The overall aim of our research project is to explore the impact of dynamic geometry environments (DGEs) on children's geometrical thinking. The point of departure for the study presented in this paper is the analytically and empirically grounded assumption that as the geometric discourse develops, the direct visual identification of geometric…

The present study set out to identify and examine dialogic educational interactions in Finnish pre-school classrooms. Video recordings of five observed pre-school classrooms that had shown a high or moderate quality of instructional support in literacy, maths and science studies were transcribed for micro-scale qualitative content analysis. Three…

There has been considerable debate over the ways in which children's early literacy skills develop over time. Using confirmatory multidimensional scaling (MDS) growth analysis, this paper directly tested the hypothesis of a cumulative trajectory versus a compensatory trajectory of development in early literacy skills among a group of 1233…

International evidence confirms that early childhood educators can enter professional practice unprepared for child protection due to inadequate pre-service preparation. This paper makes an original contribution by using the Child Protection Questionnaire for Educators (CPQE) to examine the pre- and post-intervention child maltreatment and…

This paper aims to investigate to what extent a bias in self-evaluation is an enduring characteristic among children, and whether there is a relationship between the trajectory of children's self-evaluation bias over a five-year period and their psychosocial adjustment. 462 children (200 boys) in Grade 3 (mean age=8.6 years old) or Grade 4 (mean…

Evidence regarding the effect of early reading instruction on later reading achievement is unusually sparse, given the emphasis often placed on early and intensive reading instruction. Capitalising on international differences in school entry age (SEA), international reading studies may provide such evidence; however, only one quantitative…

The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention with rural Bangladeshi preschoolers with the intention of increasing their expressive vocabulary. Eighty preschoolers randomly selected from five preschools participated in the 4-week program. Their expressive vocabulary, measured in terms of…

In the present action-research project, three teachers and the researcher engaged in a series of meetings to analyze children's drawings from several different theoretical perspectives, or "readings." Using two interrelated processes, deconstructive talks and an ethic of resistance, the teachers purposefully sought to recognize and challenge the…

Twenty-two 5- and 6-year-old children and their parents in one playschool in Reykjavik participated in this study designed to shed light on children's and parents' views about their early childhood program. Group interviews, children's photographs, children's drawings, and a questionnaire administered as a game were used to elicit children's…

Finnish curriculum guidelines for early education emphasise play and creative activities as significant factors in healthy child development. Constructivist theory loosely frames the guidelines, but the recommended approach lacks precise developmental goals. Since 1996, we have carried out a narrative learning project with vertically integrated…

This article reports on a study of collaborative music-making on instruments among 3- and 4-year-old children. An area equipped with musical instruments was provided as a free-choice play option in an early childhood setting and a fixed camera recorded the children's play continuously during a number of visits. From the total 17 h of data five…

In Hong Kong, early-years teachers face professional challenges in adopting a creative and child-oriented pedagogy in which play-based learning is central. The paper illuminates teachers' understanding of play, approaches used, difficulties faced, and their power in finding solutions. Six Hong Kong kindergarten teachers participated in an in-depth…

This study examines the sociocultural trajectories of children's conceptual thinking in a technology-enriched early years science classroom (N=22). Of specific analytic interest is the intertextuality of children's science-related explanations constructed during adult-child dialogic interviews and peer-centred inquiry around a multimedia…

This article investigates the multimodal discourses taking place in a primary school computer supported collaborative literacy environment, in which face-to-face talk in pairs is combined with computer-mediated communication. Following a socially mediated model of education, we have taken into account the collaborative process of the participants…

A large portion of the early childhood literature in the area of cultural, racial, and linguistic diversity addresses the practices of institutions for young children, immigrant/refugee parents' understandings of their situation, and provides recommendations for more inclusive practices. This body of literature has proved very useful in bringing…