Education Commons^™

Preschool And Prosperity, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Policy Papers

Substantial research shows that high-quality early childhood education programs have a large economic payoff. This payoff is increased earnings for former child participants, increased earnings for parents, and increased earnings for all workers when average worker skills improve. A program package of universal pre-K, combined with child care and parenting support for all low-income families, would cost $80 billion annually. But each dollar invested in this package would yield future economic benefits of over 10 times as great.

Children, Mathematics, And Videotape: Using Multimodal Analysis To Bring Bodies Into Early Childhood Assessment Interviews, Amy Noelle Parks, Mardi Schmeichel

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Despite the increased use of video for data collection, most research using assessment interviews in early childhood education relies solely upon the analysis of linguistic data, ignoring children’s bodies. This trend is particularly troubling in studies of marginalized children because transcripts limited to language can make it difficult to analyze embodied power relations between majority researchers and minority children. This article responds to this problem by outlining a theoretical position on power and bodies, describing multimodal analysis strategies, and using these strategies to analyze the subject positions available during a mathematical assessment interview for three African American preschool child-participants and …

Supporting Positive Parent-Toddler Relationships And Reducing Toddler Tantrums: Evaluation Of Pcat-E, Tara M. Sjuts

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

At the most fundamental level, a positive parent-child relationship is the foundation of child success. However, the toddler period may present difficulties for the parent-child relationship. As toddlers explore their autonomy, they challenge parents with noncompliance and temper tantrums, which may be difficult for the parent-child relationship. This study examined the impact of an extension of Parent-Child Attunement Therapy (Parent Child Attunement Therapy – Enhanced; PCAT-E) on parenting behaviors, toddler tantrum behaviors, and the parent-toddler relationship. This extension featured eight individual didactic and coaching sessions with parent-child dyads focused on teaching positive parenting skills, effective commands, and emotion language modeling. …

Growing Ideas - Confidentiality: Respecting The Privacy Of All Families, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Care and education professionals routinely receive confidential information about children and families as part of their work. Maintaining confidentiality is important both legally and ethically.

Growing Ideas - Caring For Young Children - Business Matters, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Caregivers or business owners? Family child care providers are both. Paying attention to the business aspects of running a family child care home is an important component to having the income and working environment needed for program success.

Growing Ideas - Building Belonging: Providing Guidance For Social Skill Development, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

As young children with and without disabilities grow, they are learning how to develop relationships with others and to be members of a community. All children need support to learn and achieve these important life skills. The process adults use to teach and support this learning is known as guidance. Effective guidance assumes the following conditions: Respect, understanding, and appreciation for every child’s unique qualities; Knowledge that children’s mistaken behaviors provide learning opportunities; An encouraging community where every child belongs and feels safe; and a developmentally appropriate, culturally responsive setting.

Growing Ideas - Whack! Slam! Bang! - Aggression, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Aggressive behavior - hitting, pinching, biting, and other acts through which children may hurt themselves or others - is a way children communicate by using their bodies. Children behave aggressively for a variety of reasons.

Growing Ideas - Partnering With An Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (ECMHC) is a collaborative relationship between a mental health consultant and families, care and education professionals, and/or early care and education teachers. ECMHC strives to improve the ability of families, teachers, and care and education professionals to promote, sustain and restore healthy social and emotional development for all children. Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation approaches challenging situations with children from a problem solving perspective. ECMHC is not a therapeutic intervention: it occurs in the children's natural settings - child care, home, and school.

Growing Ideas - Admissions Policies And Practices That Build Inclusive Child Care Communities (For Parents And Guardians), University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

All children, including children with disabilities, benefit when quality inclusive child care settings provide an equal opportunity to participate. Admissions policies and practices that reflect this inclusive philosophy can help parents and guardians evaluate whether the program will be a good match for their child.

Growing Ideas - Thoughtful Teaching: Developmentally Appropriate Practice, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP) describes an approach to education that guides early childhood professionals in their everyday practice. DAP comes from more than 75 years of research on child development and early learning. It gives early childhood professionals information from which to make decisions based on their knowledge of child development and what is known about how young children learn.

Growing Ideas - Ouch! That Hurts! - Biting, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Children bite for a variety of reasons. Biting behavior provides clues to how children are feeling, their stage of development and what they need from their environment to be successful. Understanding what the young child needs is the first step in developing an effective response. For some children, biting may be related to their stage of development. Biting can be very common, for example, at the toddler stage. When young children lack skills and strategies to communicate their feelings and needs effectively, they may feel overwhelmed. Biting then becomes a child's way of expressing frustration.

Growing Ideas - Assessment Basics: From Observation To Instruction, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

Developmentally appropriate assessment supports learning through the process of gathering information related to a child's development and learning style. It provides professionals with a picture of each individual child and helps to answer essential questions about a child's growth and development.

Teachers Who Care And Carers Who Educate. Professional Status Issues And Differences In Pay And Conditions Are Resulting In A Tale Of Division Within Our Early Childhood Community, Doireann O'Connor, Christine Mcgunnigle, Tracy Treasure, Serena Davie

Education Conference Papers

This paper presents the findings of a research project that investigated the views of a group of pre-service teachers both before and after their exposure to practice within professional Childcare. A mixed methods approach was employed. Thirty students in their third year of a four year teaching degree at The University of Notre Dame, Australia were surveyed and interviewed before and after embarking on a ten week practicum within the Childcare sector.

A key finding of the study was that there is currently great division within the Western Australian Early Childhood Education sector. This division has arisen following a recent …

Growing Ideas - Behavior Communicates, University Of Maine Center For Community Inclusion And Disability Studies

Early Childhood Resources

All child care professionals who provide quality inclusive child care strive to understand what children are telling them through their behavior. When a child behaves in a way that indicates a need for extra help and support, ask the question, "What is really going on here?" Be a detective to discover possible messages in the child's behavior.

Reflective Practice With Teachers Of Early Writers 2014: A Professional Learning Research Project For Early Childhood Teachers, Caroline Barratt-Pugh, Janet Fellowes, Amelia Ruscoe

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Reflective Practice with Teachers of Early Writers was a professional learning project that sought to develop teacher understanding and practice in relation to how young children learn to communicate through writing. The project, which was funded by the association of Independent Schools of Western Australia (AISWA), was a collaborative venture between AISWA and Edith Cowan University (ECU). It built on the success of the 2013 project, Creating Texts with 21st Century Early Learners in which teachers undertook an action research project to explore effective ways of facilitating early writing...

Peer Group And Friend Influences On The Social Acceptability Of Adolescent Book Reading, Margaret K. Merga

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Increasing recreational reading is a priority in a climate of growing adolescent aliteracy. Raising the social appeal of books has been identified as one potential avenue for arresting this trend. An understanding of the current social acceptability of book reading amongst contemporary adolescents is important in informing an effective approach to raise the status of book reading, as is insight into how this status impacts upon attitudes toward, and engagement in, recreational book reading. Friend and peer group attitudes may impact upon the palatability of recreational book reading, and this impact may differ for gender. Findings from the 2012 West …