Children experience demanding changes during the transition from early childhood programs to primary school. Research shows that children's initial academic and social success at school can affect their long-term adjustment, achievement, and success. The authors, both early childhood teachers in Singapore, undertook an action research project that…

This qualitative interview-based study compares beliefs about kindergarten readiness and about the roles of preschools in readiness among parents and preschool teachers in three early childhood programs in the northeastern and southwestern United States. Interviews focused on beliefs concerning meanings of kindergarten readiness and the role of…

The relationships that children experience with each other during infancy are often a neglected area of study. Most attention has been paid to infants' relationships with adults. However, children are increasingly spending greater amounts of time in group care and with peers at even the early stages of infancy. In these settings, adults are often…

This article describes teachers' collaborative inquiry into the pretend "bad guy" play of 12 children in a university laboratory preschool classroom in the northeastern United States. The article describes the inquiry process and includes details and documentation of children's decisions, actions, and interactions related to the bad guy play as…

Establishing friendships is an important developmental goal of early childhood, but little research has addressed ways in which parents support the friendship development of their young children with disabilities. The purpose of this survey study was to explore the support strategies that parents use to facilitate their children's friendships.…

In this article, which includes three video clips, the author argues that the small experiments, inventions, strategies, and pauses in young children's play seen in the clips reveal a legitimate form of scientific thinking. He notes that science and play both represent a frame of mind, an attitude toward the events one observes. (Contains 3…

A class of 3- to 5-year-old children in a child care center in the midwestern United States chose to study a car wash as a group project. This article discusses how the project evolved, describes the three phases of the project, and provides the teachers' reflections on the project. Photos taken during the project and children's sketches are…

This reflective paper discusses findings about differences and similarities in perspectives on play among early childhood educators in Japan, the United States, and Sweden. Analysis of survey data collected from educators in those nations yielded six themes regarding the meanings and uses of play: (1) process of learning, (2) source of…

This reflective essay describes the author's experiences as an observer in a behaviorist infant classroom. The author developed four categories of practice to describe what happened in the behaviorist infant room: (1) curricular focus on training typically developing infants to meet typical developmental milestones, (2) the use of highly…

Through six video clips and accompanying commentary, the author argues that by carefully observing how very young children play, adults can gain insight into their high-level thinking and their knowledge, as well as the implications that their strategies hold for their assumptions, theories, and expectations. Adults can then become more protective…

This article examines the play behavior of 70 preschool children and its relationship to television violence and regulatory status. Linear regression analysis showed that violent program content and poor self-regulation were independently and significantly associated with overall and physical aggression. Advanced maternal age and child age and…

Children's stories, like children's play, often contain aggressive elements. This research study identified the themes and ideas that children between the ages of 2 and 6 years old included in 290 dictated stories with aggressive elements. Among the stories that contained aggressive elements, 42% were dictated by girls, and 57% were dictated by…

Appreciation of diversity begins in our classrooms with the children we know and interact with on a daily basis. Each child has a unique history--a story that gives us insights when we interact, plan our classroom community, and design our instruction. Children who have a primary language other than English have stories that they can communicate…

Noting that there is a growing body of evidence supporting the many connections between cognitive competence and high-quality pretend play, this article defines the cluster of concepts related to pretend play and cognition, and briefly synthesizes the latest research on the role of such play in children's cognitive, social, and academic…

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics emphasizes that young children need play-based opportunities to develop and deepen their conceptual understanding of mathematics. From a social-constructivist perspective, learning is more likely to occur if adults or more-competent peers mediate children's learning experiences. Emphasizing both the…