As school authorities strive toward inclusive models of education for children with neurodevelopmental delay and disability (NDD), many kindergarten curricula have mandated pedagogy centered on learning through play. Children with NDD tend to experience greater social isolation and lower rates of social play engagement compared to typically…

Early childhood education settings are characterized by the use of play-based learning and the assessment of children's play by teachers to promote further learning. A problem with technology use in early childhood settings is that little is known about how children learn to use technologies through play. This lack of knowledge makes it difficult…

Although existing literature has established that technologies are utilized in play and can be supportive of learning, utilization of technologies in play-based classrooms is not commonplace. This study is an holistic examination of a successful 2-year process of integrating an iPad into a play-based preschool setting. Each year the use of the…

In discussions about how to implement learning through/in/at play, there is still not a commonly agreed view. This qualitative study investigated Chinese teachers' and parents' perspectives on learning in play to attain a co-constructed picture of learning in play through real classroom practices and perceptions using the Mosaic approach. Fourteen…

The childcare environment impacts physical activity participation, but little descriptive information is available in different types of programs. Most studies focus on the schoolyard despite children spending more time indoors. This study identified which learning centers were available, used by children, and promoted physical activity, both…

In the Caribbean, as with many other contexts, though learning through play serves as the impetus behind recommended early years classroom practices, very little is known about children's play, what it looks like and the factors that shape it. To explore this issue, traditional qualitative methodology including interviews, documentation of field…

This paper discusses self-efficacy as a key factor in children managing the transition to primary school, the threshold to formal education and further learning processes. In presenting results of a qualitative-longitudinal interview study of German preschool and primary school children's perspectives on their self-efficacy experiences, it…

Block play has been included in early childhood classrooms for over a century, yet few studies have examined its effects on learning. Several previous investigations indicate that the complexity of block building is associated with math ability, but these studies were often conducted in adult-guided, laboratory settings. In the present…

This study investigated the beliefs parents of preschoolers (N = 126) have for facilitating their children's reading and mathematics development. The study used an online survey distributed via social media to examine parents' views of their children's home-based reading and mathematics engagement, parents' confidence to support their children's…

Young children are often ignored or marginalised in the drive to address children's participation and their wider set of rights. This is the case generally in social research, as well as within the field of Arts-Based Education Research. This article contributes to the growing literature on young children's involvement in arts-based research, by…

This paper explores one child's use of their schema to construct their knowledge and understanding within the early years curriculum for Wales -- the Foundation Phase (FP). It considers how a knowledge of schemas can facilitate practitioners in supporting children along their learning continuum and inform classroom pedagogy. This paper explores…

Children are born with an intrinsic drive and natural curiosity to explore the world around them. Just as young children are attracted to the natural world, they too are enticed by the physical challenges and risk-taking experiences that such environments provide. Based on research conducted at one of Canada's first Forest Kindergartens and using…

This research compared the relative impact of different preschool activities on the development of bilingual students' English-language skills. The study investigated whether bilingual preschool children would engage more, and use more of their second language (English), during free-play (non-academic) versus teacher-structured (academic)…

This article aims to explore how the interactive whiteboard is situated in the social and material conditions of an early years free-flow learning environment. It examines how the affordances of the interactive whiteboard and the expectations of the surrounding classroom impact how activity involving the interactive whiteboard unfolds. It achieves…

This article reports on a study of practitioners' use of In-the-Picture -- a reflective, observational approach -- when delivering early intervention programmes to young disabled children. To date, In-the-Picture has been used mainly by researchers to study interactions and learning between young children, practitioners and the children's parents…