Early Elementary Children Research Articles

Understanding heritage language learning of early elementary children from Chinese immigrant backgrounds through children’s drawings

ABSTRACT The study explores how children from Chinese immigrant families create drawings in a community-based Chinese heritage language classroom. The theoretical perspectives on artifactual literacies were utilized to support the inquiry. Primary data sources included the children’s drawings. Video recordings of class conversations served as secondary data sources. Findings show that the children drew upon visual and linguistic modes to design and make their drawings to represent their understanding based on their heritage language learning. Findings also highlight the children’s bilingual identities and present that the children used the heritage language to connect to their everyday life experiences. The findings informed instructional recommendations for Chinese heritage language teachers. Suggestions included incorporating artifactual literacies into class activities for Chinese heritage language learning and calling attention to providing more educational resources and opportunities to support children from immigrant families.

Factors Associated With Early Elementary Child Health-Related Quality of Life: The Generation R Study.

AimTo identify the factors associated with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among early elementary age children (5–6 years) from a general population sample.MethodsWe analyzed data of 4,202 children from the Generation R Study, a population-based cohort study in the Netherlands. Children's physical and psychosocial HRQOL were measured using the Child Health Questionnaire Parent Form 28 (CHQ-PF28). Associations between socio-demographic characteristics (child age, sex, ethnic background, family situation, parental educational level, parental employment status, and net household income), health-related lifestyle behaviors (physical activity and screen time), health conditions (number of chronic conditions, emotional and behavioral problems, and family functioning) and children's physical and psychosocial HRQOL were assessed using multivariate regression analyses.ResultsMean child age was 6.0 years (SD: 0.43); 63.6% had a majority (Dutch) ethnic background. Children with a non-western ethnic background, and children of unemployed mothers had a lower physical HRQOL (all p < 0.05). Older children, boys, and children from single-parent or low educated families had a lower psychosocial HRQOL (all p < 0.05). Children from a low income household family, children having chronic conditions or emotional and behavioral problems, or from families with relatively high “pathological family functioning” reported both lower physical and psychosocial HRQOL (all p < 0.05).ConclusionIndicators of adverse socioeconomic and family circumstances and indicators of child health problems were associated with lower HRQOL. Public health initiatives to improve HRQOL of children should prioritize children from a low socioeconomic status or with less favorable health conditions from early age onwards.

Conducting oral and written language adapted tele-assessments with early elementary-age children with autism spectrum disorder.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, tele-health has gained popularity for both providing services and delivering assessments to children with disabilities. In this manuscript, we discuss the process of collecting standardized oral language, reading, and writing tele-assessment data with early elementary children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and offer preliminary findings related to child and parent engagement and technology issues. The data presented are from pretest assessments during an efficacy study examining the electronic delivery of a listening comprehension intervention for children with ASD. Pretest sessions included a battery of standardized language, reading, and writing assessments, conducted over Zoom. The authors operationalized and developed a behavioral codebook of three overarching behavioral categories (parent involvement, child disengagement, and technology issues). Researchers coded videos offline to record frequencies of indicated behaviors across participants and assessment subtests. Involvement from parents accounted for the highest number of codes. Children showed some disengagement during assessment sessions. Technology issues were minimal. Behavioral categories appeared overall limited but varied across participants and assessments. Parent involvement behaviors made up approximately two-thirds of the coded behaviors. Child disengagement behaviors made up approximately one-fourth of the coded behaviors, and these behaviors occurred more frequently across many different participants (with lower frequencies but greater coverage across children). Technology problems specific to responding to assessment items were relatively uncommon. Clear guidelines including assessment preparation, modification of directions, and guidelines for parents who remain present are among the implications discussed. We also provide practical implications for continued successful adapted tele-assessments for children with ASD.

The interaction between parental warmth and the teacher‐student relationship predicts changes in early elementary children's problem behaviors

AbstractThis study tested whether the relations between parental warmth and children's problem behaviors vary as a function of the quality of the teacher‐student relationship while controlling for prior levels of the outcomes. When children (N = 301, M age = 5.48, 52% girls) were in kindergarten, teachers reported on the quality of the teacher‐student relationship, and parents reported on their warmth toward their children and on their child's externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. One year later, parents reported on children's problem behaviors. We found a consistent pattern of significant interactions supporting the hypothesis that the relations between parental warmth and problem behaviors vary as a function of the quality of the teacher‐student relationship. Specifically, when controlling for prior levels of the outcomes, parental warmth was related negatively to externalizing and internalizing problems, at high, but not low, levels of teacher‐student closeness. In addition, when teacher‐student conflict was high, parental warmth was related negatively to externalizing and internalizing problems. These relations were non‐significant at low levels of teacher‐student conflict. Consequently, efforts to understand children's problem behaviors are likely to benefit from integrating information from multiple socializers.

The Anxious Laughter of Silly Songs

In his 2018 study How to Make Children Laugh, Michael Rosen writes that when he performs silly songs and poems in schools, “I become the channel through which the children can, for a moment, let go of their anxieties about the authority figures in their lives” (23). The laughter mediates between the norms of adulthood and the anxieties of childhood. Although silly songs are perennially popular with children and their caregivers alike, they remain understudied. This article, then, asks how laughter works in the context of English-language silly songs for preschool and early elementary children. Drawing from Rosen’s theorization, it combines the perspectives of literary studies and early childhood music education to analyze well-known silly songs recorded by Sharon, Lois &amp; Bram, Raffi, and others. Grown-up performers invite laughter by acting like goofy big kids who can play along with the children and by inverting the authority relationship between children and adults. Silly songs create deliberately incongruous, cheekily subversive experiences that can help children’s anxieties to be released and rendered nonthreatening.

Creating Compassion: Using Art for Empathy Learning with Urban Youth.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) curricula are being increasingly implemented with young children; however, access to comprehensive programs can be prohibitive for programs limited by finances, time, or other factors. This article describes an exploratory case study that investigates the use of creative activity in the direct promotion of empathy and indirect promotion of other social-emotional skills for early elementary children in an urban-based after-school setting. A novel curriculum, Creating Compassion, which combines art engagement with explicit behavioral instruction, serves as a promising avenue for social-emotional skill development, and has particular importance for children from low-income households. Five children from racially minoritized backgrounds in grades kindergarten and first attended the Creating Compassion group intervention. Group-level data and individual data of direct behavior ratings suggested a modest increase in empathy development, responsible decision-making, and self-management skills and thereby provide a preliminary basis for further effectiveness investigation. Suggestions for future research in this area are discussed in addition to social justice implications.

Alignment of teacher ratings and child direct assessments in preschool: A closer look at teaching strategies GOLD

Authentic, teacher report measures are a popular approach to assessing young children, but prior research has shown that teacher over- and under-estimates of early elementary children's skills can be associated with child characteristics like race and gender and are often associated with achievement gains over time. The current study extended this work by examining teacher over- and under-estimates of preschool students’ academic skills with the widely-used measure, Teaching Strategies GOLD. 1045 children (ages 46–61 months, mean = 54.4 months, SD = 3.7) from 89 publicly-funded preschool classrooms were rated by teachers using Teaching Strategies GOLD in the fall and were independently assessed on language, literacy, and math by trained assessors in the fall and spring. Results of multilevel path models indicated that the greatest discrepancies between teacher ratings and direct assessments were for children whose direct assessment scores were farther from the classroom mean; discrepancies were not significantly associated with children's race/ethnicity or gender. Discrepancies were associated with achievement gains from fall to spring, with children whose skills were overestimated making greater gains than achievement scores alone would have predicted. Indirect pathways indicated that teacher discrepancies partially transmitted the effects of higher and lower fall skills to children's spring outcomes. Results are discussed as they relate to the use of teacher report measures as formative assessments, and the potential sources of systematic error in these ratings.

Understanding early elementary children's conceptual knowledge of plant structure and function through drawings.

This study examined children's drawings to explain children's conceptual understanding of plant structure and function. The study explored whether the children's drawings accurately reflect their conceptual understanding about plants in a manner that can be interpreted by others. Drawing, survey, interview, and observational data were collected from 182 students in grades K and 1 in rural southeastern United States. Results demonstrated the children held a wide range of conceptions concerning plant structure and function. These young children held very simple ideas about plants with respect to both their structure and function. Consistent with the drawings, the interviews presented similar findings.

Development of Age-Appropriate Tools to Measure Attitude, Knowledge and Behavior Change in Early Elementary Children Participating in a School-Based Nutrition Education Program

Development of Age-Appropriate Tools to Measure Attitude, Knowledge and Behavior Change in Early Elementary Children Participating in a School-Based Nutrition Education Program

Behavioral Competence and Academic Functioning Among Early Elementary Children With Externalizing Problems

.The positive effect of competent behaviors on academic functioning may outweigh the negative effect of externalizing problems. The current study examined this premise among children with externalizing problems in the early elementary years. Participants were 207 kindergarten through third-grade children and their parents and teachers. Results suggested that children's behavioral competence made a unique contribution to all aspects of academic functioning examined (i.e., academic problems, reading and math achievement) over and above a variety of child background characteristics, including externalizing problems. Furthermore, children's behavioral competence buffered the negative effects of limited parental education on children's reading achievement. That is, among children of parents with less than a college degree, children's reading achievement was higher for those whose behavioral competence was average than for those whose behavioral competence was at risk. Findings highlight the significance of identifying and promoting behavioral competencies when working with children with behavior problems.

Choral Warm-Ups for Changing Adolescent Voices

How did you start your last choral rehearsal? Did you begin with the same warm-up procedures you used the day before (and the day before that)? Did you carefully choose the pitches of the vocalises so that each student could be successful, regardless of his or her current stage of vocal development? Did you design vocalises that addressed specific vocal issues found in the repertoire to be rehearsed that day? During two decades of observing and leading middle school choral rehearsals, I've discovered that teachers frequently repeat exactly the warm-ups they present to their young adolescent choirs at every rehearsal. If we know one thing about middle school students, we know that they are constantly changing-physically, intellectually, and emotionally. Why is it that our warm-ups usually don't reflect these changes? Think about this: if we start our warm-ups with a unison, descending, five-note, stepwise vocalise (sol, fa, mi, re, do) and then ascend sequentially by half steps for multiple repetitions, whom have we left out? Everyone who can't sing that pattern on those specific notes. We might say, Well, that kid can't match pitch, or he or she can't do X, Y, or Z. What if we were wrong? What if we simply hadn't selected an instructional task that was achievable by everyone in the ensemble? Over time, the effects on the musical self-confidence of those marginalized would be devastating, and there would be deleterious effects on the ensemble's performance. We would have failed to take advantage of what these young singers could do, instead focusing on what they physically couldn't do. Consider how young children learn to speak: they begin by babbling combinations of vowels and consonants and gradually refine and combine them to form words. We encourage young children to experiment with vocal sounds on the path toward speech, and we need to similarly encourage young adolescents to explore their new vocal capabilities made possible by the maturation process. The vocal warm-up processes used in choirs with changing adolescent voices must, in some ways, be different from the warm-up processes used in choirs of either early elementary children or older high school students. This article is an exploration of principles that need to underlie the development of warmups that meet the needs of changing voices, encourage even the most reluctant singer, and build toward ever-greater levels of choral success. In a Music Supervisors' Journal article printed more than 80 years ago, well-regarded pedagogue Charles Farnsworth wrote about the development of vocal technique:

The Vocabulary of Beginning Writers: Implications for Children with Complex Communication Needs

One of the greatest challenges facing augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) professionals is providing children with complex communication needs with access to the vocabulary that they need in order to develop mature language and literacy abilities. The purpose of this study was to analyze the vocabulary used by typically developing early-elementary children in the United States and New Zealand when they write about self-selected topics, in order to inform practices with children with complex communication needs. The children's writing samples were compared across school ages and countries. The school age comparisons highlighted the relatively restricted range of vocabulary used by children in the earliest stages of writing development, and the country comparisons revealed differences in core vocabulary. The findings of this study hopefully will assist AAC professionals as they engage in selecting, prioritizing, and organizing vocabulary to support written language development in children with complex communication needs.

Early Identification and Intervention of Phonological Deficits in Kindergarten and Early Elementary Children at Risk for Reading Disability

Current studies predicting risk for reading disability are reviewed. Such studies indicate that children at risk for reading failure can be identified early in their school career. Measures of phonological skills are useful components of prediction batteries but other factors should be considered also. Tools for early identification are described and procedures and methods for intervention are discussed.

Going beyond location: Thematic maps in the early elementary grades

Abstract Cartographic research has long suggested that preschool and early elementary children possess advanced mapping behaviors in terms of interpreting, making, and using locational and wayfinding maps. To improve instruction in geographic concepts, it is necessary to see if these advanced mapping behaviors apply to thematic or special purpose maps as well, as an understanding of these types of maps is integral to the five fundamental themes of geography. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the thematic mapping abilities of second-grade students. Students viewed maps at the neighborhood, city, and national scales displaying different types of symbolization and presented in a random order. Results indicated that the map tasks were appropriate for this age level, and a statistical test of reaction times did not identify a best symbol type or scale, as all were appropriate for this age level. Responses to discussion questions indicated the students also have the ability to describe spatial patterns. The interpretation of quantitative information on maps is within the ability level of second grade students, and materials currently used in second grade should be revised to include these maps.

The effect of teacher intervention on object manipulation in young children

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of limited oral and physical teacher intervention on object manipulation by preschool and early elementary children. The population consisting of 70 children, three, four, five, and six years old from two preschools and two kindergarten classes were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups. Children were observed as they manipulated magnets in classroom settings. Experimental students had the objects placed in their hands and were orally invited to explore. Results showed that there were significant differences between the groups in total time spent with the objects, number of activities performed, and cognitive level of operation. No significant differences were found in the number of contacts or in the interactive effects of treatment and testing day. The findings suggest that teacher roles may have an effect on student exploration and quality of interaction with unfamiliar objects.

Validation of a Group Embedded Figures Test for young children.

This paper describes the development and concurrent validation of a group-administered measure of field-dependence/independence for early elementary children. Following the procedure used to validate the Children's Group Embedded Figures Test (Level 2, 9 to 11 yr.), a validation study of a group test for younger children was undertaken with a second-grade sample (N = 77). The test was reliable (alpha = .84) and significantly related to both the individually administered Children's Embedded Figures Test (r = .56) and Portable Rod-and-frame Test (r = .57). This measure, designated the Children's Group Embedded Figures Test--Level 1, provides a promising research instrument for assessing cognitive style of young children.