In 1998 a group of American adoptive parents led by Jenny Bowen created Half the Sky Foundation (HTS) to provide nurturing care and education for children living in Chinese orphanages (known as children's welfare institutions). Jenny, a former screenwriter and film director, and her husband Richard wanted to ensure that the children still waiting…

In Paraguay conditions for rural children living in poverty are often difficult. At least 14% of children age 5 years and younger show moderate to severe physical stunting (UNICEF 2009). More than half of the children in primary school have repeated at least one grade by the time they complete the sixth grade. Rural families living in poverty, who…

Coaching occurs when one professional works closely with another professional to increase productivity or to meet a common outcome. For a coach or mentor to be successful, the teacher must believe in the expertise the coach espouses, and the coach must believe in the teacher's abilities. Through "reflective coaching," teachers and coaches…

Early intervention (EI) providers increasingly coach and collaborate with caregivers to strengthen and support caregiver-child interactions. The EI providers learning to coach other adults benefit from knowing what, exactly, they should do to support caregivers. This article serves two purposes. First, it proposes an operationally defined,…

Professional development (PD) has been defined as facilitated teaching and learning experiences designed to enhance practitioners' knowledge, skills, and dispositions as well as their capacity to provide high-quality early learning experiences for young children. The purpose of this study was to use a framework from the National Professional…

A variety of parent-mediated communication intervention programs are available to families of young children with autism spectrum disorder including Hanen's "More Than Words" (MTW). Although the program is widely used, researchers understand little about parents' grasp of the information presented. Through a multiple case study, the unique…

Unaware of the messages a bare adult learning environment sends and its effect on adult learners, a trainer attends an intensive Reggio Emilia course and learns that the physical environment is the "third teacher"--for adults as well as for children. Using principles of Reggio, she offers suggestions for enhancing adult learning spaces and…

Communities of practice (COPs) are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better through interacting with one another (Wenger 1998). Communities of practice have enormous potential to support and sustain quality care and education within a community and, in fact, are doing so. Businesses and…

An evidence-based approach to professional development is described on the basis of the findings from a series of research syntheses and meta-analyses of adult learning methods and strategies. The approach, called PALS (Participatory Adult Learning Strategy), places major emphasis on both active learner involvement in all aspects of training…

Most efforts to understand and support self-determination have dealt solely with adolescents and adults, sometimes overlooking and excluding the foundations in early childhood that are required for successful emergence of self-determination. The purpose of this article is to share what is known about early self-determination and to suggest how…

Emphasizing subject matter content standards in teacher education can improve early childhood education and yield long-term benefits for the development and learning of the whole child. The author discusses in depth his five recommendations to teacher educators for learning content standards and incorporating them into teaching. These are: (1)…

Interest Forums address the diverse issues encountered in the field of early childhood education. This article focuses on one, the Play, Policy, and Practice Interest Forum, and its origin, development as a caucus, and eventual formalization within the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) organizational structure. The…

The authors describe the first stages of NAEYC's new initiative, Supporting Teachers, Strengthening Families. This national initiative is intended to help early childhood professionals in preventing child abuse and neglect and promoting healthy social and emotional development. The article reports on responses about these topics from 1,800 early…

This article introduces the suggested program standards for the next era of NAEYC accreditation and solicits comments on the proposed standards from early childhood professionals. Each standard is a global, evidence- and value-based statement that identifies performance expectations for an area of functioning in excellent early childhood programs.

During the Academy's transition Goffin discusses the ongoing processes of creating early childhood program standards; updating and developing performance criteria; developing and field-testing accreditation assessment instruments; and the program standards and accreditation criteria commission's deliberations about recommendations to the Board.…