This article is a response to "Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS): A Tool for Evaluating Student Learning?" by Kamii and Manning (2005). The intent of their study was to evaluate how DIBELS and a writing test predict reading achievement, which was measured by scores on the Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT) as well…

Schools in the late sixties and early seventies had many options and were engaged in implementing a variety of programs rooted in the social science disciplines with effective pedagogy drawn from social studies educators. With the implementation of the "No Child Left Behind" Act, one can observe the drastic changes made in the way social…

This article discusses how children can build teamwork through science activities. Through science experiences, the excitement can generate a sense of shared community in class. Science experiments help develop children's learning. Science experiences are a prime source of powerful new words because they use a common language to describe the…

Mitchel Resnick is a researcher, inventor, and professor at MIT's Media Laboratory in Cambridge, MA, and the founder of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at MIT. He is the lead innovator behind many cutting-edge learning technologies and projects for children, including the Computer Clubhouse, PicoCrickets, and the wildly successful consumer…

Many children come to kindergarten with insufficient social skills to participate in the activities necessary for academic achievement. Children enrolled in prekindergarten programs across the United States are expelled at higher rates than older students. Boys are expelled 4 1/2 times more often than girls. When children excluded from…

Kindergarten has changed significantly in the last two decades: children now spend more time being taught and tested on literacy and math skills than they do learning through play and exploration, exercising their bodies, and using their imaginations. Many kindergartens use highly prescriptive curricula geared to new state standards and linked to…

While plurilingualism is not necessarily a novel concept, the author argues that the ability to speak several languages will help Europeans to develop a European identity and to deconstruct existing cultural and even genetic barriers. To this aim it would make sense to be introduced at a very early age to elements of language and culture from…

Riding toys and push-pull toys are traditionally part of every early childhood program. Young children can develop a wide variety of skills and get numerous health benefits from riding toys if one is careful and thoughtful in setting up the riding-toy area. This article describes various types of riding toys and activity ideas to enhance…

Although a five-year-old entering kindergarten is probably excited about the new experience, there is often a degree of anxiety involved. As a kindergarten teacher whose goal is to create a classroom environment that fosters learning, encourages independence and is orderly, cheerful and welcoming, this author describes 11 simple things that she…

The role of instructional leader is a relatively new concept that emerged in the early 1980s, influenced largely by research that found effective schools usually had principals who stressed the importance of leadership in this area. Instructional leadership reflects the actions a principal takes to promote growth in student learning. The…

In this article I argue that both sociocultural theories and those that address academic literacies must be invoked to adequately understand language and literacy development in schools. Through exploring the histories, school lives, and viewpoints of two kindergarten students, I show how identity work negotiated in classroom interactions can…

This article discusses the Atayal aboriginal kindergarten program in Taiwan, known as the Kui-whai kindergarten program. While teaching a course on "Designing Kindergarten Curriculum" at a teacher-training program in Taiwan, the author realized that she had seven aboriginal preservice teachers in her class; previously she had none. Those…

Does a movement for the creation of institutions for the care of small children aged between two and six years constitute a political movement? This movement was closely connected to the democratic movement of the 1848-49 revolution in the German States. It was also, as the author will argue, a movement that was an essential part of the emerging…

In the late 1990s, a National Educational Goal was set in the United States that by the year 2000 all children should start school with the skills necessary for learning (Meisels, 1995 ) and assessment measures should be put in place to provide the screenings. Thus, readiness testing became widespread and kindergarten curricula shifted to more…

In a steady diet of shocking daily news stories, the author saw one item that was particularly shocking. A 5-year-old kindergarten child just "lost it" in her classroom, went a little berserk, threw violent fits, and had to be restrained with handcuffs. Such an incident seems to beg for analysis, and countless columnists offered their insights and…