers’ peer rituals, where such rituals engender positive effects on the children's sense of togetherness.     

婴幼儿辅食添加的现状、问题与指导——来自上海市紫薇实验幼儿园的调查报告

对上海市徐汇区紫薇实验幼儿园的在园幼儿和父母学校中0-3岁婴幼儿的家长275人,就15种辅食添加情况进行调查。通过单变量描述统计对婴儿辅食添加时间进行现状分析;采用卡方检验、一维方差分析、独立样本t检验、相关分析的多元逐步回归分析等统计手段分析不同类别家庭辅食添加开始时间和常用辅食添加不同状态的特点。结果发现,婴儿辅食添加过早的问题比较突出。     

Toddlers as both more and less competent social actors in Finnish day care centres

In recent decades, the notion of the competent child has, in the field of Early Childhood Education, become a powerful discourse. In this paradigm, inspired by the sociology of childhood, the child is seen as a competent social actor having agency in his or her life. However, critical comments have been made at both the micro- and macro-level about how this conceptual construction is interpreted and put into practice. In this article, children are made visible through a close and systematic observation resulting in hearing ‘children’s voices’ that are much more nuanced than those of the ‘new resilient competent’ child. The observation data challenges the overgeneralizations of the current discourse of the competent child. Instead of finding ‘old fragile novice’ or ‘new resilient competent’ children, we seem to find both characterizations in the same children, who are eager to learn, are competent and strong, but also vulnerable, immature and needy in different respects. The differences between individual children are also remarkable. What the children communicate in their behaviour challenges the adults who work with them to reflect on their espoused theories and theories-in use.     

Under-threes’ mathematical learning – teachers’ perspectives

This project highlights preschool teachers’ views of toddlers’ learning in mathematics. The Swedish national curriculum covers even the youngest children who are 1–3?years old. Interesting questions are thus: what should mathematics be for this age group and how should preschool teachers work with maths to achieve the curriculum objectives? Data were collected through interviews with six preschool teachers working in four different preschools. The data show that the teachers emphasize the body as very important for the learning process, which means that for these children, it is not a matter of simply talking about mathematical concepts, but experiencing them bodily. The teachers also report that they now pay more attention than previously to what material the children use and how they interact with it. They are more aware of how they organize and offer the various materials in the preschool and how this influences the way children use them and, consequently, their learning processes.     

Advancing the construct validity of the Early Communication Indicator (ECI) for infants and toddlers: Equivalence of growth trajectories across two early head start samples

The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is a measure for universal screening, intervention decision-making, progress monitoring for infants and toddlers needing higher levels of support, and program accountability. In the context of the ECI's long-term wide-scale use for these purposes, we examined the invariance of ECI measurement in two samples of the same Early Head Start (EHS) population differing in the years data were collected. Invariance or equivalence across samples is an important step in measurement validation because making inferences assumes that the measurements are factorially invariant. A number of time-covarying factors (e.g., assessors, children, etc.) can be hypothesized as threats to measurement invariance. Results of latent growth curve analyses indicated similarity in the functional forms (velocity and shape) of the ECIs four key skill trajectories between groups of children and ECI vocalizations, single, and multiple words trajectories met strong factorial and structural invariance. Gestures met only weak factorial invariance. ECI total communications, a weighted composite of the four scales, also met both strong factorial and structural invariance. With one exception, results indicated that the ECI produced comparable growth estimates over different conditions of programs, assessors, and children over time, strengthening the construct validity of the ECI. Implications are discussed.     

Evidence of a continuum in foundational expressive communication skills

Progress monitoring measurement is increasingly needed in early childhood to inform practitioners when an intervention change is needed and as a tool for accomplishing individualization and improving results for individual children. The Early Communication Indicator (ECI) is such a measure for infants and toddlers 6–42 months of age. A greater understanding of the ECI key skills (i.e., gestures, vocalizations, single- and multiple-word utterances) could lead to further improvements in the sensitivity and utility of the decisions made compared to ECIs composite total communication score. Thus, we examined the pattern of growth within and between the ECI's four foundational skills in a large sample of children served in Early Head Start. Results confirmed a unique pattern of growth and change within each skill trajectory in terms of (a) age at skill onset and (b) peaks in each trajectory defining an inflection point or change from acceleration to deceleration. Using these inflection points as intercepts with before and after trajectory slopes, we tested the fit of an adjacent-skills temporally ordered growth model. Results indicated good fit. Implications of a continuum of foundational ECI skills to future validation and decision making utility of the measure are discussed.     

Active living: Physical activities for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers

Active Living is an approach that encourages people to be physically active every day. By targeting infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, early childhood educators will contribute to their lifestyles as Active Living Children. This article is designed as a framework for early childhood educators to support an active lifestyle among very young children. Various activities are described to promote active play for very young children and all of its associated benefits.