Early Education Settings Research Articles

Child-centred educational practice in different early education settings: Associations with professionals’ attitudes, self-efficacy, and professional background

The present study investigated whether teacher beliefs (self-efficacy and attitudes) mediate the impact of professional background on child-centred educational practice. We specifically investigated whether teacher beliefs related to self (self-efficacy) are a stronger predictor of educational practice than teacher beliefs related to teaching approach (attitudes). A total of 265 professionals from different early education and care settings (i.e., centre-based daycare, family-based daycare, and educational playgroups) in Switzerland participated in the study. A self-report questionnaire was developed to assess professionals’ self-efficacy, attitudes and educational practice in terms of child-centredness. The results confirm the factorial validity of the questionnaire. Self-efficacy positively predicted educational practice, while professionals’ attitudes were not associated with educational practice. Further, the positive effect of domain-specific knowledge on educational practice was mediated by self-efficacy. Finally, family daycare providers reported lower self-efficacy and lower levels of child-centred educational practice than other professionals. The present study emphasises the role of professionals’ self-efficacy in the context of delivering high-quality childcare and child-centred education in early childhood. The results suggest that promoting knowledge of teaching approaches may be a promising way to promote early childhood educators’ child-centred educational practice through increasing their self-efficacy.

Farm to Preschool: The State of the Research Literature and a Snapshot of National Practice

ABSTRACTFarm to preschool connects early care and education settings to local food and/or food producers with the objectives of serving locally grown, healthy foods to young children, improving child nutrition, and providing related educational opportunities. This study systematically reviewed the farm to preschool research literature from 1994 to 2015 and described findings from the 2012 National Farm to Preschool Survey. A wide range of activities was represented in the 14 studies reviewed; most employed participatory research collaborations, assessed process outcomes, and used uncontrolled research designs. Survey findings indicated that programs operate in at least 39 states and Puerto Rico, in many types of communities and settings. Respondents identified types of foods and activities, motivations for participation, and parent engagement. There is still much to be learned about farm to preschool programs, and well-controlled research is necessary.

Inspecting safeguarding

Ofsted has released an update to its publication, Inspecting safeguarding in early years, education and skills settings, which childminders should familiarise themselves with.

Dilemma and Challenges of Early Education Inclusion in Schools of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

The main purpose of this paper is to present the specific dilemma and challenges experienced by teachers while practicing early education inclusion of young children with disabilities in the context of preschools and primary schools in Lucknow district of Uttar Pradesh, India. The paper attempts to bring to light the important contextual realities of early education teachers‟ attitudes and practices towards inclusion of young children with disabilities. Examining the contextual realities of early education inclusion in schools of the capital city of Uttar Pradesh has implications to press forward the policy and programme level improvements to widely promote early intervention and early education inclusion at the State level. Based on the findings of this study, the paper presents an outline to counteract the existing indifference among teachers to include children with disabilities in early education settings. The paper is based on qualitative research design and the methods used included open-ended interview of teachers and observation in selected school settings. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data from interviews and observation.

Strength of obesity prevention interventions in early care and education settings: A systematic review.

2010-2015; INTERNATIONAL: Given the high levels of obesity in young children, numbers of children in out-of-home care, and data suggesting a link between early care and education (ECE) participation and overweight/obesity, obesity prevention in ECE settings is critical. As the field has progressed, a number of interventions have been reviewed yet there is a need to summarize the data using more sophisticated analyses to answer questions on the effectiveness of interventions. We conducted a systematic review of obesity prevention interventions in center-based ECE settings published between 2010 and 2015. Our goal was to identify promising intervention characteristics associated with successful behavioral and anthropometric outcomes. A rigorous search strategy resulted in 43 interventions that met inclusion criteria. We developed a coding strategy to assess intervention strength, used a validated study quality assessment tool, and presented detailed descriptive information about interventions (e.g., target behaviors, intervention strategies, and mode of delivery). Intervention strength was positively correlated with reporting of positive anthropometric outcomes for physical activity, diet, and combined interventions, and parent engagement components increased the strength of these relationships. Study quality was modestly related to percent successful healthy eating outcomes. Relationships between intervention strength and behavioral outcomes demonstrated negative relationships for all behavioral outcomes. Specific components of intervention strength (number of intervention strategies, potential impact of strategies, frequency of use, and duration of intervention) were correlated with some of the anthropometric and parent engagement outcomes. The review provided tentative evidence that multi-component, multi-level ECE interventions with parental engagement are most likely to be effective with anthropometric outcomes.

유아교사의 심리적 소진과 행복감이 유아의 교육기관 적응능력에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of early educator's psychological exhaustion and happiness on adapting ability of children in early education settings. Two hundred ten early educators and six hundred thirty children were selected as subjects of this study and were requested to participate in a survey. The results of this study were as follows: First, as a result of analyzing the relationship between early educator's psychological exhaustion and happiness as well as children's adaptability on education facility, higher psychological exhaustion and lower happiness were related to lower children's adaptability on education facility. Second, as a result of comparing comparative impact that psychological exhaustion and happiness has on children's adaptability on education facility, psychological exhaustion of the teacher impacts negatively on children's adaptability on education facility and happiness of the teacher did not significantly impact children's adaptability on education facility. This research is expected to be used as foundational data that helps to recognize the importance of psychological exhaustion and happiness of the teacher and could be used to develop various programs that support teachers to recover from burnout and to increase happiness.

Early years learning, play pedagogy and social class

Despite 50 years and more of ‘progressive education’ in the United Kingdom, classed patterns of educational success and failure stubbornly prevail. So how, where and when does it all go wrong for the many children who continue to fail or underachieve? Drawing on the work of Basil Bernstein, this article centres processes within early years education which are claimed to help launch children into careers as either educational successes or failures. Our data suggest that children more or less happily play their lives away in the progressive play pedagogies of early years education, in the process learning their position in social and ability hierarchies that help define their future careers inside and outside schools. That such hierarchies prevail is the fault of neither teachers nor parents. Indeed, it is what early years education settings are legitimised to do: sieve and sort, and make children ‘school ready’, pliant and prepared for a lifetime of learning to succeed or fail.

Young children's use of touch screen tablets for writing and reading at home

Young children's literacy experiences at home shape the development of emergent literacy skills. Due to the increasing use of touch screen tablets (e.g., iPads) in homes and early education setting...

The Impact of the CHILE Intervention on the Food Served in Head Start Centers in Rural New Mexico.

The Child Health Initiative for Lifelong Eating and Exercise is a multicomponent obesity-prevention intervention, which was evaluated among Head Start (HS) centers in American Indian and predominantly Hispanic communities in rural New Mexico. This study examines the intervention's foodservice outcomes: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, discretionary fats, added sugars, and fat from milk served in meals and snacks. Sixteen HS centers were randomized to intervention/comparison groups, following stratification by ethnicity and preintervention median body mass index of enrolled children. The foodservice component included quarterly trainings for foodservice staff about food purchasing and preparation. Foods served were evaluated before and after the 2-year intervention, in the fall 2008 and spring 2010. The intervention significantly decreased fat provided through milk and had no significant effect on fruit, vegetables and whole-grain servings, discretionary fats, and added sugar served in HS meals and snacks. When effect modification by site ethnicity was examined, the effect on fat provided through milk was only found in American Indian sites. Foodservice interventions can reduce the amount of fat provided through milk served in HS. More research is needed regarding the implementation of foodservice interventions to improve the composition of foods served in early education settings.

Lessons from using iPads to understand young children’s creativity

This article explores the use of iPads as part of a child-centred data collection approach to understand young children’s creativity. Evidence is presented from a small study of three- to five-year-old children’s creative play. Analysis of the children’s engagement with iPad video diaries and free-to-use tablet applications was logged across two early educational settings over a three-month period. The findings suggest that iPads offer a mechanism to allow children to articulate their creative play and to encourage involvement in the research process. However, bespoke research software to use with early years children is required to improve this process.

Classroom coaching for professional development in early care and education

Recently, increased attention has focused on the quality of early care and education (ECE) settings providing care for infants, toddlers, and preschool children. According to the National Center on Child Care Quality, about half of states have implemented quality rating improvement systems (QRISs) to improve the quality and coordination of ECE services and create a system of accountability.

Preventing childhood obesity in early care and education settings: lessons from two intervention studies.

Obesity prevention in young children is a public health priority. In the USA, nearly 10% of children less than 5 years of age are obese, and most attend some form of out-of-home child care. While a number of interventions have been conducted in early care and education settings, few have targeted the youngest children in care or the less formal types of child care like family child care homes. Additionally, only two previous studies provided recommendations to help inform future interventions. This paper presents lessons learned from two distinct intervention studies in early care and education settings to help guide researchers and public health professionals interested in implementing and evaluating similar interventions. We highlight two studies: one targeting children ages 4 to 24 months in child care centres and the other intervening in children 18 months to 4 years in family child care homes. We include lessons from our pilot studies and the ongoing larger trials. To date, our experiences suggest that an intervention should have a firm basis in behaviour change theory; an advisory group should help evaluate intervention materials and plan for delivery; and realistic recruitment goals should recognize economic challenges of the business of child care. A flexible data collection approach and realistic sample size calculations are needed because of high rates of child (and sometimes facility) turnover. An intervention that is relatively easy to implement is more likely to appeal to a wide variety of early care and education providers. Interventions to prevent obesity in early care and education have the potential to reach large numbers of children. It is important to consider the unique features and similarities of centres and family child care homes and take advantage of lessons learned from current studies in order to develop effective, evidence-based interventions.

Young children's use of touch screen tablets for writing and reading at home: Relationships with emergent literacy

Young children's literacy experiences at home shape the development of emergent literacy skills. Due to the increasing use of touch screen tablets (e.g., iPads) in homes and early education settings it is important to investigate the relationship between digital tools and emergent literacy. The present study examined the relationships between children's (N = 57; aged 2–4 years) emergent literacy skills and home use of tablets for writing and reading. Correlational analysis showed a positive association between children's access to apps and print knowledge. A positive association was found between the frequency of writing with tablets and print awareness, print knowledge, and sound knowledge. No associations occurred between emergent literacy skills and frequency of e-book reading. Further research is needed to investigate the effects of tablet writing on emergent literacy development.

Turkish Preschool Children's Perceptions and Expectations Related to 1st-Grade Education

Early care and education settings and practices vary widely across the world. In many cultures, it is most common for families to provide round-the-clock care for young children. Other young children are in private or religious preschools, child care, or—more rarely—public early childhood education systems. Wherever young children spend the first few years of life, those who are able to access their right to education often transition to a more academic setting (primary school) around age 6 or 7. This transition can be difficult for some children, as they leave their familiar homes, preschools, and child care settings to enter a new learning environment. Loving adults can ease this transition by listening to and understanding children's perceptions about what school will be like and how their lives will change. Adult caregivers can focus on the positive aspects of the change—new friends, teachers, and opportunities—while also respecting children's feelings about starting primary school.

Do Infant Temperament Characteristics Predict Core Academic Abilities in Preschool-Aged Children?

Examined relationships between temperament, measured via parent report at 4 months and structured laboratory observations at 12 months of age, and a school readiness battery administered at about 4 years of age (N=31). Scores on the School Readiness Assessment of the Bracken Basic Concept Scale (BBCS) were related to infant Positive Affectivity/Surgency (PAS), with infants described as demonstrating higher levels of PAS at 4 months of age later demonstrating greater school readiness in the domains of color, letter, and number skills. Regulatory Capacity/Orienting (RCO) at 4 months also predicted color skills, with more regulated infants demonstrating superior pre-academic functioning in this area. Analyses involving laboratory observations of temperament provided additional information concerning the importance of infant Positive Affectivity/Surgency, predictive of letter skills and overall school-readiness scores later in childhood. Results are discussed in the context of implications for theory and research, as well as early education settings.

Parent Programs in Pre-K through Third Grade

Summary Parents strongly influence their children's development, and prekindergarten and early elementary programs--especially those serving children at risk for low achievement because of their family backgrounds--often feature programming to support parents' role in their children's learning. Despite the prevalence of such programs, however, we have little good evidence of their effectiveness. In this article, Katherine Magnuson and Holly Schindler review more promising, fully developed parent programs. In their daily work, preschool and elementary school programs and teachers commonly use a variety of formal and informal activities to support, educate, and involve parents, such as having parents volunteer in the classroom or encouraging children to share classwork or other materials with their parents. Though such practices are widespread, the authors write, we have little rigorous evidence to show that they're associated with children's academic success. Add-on parenting programs, in contrast, generally target a particular subset of parents, and they often have a highly specific and clearly developed programmatic approach. Such programs focus on helping parents improve either their children's early academic skills or their behavior and self-regulation. Among the types of parent support that Magnuson and Schindler review, add-on programs have shown the most promise to improve children's learning. But parents with many demands on their time may find it hard to sustain a commitment to these programs; technological solutions such as communication by text messaging may be one way to solve this problem. A final way to involve parents is to give them information about the quality of their prekindergarten or elementary school choices, although such information may not be particularly useful to parents who live near a set of similarly high-performing or low-performing schools, or can't access programs because of limited enrollments or cost. ********** Because young children spend so much of their time in their parents' care, parents are often described as children's first teachers. Parents' verbal interactions, responsiveness, and stimulation all help to develop their children's early skills and to prepare them to learn in formal settings. However, parents differ in the quantity and quality of their interactions with their children and the degree to which they provide enriching experiences, both of which are important in understanding socioeconomic gaps in children's academic achievement. (1) Thus early learning and educational settings--especially those serving children at risk for low achievement because of their family backgrounds--often feature programming to support parents' role in their children's learning. Despite the prevalence of parent-related services, practices, and programmatic components in early learning and elementary school, we have little good evidence of their effectiveness. In this review, we discuss why preschools and elementary schools often target parents in their efforts to improve students' learning, and we critically review evaluations of several types of parenting programs for parents of prekindergarten through third-grade children. However, we don't examine more general efforts to involve parents in school activities, school decision-making, and leadership, and to build school-family partnerships. Why Target Parents? Parenting behaviors that are consistently warm, responsive, and cognitively stimulating promote children's cognitive and behavioral development, providing a strong foundation for learning in schools. (2) Volumes of research link children's experiences with their caregivers--and in their home environments more generally--to their early language, literacy, math, social, and behavioral development. However, because many other factors might explain these associations, it's hard to claim that the links between the quality of parent-child interactions and children's early skills and behavior constitute a causal chain. …

Preventing childhood obesity in early care and education settings: lessons from two intervention studies: Obesity prevention in early care and education

Preventing childhood obesity in early care and education settings: lessons from two intervention studies: Obesity prevention in early care and education

Child care enrollment decisions among dual language learner families: The role of Spanish language instruction in the child care setting

Data from the Head Start Impact Study (N=1141) and the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey, 2009 Cohort (N=825) were used to describe child care enrollment decisions among Spanish-speaking Dual Language Learner (DLL) families. In particular, logistic regression models tested which child, family, and institutional characteristics predicted enrollment in early care and education (ECE) settings that used Spanish for instruction versus enrollment in settings that did not use Spanish. Results showed that whether the child’s first language was exclusively Spanish and whether other DLL families previously attended the ECE arrangement strongly predicted whether that child enrolled. Policy implications for Head Start-eligible Spanish-speaking DLLs are discussed.

A qualitative examination of the implementation of continuity of care: An organizational learning perspective

Both research and theory stress the importance of continuity of care for supporting and nurturing the important relationship between teachers and children in early care and education (ECE) settings. However, due to the predominance of enrolling children in age-based ECE classrooms, as well as the lack of practical information about how such an approach is implemented, it is important to highlight the experiences of programs who successfully implement this practice. We share the results of a qualitative case study to describe how one center transitioned to the implementation of continuity of care and overcame obstacles commonly associated with this practice by examining the experiences and perceptions of teachers, administrators, and parents. Data included phenomenological interviews and parent focus groups. Senge's model of learning organizations (1990, 2006) was used to make sense of the context under investigation, giving meaning to the data and providing a cogent framework to explicate findings. Data analysis also highlighted operational processes that contributed to the center's success, and findings are situated within the current discourse on how the field can ensure that practices supported by theory and research are implemented in programs serving young children and their families.

Early Care and Education Settings Are Vital for Childhood Obesity Prevention.

[Author Affiliation]Myra Jones-Taylor. Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, Hartford, CT.Address correspondence to: Myra Jones-Taylor, PhD, Connecticut Office of Early Childhood, 165 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT 06106, E-mail: myra.jones-taylor@ct.govMuch has been written about the positive effects of high-quality early care and education (ECE) on children, especially those from low-income households. We know that children who attend high-quality ECE programs are more likely to graduate high school, hold a job, and earn higher incomes. They also commit fewer crimes,1 are more likely to attend college, and less likely to become teen parents.2 The six articles presented here suggest that ECE programs can also address childhood obesity given that fewer preschool-aged children who attend ECE programs with policies promoting nutrition and physical activity are identified as overweight or obese. Collectively, the articles encourage policy makers to see ECE as a critical partner in the fight against childhood obesity and highlight the current challenges and opportunities to promote nutritious eating and physical activity in young children.Together, these articles underscore the importance of three principles I promote and work to uphold as the commissioner of the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood: early is best; training and information are key to achieving policy goals; and, most important, families are our most critical partners. Each of the studies here reference the unique and promising role ECE can play in establishing lifelong habits of eating healthy food and engaging in physical activity among young children.The earliest years of a child's life are when the brain is most plastic and receptive to enriching environments.3 In their two articles,4,5 Schwartz and colleagues highlight how smart policy, such as the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), coupled with research-based practice have the potential to establish healthy practices in early childhood that can lead to reduced rates of health risks later in life.Schwartz's first article asks whether ECE programs participating in CACFP serve lunches that meet CACFP guidelines and whether the food children actually consume is aligned with the new proposed rules for CACFP based on recommendations from the Institute of Medicine.4 The study finds that most programs comply with current CACFP program guidelines, but adhering to the proposed new guidelines will be a challenge based on observed food consumption. The second article builds on the observed practice of serving food to young children in a family-style manner to consider whether variations in the order in which foods are offered and the elimination of foods after a first serving lead to an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables.5 Though the study was inconclusive, it suggests that being intentional about what to serve in the first course and when to no longer offer particular foods during mealtime may lead to the consumption of more nutritious foods.In Evaluation of nutrition and physical activity policies and practices in child care centers within rural communities, Foster and colleagues explore the unique challenges rural ECE providers face in supporting the healthy development of young children in their care who are more likely to be overweight than children living in urban communities.6 Geographical isolation, lack of funding, and lack of resources compound to make their work perhaps even more challenging than their colleagues in urban and suburban communities. Policies around geography and other demographic factors should be considered to address the issue of childhood obesity. Educating policy makers, legislators, advocates, and others of existing barriers and challenges is key in making informed and effective policy decisions.Many young children spend as much of their waking hours in ECE programs as they do at home. …