Used participant observation, child interviews, and teacher meetings to examine reading strategies that emerged in a first-grade, multiethnic, urban classroom over 20 weeks. Found that children used five reading strategies, including narrative storytelling, relying on memory, and word-for-word reading; tensions emerged between strategies that…

Investigated relationship of preschoolers' helping behaviors and their younger peer-directed internal state language, perspective-taking, and attendance at mixed-age day care. Found that helping behaviors were positively related to frequency of vocal turns to younger peer, perspective-taking ability, and length of day care attendance;…

Used multiple baseline design with four 6-year-old Latino children to train in class inclusion through counting, feedback, and verbal reinforcers, and in English language skills (of benefit in their own right), over 5 months. Found that post-intervention gains in the two domains were significant and were stable over at least 4.5 months. (KB)

Examined whether home intervention program for Hispanic low-income families would increase maternal teaching behaviors typical of school environment. Found that when controlling for pretest scores and maternal education, program mothers used questions and descriptions more and negative motivation less in comparison to control group; the pattern of…

Used the Maslach Burnout Inventory and Early Childhood Work Environment Survey to identify workplace predictors of burnout in 137 female child-care providers in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Found that age, decision making, and goal consensus were the only significant predictors of burnout, suggesting the need to balance the freedom of persons to make…

Investigated relationship between children's behavior and the child-rearing climate (future-focused, present-focused, combined) and work climate (relaxed, strained, mixed) at day care centers. Found differences in children's prosocial and collaborative behaviors in centers with future-focused or combined rearing climates and relaxed work climates…

Introduces a recursive-based developmental theory of multiple/multiethnic perspective-taking ability for teachers' developmentally and culturally congruent pedagogy: a way to understand and facilitate growth in teachers' interpersonal pedagogical coordination for developmentally and culturally congruent teaching as "teaching for all individuals."…

Describes recent policies and curriculum guidelines for early childhood education in Portugal, including a new role for the state in encouraging and harmonizing public and private initiatives, intervening directly in deprived areas, and providing unified pedagogical supervision. Presents a new, collaborative way of envisioning administrative…

Surveyed training in 15 EU countries. Investigated how countries conceptualize and organize early childhood services; division between age groups; and types of administrative structure, provision, and training considered appropriate for different age groups. Found differences in level and length of training, generalization versus specialization as…

Studied drawing strategies used by children ages 2 to 4 in Singapore nurseries and kindergartens using experiments and naturalistic observation. Found that during period when children are supposedly "scribbling," they make systematic investigations of visual structure and develop a cluster of representational strategies involving patches of…

Developed self-assessment materials to help providers evaluate, monitor, and enhance the quality of their provision; presented them to 119 group-care providers and 120 family day-care providers; and evaluated their effect on quality of care. Found that to implement self-assessment procedures effectively, some providers may require support from an…

Investigated the pedagogical quality of physical space by adapting a classroom to create a material "educational field" and testing children's performance on a "go to the front and right of the tower" activity. Found that the educational field made it possible for children to put into relation two spatial reference systems and helped engage them…

Identifies four dominant strands in the recent literature on adults and children developing play together: socio-cultural, adversarial, child development, and nomad-academic. Explores each strand and analyzes areas of agreement and disagreement to see if any reconciliations can be made across differences. Asserts that each strand is important in…

A two-year, follow-up teacher survey to a 1993 study was conducted in 1994-95 to learn how changes in hardware and software markets have changed computer use in early childhood classrooms. Assessed what teachers viewed as important software characteristics, software market perceptions, and future software market directions. Found shifts in kinds…

This study examined the effect of different modes of presentation on the amount of information elementary students (N=38) in mixed-age classrooms can recall about historical figures. Assessment of information recall followed a pretest/posttest format. Analysis showed no significant difference in recall due to the varied modes of presentation. (DR)