Children learn best when they are inherently motivated to pursue new knowledge and skills; ownership and opportunity for initiative provide that inherent motivation. Most of what has been created for the children's universe--whether in cinema, theater, books, cartoons, or school curriculum content--has been created and produced by adults. But By…

In an era of increasing division and conflict, education innovations that focus on building compassion and understanding hold a promise for true transformative power. Using a new tool called Empatico, these educators paired up with a partner classroom somewhere else in the world to begin their journey as "Kindness Champions" who made…

Disparities in access to education persist between children from low and high socio-economic backgrounds, and these disparities have become more pronounced because of school closures due to the pandemic. Addressing the disparities requires revisiting the approach to education, as a one-size-fits-all policy can be particularly challenging for…

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) states that building bridges between home and school benefits students' development. With online teaching, this translates into informal conversations before class starts or at the end of class as a teacher waits for a virtual classroom to fill up or empty out. Much of teaching…

Pandemic-related lockdowns and school closures took education into the virtual sphere. Hence, educators of all grades had to adapt to the challenges of remote learning by including digital tools in their teaching strategies. The global pandemic added a mandatory digital layer to the task of motivating students. Education technologies (edtech) and…

From birth to preschool years, before the young children become conventional readers and writers, children are involved in a developmental process known as "emergent literacy," a concept that was coined by Marie Clay (a New Zealand scholar) in 1966. During this stage, children engage naturally in unconventional literacy behaviors such as…

Learning Undefeated is a nationwide nonprofit organization committed to providing equitable access to STEM education for under-resourced communities. Their approach is experimental and entrepreneurial, blending lessons from both education and business to develop content that is current and exciting. This article examines how the organization…

The Language Friendly School network is a response to the growing diversity and multilingualism present in schools around the world, a result of people migrating to find employment, reunite with relatives, or escape war and conflict. It is estimated that over 200 million school children do not receive education in a language they understand. In…

COVID-19 has created life-altering issues across the globe. The pandemic forced schools and parents to change the way they approach children's education and many are concerned about children falling behind. Parental responsibilities increased greatly during the pandemic, as they tried to manage their family's finances, ensure their family's…

In rural Appalachian communities of southeast Ohio, where generational poverty is high, communities and schools worked together to both create meaningful learning experiences and ensure that basic needs were met before students started the school year. Families of students who attended Summer Advantage--a 21-day summer school program for…

Early language experiences are vital to children's future success in school and quality language-rich interactions can be promoted at home and around the community in many creative ways. Project ELLO (Everyday Language and Learning Opportunities) is a research-based public engagement campaign that began as a novel and efficient way to address…

The concept of emergent literacy presents the view that from the time they are born, young children develop their knowledge about language and literacy through their sociocultural interactions with others. Emergent literacy encompasses knowledge about the alphabet, letter sounds, words, and language, and such skills are predictive of future…

At the end of 2021, the spread of the COVID-19 virus Delta variant and the start of the new school year combined to present many educators and administrators with the hardest year yet in the pandemic, in terms of both delivering instruction and assessing student learning. Students entered the school year with increased anxiety, and assessment was…

Every individual has a fundamental right to quality education. Yet there are often huge disparities in the quality of education a rich child can access compared to the education a poor child can access. This is true in India. The Organisation for Awareness of Integrated Social Security (OASiS), a social innovations lab in Madhya Pradesh, embarked…

From expressing wonder and awe about the natural world to contemplating the significance of life to conveying compassion and expressing concern for others, the spiritual child has much to offer the world. However, the topic of spirituality is rarely addressed in early childhood or child development textbooks. Spirituality can be defined in many…