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Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Education

Testing The Knowledge Of Early Childhood Educators, Dianne S. Mccarthy Nov 2023

Testing The Knowledge Of Early Childhood Educators, Dianne S. Mccarthy

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

Teacher certification exams are supposed to assess if a student is likely to succeed in teaching. What if an exam seems to be inappropriate? This article is an inquiry of the New York State Content Specialty Test for Early Childhood Candidates, particularly the math section. It raises the issue of whether we are asking the right questions and ascertaining the right data to decide if someone has the appropriate math knowledge and is ready to teach math to young children.


Explicit Instruction In A Second Grade Picturebook Author Study, Ted Kesler Apr 2023

Explicit Instruction In A Second Grade Picturebook Author Study, Ted Kesler

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Using the Learning by Design multiliteracies framework, writing workshop was transformed into composing workshop. The researcher worked with a team of four second grade teachers in an urban public elementary school to redesign their Kevin Henkes author study to equally value art and design, guiding their students in creating their own narrative picturebooks. The researcher addresses the following two research questions: 1. What explicit instructional practices did the teachers enact? 2. What influence did these explicit instructional practices have on the second graders’ composing work? The researcher applied cross-case analysis, first to create an inventory of explicit instructional practices, and …


Goal Setting In Kindergarten: Motivating Young Learners To Be Successful In Learning Sight Words, Ashley Brudvig, Taylor Anderson, Jarrett D. Moore Oct 2022

Goal Setting In Kindergarten: Motivating Young Learners To Be Successful In Learning Sight Words, Ashley Brudvig, Taylor Anderson, Jarrett D. Moore

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of goal setting as a motivator for kindergarten students in learning grade-level sight words. This study was conducted over a 6-week period in two Midwestern kindergarten classrooms. The participants in the experimental group were trained in self-setting goals and participated in weekly check-ins and bi-weekly assessments. Themes in motivation were documented using a reflection survey and anecdotal notes. Student growth was tracked using sight word assessments and growth charts. Data suggested participants who set goals achieved higher gains than participants who did not set goals.


Book Review Of A Young Writer's World: Creating Early Childhood Classrooms Where Authors Abound., Hannah D. Szatkowski Jun 2021

Book Review Of A Young Writer's World: Creating Early Childhood Classrooms Where Authors Abound., Hannah D. Szatkowski

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

A Young Writer’s World: Creating Early Childhood Classrooms Where Authors Abound (Giles, 2020) provides early childhood educators with the knowledge and resources in order to create an immersive learning environment conducive for developing pre-school and kindergarten’s writing development. This book review evaluates the layout and key components of the text in order to identify the potential implications it could provide within an early childhood classroom.


Initiating Courageous Conversations About Race And Racism With Read-Alouds, Brittany Adams, Annemarie Bazzo Kaczmarczyk Jun 2021

Initiating Courageous Conversations About Race And Racism With Read-Alouds, Brittany Adams, Annemarie Bazzo Kaczmarczyk

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

This article describes a classroom activity developed by two teacher educators to support pre-service teachers in integrating culturally responsive teaching practices with reading methods instruction. The activity tasks pre-service teachers to select culturally authentic children’s texts and design read-alouds that engage elementary students in conversations around race and racism while simultaneously meeting English Language Arts standards. This reimagined classroom practice will be of interests to educators who are seeking resources on how to address culturally relevant topics, such as race and racism, in the classroom.


Review Of Pre-K Stories: Playing With Authorship And Integrating Curriculum In Early Childhood, Harmony Petty May 2020

Review Of Pre-K Stories: Playing With Authorship And Integrating Curriculum In Early Childhood, Harmony Petty

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

This book review discusses salient themes within Bentley and Souto-Manning’s (2019) Pre-K stories: Playing with authorship and integrating curriculum in early childhood. Bentley and Souto-Manning present a case study of one pre-K classroom in which a teacher-researcher endeavored to honor young children’s strengths and authentic stories as they co-constructed an emergent curriculum together. This text considers researchers and practitioners as it includes theoretical discussions in addition to teacher reflections and classroom vignettes. The first three chapters explore the researchers’ theoretical foundation of emergent curriculum and a sociocultural view of play-based authorship. The following four chapters trace the development of the …


Using Touch Technology To Foster Storytelling In The Preschool Classroom, Eloah Decat, V Damjanovic, S Branson, J Blank, I. R. Berson Dec 2019

Using Touch Technology To Foster Storytelling In The Preschool Classroom, Eloah Decat, V Damjanovic, S Branson, J Blank, I. R. Berson

Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education

This practitioner research explores ways children engage in literacy learning through storytelling with the use of touch technology in a VPK (Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten) classroom. With access to diverse touch technology devices but no experience using these technologies, a VPK teacher explored strategies to use the resources to enhance literacy learning in the classroom with the support of a professional learning community (PLC). The PLC consisted of a master’s student, university faculty, school director, and a technology liaison. The implementation of this study took place over three weeks, and every week children created a different story. Collected data include photographs, student …


Supporting Primary Students’ Story Writing By Including Retellings, Talk, And Drama With Strategy Instruction, Zoi A. Traga Philippakos, Sarah Munsell, Logan B. Robinson Jun 2018

Supporting Primary Students’ Story Writing By Including Retellings, Talk, And Drama With Strategy Instruction, Zoi A. Traga Philippakos, Sarah Munsell, Logan B. Robinson

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

Story writing and story grammar have been studied extensively in an effort to improve students’ reading comprehension. Instruction on story structure and on elements of stories can improve the writing quality of students’ papers. This paper explains a process of supporting primary-grade students’ story writing. The approach is based on strategy instruction and incorporates talk and dramatic play as ways to support the development of characters, descriptions of characters and events, and dialogue between characters. Guidelines are provided and step-by-step directions for teachers to use this work with their students.


Constructing A Sense Of Story: One Block At A Time, Joanne Robertson-Eletto, Smita Guha, Marina Marinelli Jan 2017

Constructing A Sense Of Story: One Block At A Time, Joanne Robertson-Eletto, Smita Guha, Marina Marinelli

The Language and Literacy Spectrum

This photo essay focuses upon the literacy practices of two groups of preschoolers as they built, illustrated, and dictated stories in response to their participation in a “Castle Project.” Data, including literacy artifacts, photodocumentation, sociodramatic play scenarios, and conversations are qualitatively analyzed, coded, and evaluated over a three month period. We use a narrative approach to describe the three- and four-year-olds’ talk, actions, and ideas, and the ways block play facilitated their sense of story and motivation to write. We suggest a reciprocity of thinking between the building and composing processes. Preschoolers’ story ideas, we deduce, were conceptualized and rehearsed …