The quality of early childhood education has dominated current debates in the ways educators develop and implement learning programs for children yet conceptions of quality vary contextually and culturally. This qualitative case study explored the insider perspectives of six early childhood educators in Sapporo, Japan regarding their conceptions…

The transition from home to early childhood education can be stressful for both children and parents. How parents cope with this potentially stressful event affects both the children's adaptation and the parents' lives during the preschooler stage of the family lifecycle. This paper examines how parents respond to their children's…

This study reports the importance 244 parents of six-year-old children living in Singapore placed on cognitive (problem-solving and creativity) and non-cognitive (practical school skills and conforming) behaviours. Our research team hypothesised that, as the age of the parent increased, the importance placed on each covariant skill (problem…

At the start of the first formal year of schooling in New South Wales, teachers gather information on a number of aspects of children's numeracy to guide their teaching program. This information is essential to planning teaching activities to meet the needs of all students. This paper reports on some key aspects of number knowledge held by 65,000…

The arts are an important area of development for young children in their early years. By engaging with arts activities, young children are able to use their senses to explore the world. This paper reports on current arts practice in two kindergartens and two preparatory classrooms in Queensland, Australia. All sites are located in neighbouring…

The purpose of this paper is to consider the importance of intervening with early literacy instruction at the preschool level. Research has found phonological awareness skills in preschool to be one of the most robust predictors of early reading success in a child's first few years of formal schooling. The efficacy of phonological awareness…

A key educational reform proposal made in 2000 is to build a new culture for quality early childhood education through upgrading professional competence. Teachers are an important element of high-quality, developmentally appropriate early childhood programs. The Teacher Beliefs and Practices Survey (TBS) based on 2009 NAEYC Developmentally…

The main goal of this paper is to analyse factors (accessibility, attendance rates and quality of preschools) that may be affecting the educational readiness of China's rural children before they enter the formal school system. Using data from a survey of 82 preschools and 492 households in six counties in three provinces of China, this paper…

Children's interest in popular culture was clear in my study of interests-based curriculum. Yet, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a contentious site of curriculum co-construction. This article explores this tension. It argues that interpreting popular culture as "funds of knowledge" might assist teachers to consider a different view of this interest…

Transition practices that ensure continuity between early childhood settings have been shown to be important in assisting children's short-term and long-term growth and development (Vogler, Cravello & Woodhead, 2008). In Western Australia many young children move from and between long day care (LDC) settings to kindergarten. In that state,…

Much research on early measurement learning is small-scale and dependent on the items used. While such research is helpful for indicating the key aspects of learning length, it does not give teachers a clear indication of the expectations for student learning of them. This paper presents substantial data from a large project that used individual…

This article reports on findings from a qualitative research project (Overton, 2006) that highlighted a lack of empowerment experienced by, with and for eight early childhood teachers working in Tasmanian schools. The study investigated how change affects teachers, and focused on the theme of power as experienced by these teachers. The study noted…

Developing successful schooling sites in multiracial regional town contexts can often be quite challenging. This paper examines the work done in one such pre-schooling context in a medium-sized regional town where racial and ethnic tensions are high and where many families struggle with social/emotional/economic challenges. This pre-school setting…

In this article we describe our experiences using picture books to provide young children (five- to six-year-olds) with a learning environment where they can explore and extend preliminary notions of mathematics-related concepts, without being taught these concepts explicitly. We gained these experiences in the PICO-ma project, which aimed to…

All too frequently the process of starting school is viewed through the eyes of teachers and parents alone. What is often overlooked is that the children, who live this experience, and their interpretation of events, may be vastly different from that of their parents and teachers. The use of drawings in conjunction with oral retellings is an…