Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Defining Business As Usual In Preschool Interventions For Challenging Behavior, Eleanor Bold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Challenging behavior (CB) is a major barrier to service delivery in preschool classrooms. Persistent CB has been found to significantly impact children’s academic and social success long-term, especially amongst children from historically minoritized populations and those with disabilities. Numerous evidence-based intervention strategies exist to prevent and reduce CB, yet preschool teachers continue to voice a desire to increase their capacity to do so in the classroom due to high rates of CB continuing to be observed. This dissertation seeks to address this research to practice gap by ascertaining the current baseline intervention practices utilized to manage CB in preschool classrooms …

Psychosocial Effects Of Shared Book Reading, Amy Halling

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Many studies have examined the academic benefits of parents reading with their children, but few studies have looked at the psychological and social benefits, and even fewer have related the quality of shared book reading to psycho-social benefits. This study looked at whether positive and negative reading interactions during shared book reading predicted parent-child relationships, child social skills and child academic skills. Twenty-five parents of 4-year-olds read a story with their child and completed parent relationship and child social skills questionnaires. The reading interactions were then coded into two separate composite scores: positive and negative. Positive interactions did not significantly …

Measuring Preschool Parents’ Attitudes Towards Science: Development And Psychometric Evaluation Of A Parent Version Of The Dimension Of Attitudes Towards Science Instrument., Alexandra E. Adair

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Presently, no measure or theoretical framework exists for preschool parents’ attitudes towards science. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a measure of preschool parents’ attitudes towards science with a corresponding theoretical framework, as well as explore related constructs. To develop the measure, I adapted Wendt and Rockinson-Szapkiw’s (2017) English translation of van Aalderen-Smeets & Walma van der Molen’s (2013) Dimensions of Science (DAS) scale by making it appropriate for use with preschool parents.

The Preschool Parents Dimensions of Science Scale (PP-DAS) was pilot tested and revised before being administered to 330 preschool parents in the United …

Evaluating The Perceptions Of Preschool Teachers And Administrators On Mental Health Services In The School Setting, Celia Tavarez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Mental health can impact a child’s success in many aspects, including in the school setting. School settings are very often the only place that provide an opportunity for families to be able to receive mental health services for their children. It is imperative that schools meet the mental health needs of the children who attend their schools. This research project examines data and information gathered from educators and school administrators to help us understand their experiences, successes, and/or displeasure about the services that are offered or not offered within the agency they work for. The literature review discusses the definition …

Using Teacher Prompts To Increase Leadership Skills In Preschool Children, Sarah Elizabeth West

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of the present study was to determine if teacher prompting could increase the frequency of leadership behaviors exhibited by preschool children during play and if teachers increased their level of prompting of leadership behaviors. Parten’s original 1933 framework defined the categories both directing and following; reciprocally directing or sharing leadership with another child; or directing the group in which the preschool children’s leadership behaviors were recorded. A review of the literature revealed prompts teachers could use to promote leadership skills in young children, which included modeling, helping others, completing tasks, praise, decision-making, and problem solving. …

Do Spellings Of Words And Phonemic Awareness Training Facilitate Vocabulary Learning In Preschoolers?, Robin O'Leary

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of phoneme awareness training and orthography to the learning of new vocabulary words by partial alphabetic phase readers. We hypothesized that four and five year old children taught to segment words with letters would outperform those trained with shape markers and those that received no segmentation training on an invented spelling task. We also hypothesized that students seeing the spellings of new vocabulary words (names) would learn the words in fewer trials, remember the names and features better and would be able to better recognize letter labels when presented alone. …

The Effects Of Music And Visual Cues On Transition Time In A Multi-Aged 3-5 Year Old Montessori Classroom, Jessica S. Brock

Masters of Arts in Education Action Research Papers

The purpose of this action research project was to investigate the effects of music and visual cues on transition times. This research took place in a Primary Montessori classroom with children ranging from 3-5 years of age in a public, partial magnet, urban K3-8^th school. Data was collected for four weeks using a transition time log, behavior tally sheets, teacher journal, and student attitude scales. The results of the study showed a slight decrease in transition times, and a larger decrease in disruptive behaviors using both music and visual cues. Although the transition time decreases were less than expected, …

A Study Of The Evolution Of Mindfulness Practice In An Early Childhood Classroom, Katherine Berninger

Graduate Student Independent Studies

This paper studies the use of mindfulness practice in a preschool classroom. Combining participant observation, personal journaling, and interviews with children, this study explores the relationship between the introduction of mindfulness practice, changes in classroom culture, and growth in emotional vocabulary.

Toward An Early Start For Head Start Children : Evidence From An Academic-Enriched Literacy Initiative, Haiyan Zhang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The purpose of this study was to address the question of whether it is developmentally appropriate to expose preschool children to a comprehensive instructional program designed to facilitate the acquisition of early literacy skills. The primary means of addressing this question was to assess the development of emergent literacy skills in four-year-old children enrolled in a literacy-enriched Head Start program for a period of one year, as compared with those of four-year-old children who entered at age three and enrolled in the program for two years. Related questions of special interests are to what extent the three and four-year-old children …