The current study examines how children develop multimodal narratives through the construction of quilt squares and I Am poetry. Creating visual narratives through the use of personal artifacts lays the foundation for this artistic multiple literacy experience. The study focuses on the process and growth that a diverse group of kindergarten…

Young children's leadership is an undertheorized and underresearched topic. Much of the research literature involves paired children working on adult-set tasks that are aimed to provide data on specific aspects of children's collaborative work. This article describes and discusses an investigation into children's leadership styles within…

Using multiple years of data collected from about 100 child care centers in Palm Beach County, Florida, the authors studied whether the Quality Improvement System (QIS) made a significant impact on quality of child care centers. Based on a pre- and postresearch design spanning a period of 13 months, QIS appeared to be effective in improving…

Child care teachers and staff are important influences on preschoolers' nutrition and physical activity habits, and their views may be influenced by education level, years of field experience, and program involvement. For the 360 participants surveyed, responses on 5 of 18 survey items significantly differed by education level (e.g., less…

Child care teachers' experiences and their gendered understandings of their work were explored in this study. Two female child care teachers were interviewed individually and asked to describe their work as women's work. Analysis showed that teachers essentialized child care teaching, recognized the paradoxes of being a child care teacher,…

This study surveyed 98 teachers of 4-year-olds about dramatic play in their classrooms and about their attitudes and practices about rough-and-tumble play. Gender differences emerged in the nature of dramatic play reported and in the ways in which teachers interacted with children engaged in different forms of dramatic play. Teachers also reported…

This study was conducted with White American kindergarten teachers from a southeast region of the United States to examine their beliefs about culture and social competence. Overall, from a sociocultural perspective, these teachers had limited understanding of young children's social competence and showed varying degrees of cultural knowledge for…

A sample of 83 kindergarten teachers participated in this study to examine their knowledge, skills, and classroom practices concerning phonological awareness. Analyses of data revealed significant gaps between knowledge and practice, knowledge and skills, and skills and practice. The gap between knowledge and skills, on one hand, and classroom…

This is a case study of drama education curriculum for young children taught by a drama specialist. Specifically, to understand unique drama teaching practices employed by a drama specialist, 9-week-long drama programs for one kindergarten and two 1st-grade classes were observed and the drama specialist was interviewed. Regular classroom…

This study is an investigation of children's communication skills and socialization by the types of their early education experiences (e.g., child care centers, private schools, public schools, home, or other). A total of 244 children (average age: 61 months) and their parents participated in this study. According to the results of this study,…

This study investigated preservice teachers' perspectives of integrating music in their third year of a childhood teacher education program. Preservice teachers were enrolled in a multidisciplinary course in which they learned about integrating music and had opportunities to implement such knowledge into practical teaching. One hundred sixty…

Participants included 106 infants and toddlers living in rural Paraguay and their primary caregiver. Children ranged in age from birth to 24 months and belonged to two distinct groups, including 46 children who had never participated in Pastoral del Nino, an early child development program, and 60 children who had participated in Pastoral for at…

Descriptive and ecobehavioral analyses were used to explore the daily activity contexts in classroom settings reflecting two distinct models of early childhood education. Activity context, social configurations, teacher behavior, and child behavior were explored, with specific consideration given to peer verbal behavior as an indicator of social…

Early childhood educators have competing demands that minimize their ability to utilize evidence-based practices and respond to the challenges posed by culturally diverse classrooms. Using a case study method, we studied four female early childhood teachers at a university-affiliated preschool who developed mini-research projects using a mediated…

This article provides insight into the cultural patterns of metacognitive guidance that occurs among children and mothers in selected Australian homes. Fourteen Anglo Australian and eight immigrant Indian (Telugu) mothers' interactions with their 4-year-old male and female children on a puzzle-solving task were videotaped. Mother-child dyads'…