Preschool Practice Research Articles

Förskollärares konstruktion av ett fysikaliskt lärandeobjekt

In 2010 the Swedish national curriculum was revised and learning goals concerning chemistry and physics were introduced. That has induced a need for further understanding of teaching and learning of specific content in preschool. Focus in this article is how physics content is constructed as an object of learning during preschool teachers’ planning of teaching. The result of a phenomenographic analysis focusing themes of the conversation concerning the intended object of learning reveals a complex process. Occurrences in the activities with the children, available tools at the preschool, the preschool teachers’ perceptions of the mission and understanding of the learning object, contribute to the construction of the learning object. All these aspects are discussed and implications for preschool practice are suggested.

Assessment of the Practices for Early Mathematics Thinking in Preschools of Pasaje City, Ecuador

<p style="text-align:justify">Preschool education is fundamental to shape children’s aptitudes and skills in early life. Ecuador is following a global education trend for starting-up mathematical thinking at earlier development ages, but this is only reflected in vehement curricular changes that are not supported properly. As a result, the safeguarding of a good children’s education appears to be lessened. This work aimed to evaluate the mathematics thinking practices in preschools of Pasaje city, Ecuador. The investigation employed a descriptive approach, hence data were collected from 65 teachers and 810 parents from public and private preschools by means of interviews and questionnaire in an attempt define some causes (teacher’s education, children’s socio-economical and family circumstances) that impair the initiation of the numerical, spatial and metric and geometric aptitudes in children. The results showed that not only preschool practices but also the home environment linked to socio-economic status appear to have positive or unfavorable influences on their children’s education.</p>

The art of displacement – curating a preschool context in a public transport system

ABSTRACT This article discusses ways of enabling the youngest children at preschool (1–3 years) to participate in creating space in the public transport system. One researcher, two preschool educators and six preschool toddlers travelled on foot, by bus and by underground train to the Brunkeberg tunnel, a pedestrian tunnel in the centre of Stockholm, Sweden. Drawing on artistic site-specific methods of displacement, this article details three propositions for how to ‘do’ preschool in the public transport system: locations, dimensions and positions. By placing the routines and rhythms of a preschool practice into the urban spaces of transport, the ‘miniature preschool’ comes to curate context. The article proposes methods for a preschool practice to curate context through activating mobile but particular locations within a specific place; creating a vocal mobile architecture; and enabling multiple and mobile positions within one specific situation.

Using the theory of practice architectures to articulate special educational needs practices in Belarusian and Norwegian preschools

ABSTRACTThe present study explores special educational needs (SEN) practices for children with a developmental language disorder (DLD) in Belarus and Norway. The theory of practice architectures is used to portray a comprehensive picture of the SEN practices employed in the studied countries. Drawing on empirical data, the results of the research were analysed through the theoretical lens of practice architectures, which placed the results into three categories: sayings, doings and relatings. In this way, the SEN practices in Belarus and Norway are demonstrated and compared. The results show that it may help to consider preparing preschool staff and promoting the dialogue between the stakeholders involved in SEN practices concerning frameworks and improving support for children with DLD.

Inclusion of a child with expressive language difficulties in a mainstream Australian preschool – roundabout ways can create opportunities for participation

ABSTRACT Contemporary educational policies both at international and national levels acknowledge the educational rights of all children and their inclusion in mainstream educational practices. Like other children at risk, children with disabilities have opportunities to access mainstream education but their participation is not always realised in practice. To address opportunities and challenges of inclusion of children with disabilities, this paper examines the participation of one focus child (four years), with Soto’s Syndrome, who attends a mainstream Australian preschool setting. Guided by the cultural-historical theory, digital video data of the focus child’s activities in everyday preschool practices (13 h) was gathered over a period of eight months. The findings suggest that although the focus child faces difficulties in expressive language, she created her own developmental trajectory of participation. The focus child used educators as her living auxiliary tools and educators used auxiliary questions to support the child to express and communicate through a process of building shared meaning. Though the findings are limited in regard to generalisation, the understanding about the dialectical effort of adults and the focus child to create a roundabout way to overcome incongruences could be a strong basis for conceptualising inclusion.

Vardagligt samspel och mobila sängar i barnstorlek – en visuell historisk analys av vilan i förskolan

In previous historical studies on preschools, the main sources are texts; photos are used merely as illustrations. Inspired by the idea to use visual materials to study the look of the past by scrutinising historical photos and films of naptime in preschool, this article will shed light on preschool as an institution and on the materiality of naptime practices. The data comprise of historical photographs and films from the period 1900–1970 (in total 14 films and approximately 200 photographs that, in one way or the other, depict naptime: adult and child interaction, the beds' constructions, the material organization of rooms and naptime routines). By using visual analyses, visualizations and the notion of path dependence, the article shows how the everyday practice of napping was carried out in the historical preschool in relation to questions of continuity and change. The results suggest that the design of beds, as child-sized and easy to move and store, can be understood as defining the institution as a preschool with play and educational practices as its main purpose. At the same time, however, the beds themselves indicate that care, as sleep or napping, was an essential practice in historic preschools.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Feeding Practices in Finnish preschools.

Aims: Certain feeding practices, such as role modeling healthy eating and encouragement are recommended to be used in preschools. Little is known about whether preschool characteristics are associated with the use of these feeding practices. Our aim was to examine whether the socioeconomic status (SES) of the preschool neighborhood is associated with the feeding practices in preschools. Methods: This study was part of the cross-sectional DAGIS study. We studied 66 municipal preschools and 378 early childhood educators (ECEs). Preschool neighborhood SES was assessed with map grid data. Feeding practices were assessed by questionnaires and lunchtime observation. Associations between preschool neighborhood SES and feeding practices were tested with logistic regression analyses adjusted for ECEs' educational level and municipal policies on ECEs' lunch prices, and on birthday foods. Results: The crude model showed that in high-SES neighborhood preschools ECEs were more likely to eat the same lunch as the children (OR 2.46, 95% CI 1.42-4.24) and to reward children with other food for eating vegetables (OR 2.48, 95% CI 1.40-4.41). Furthermore, in high-SES preschools it was less likely that birthday foods outside of the normal menu were available on birthdays (OR 0.29, 95% CI 0.12-0.71). In the adjusted model, rewarding with other food remained associated with preschool neighborhood SES (OR 2.13, 95% CI 1.12-4.07). Conclusions: After adjustments, preschool neighborhood SES was mostly unassociated with the feeding practices in preschools. Municipal policies may have a significant impact on feeding practices and ultimately on young children's food intake in Finland where most children attend municipal preschools.

Supporting Second Language Vocabulary: A Scenario From Hungarian Preschools

As teachers worldwide struggle to serve an ever-increasing number of children and their families who do not speak the dominant language, the authors present a research-based scenario illustrating practices in Hungarian preschools.

Культурно-исторический подход к проектированию и оценке результатов игрового обучения химии дошкольников

This study has been performed in Sweden, where the preschool curriculum states that children’s understanding of simple chemical processes is a goal to strive towards [13]. However, uncertainty within the current preschool practice exists and has been described by B. Sundberg et al. [20]. Motivated by the lack of scientific literature on what chemistry content is suitable for preschool children and how to introduce it, this study aims to tackle how abstract concepts like “atoms” and “molecules” can be introduced to preschool children. With this purpose, a play-based learning intervention was designed, following the cultural-historical model for preschool science education proposed by M. Fleer [7], and implemented in two Swedish preschools, dividing a total of 20 three-years-old children into four groups of five children each. Data were collected in the form of video-recordings of the sessions and analysed following the principles from the experimental-genetic method summarized by N. Veresov [23]. Results are presented in the form of vignettes that illustrate significant moments from the intervention, together with discussion of how the social situation of development, the zone of actual development and the mediating tools facilitate the children in starting to talk about atoms.

Reformimplementering i förskolepraktik

This article focuses on how responsibilities and tasks have been allocated between preschool teachers and child-care workers some years after the revision of the Swedish National Education Act and the preschool curriculum in 2010, in which the preschool staffs responsibility was clarified. The revision intended to strengthen the educational quality in preschool by providing preschool teachers with an increased responsibility for the educational activities carried out by preschool teams. Our overall aim was to investigate whether the revision has led to a redistribution of responsibilities and/or tasks in the everyday preschool practice carried through by preschool teams consisting of preschool teachers and child-care workers. The investigation is grounded through observations of the daily work of four mixed teams and analyses of local documents, field conversations and interviews with the team members and their heads. Due to the results there has been some redistribution of responsibilities and tasks. For instance, all the heads have made organizational changes in order to enable preschool teachers to take greater responsibility for educational activities and their quality, which in turn resulted in a more hierarchical organization. The article discusses the complexity associated with the interpretation and implementation of an educational reform and its effects.

Supporting Spanish–English Bilingual Language Development Among Latinx Dual Language Learners in Early Learning Settings

Latinx dual language learners (DLLs) are a large and growing student body that continues to face educational adversities that contribute to the maintenance of a longstanding academic achievement gap. Previous research has documented that preschool attendance and development of home language skills in early childhood support the long-term academic and linguistic growth of DLLs; yet, relatively, little is known about how early childhood educators support bilingual language development in preschool and how such efforts impact bilingual proficiency. These are particularly salient questions, as emerging best practices to support DLLs identified in research may not be reaching educators with sufficient speed. The present mixed methods study examined the role of instructional and contextual factors in promoting English and Spanish language development among (N = 46) Latinx preschoolers. Qualitative phenomenological analyses were conducted to explore the nature of language instruction practices in Central California preschools. Analysis of covariance was used to determine if classroom characteristics, including culturally and linguistically responsive instruction practices and overall classroom quality, predict English and Spanish language proficiency at the end of the preschool year. Results suggest that language instruction practices may tend to be more reactive than systematic, and support findings that high overall instructional quality and application of targeted instructional supports for bilingual acquisition support the development of home language skills throughout the school year. The results reinforce the call for increased attention to bilingual language development in early childhood settings, especially through assessment, instruction models, and multi-tiered systems of support. School psychologists, who are trained on these topics, have a significant opportunity to collaborate with early childhood administrators and teachers to educate themselves further on DLLs’ early language development needs, help improve culturally and linguistically responsive instruction and assessment in early learning settings, and work to bridge the early childhood and K-12 systems to support DLLs’ ongoing development.

Belonging in transience: Vocal mapping for a commuting preschool practice

This article explores and elaborates art theorist Miwon Kwon's (2004) concept of belonging-in-transience through placing a preschool practice in the urban transport system and ask how toddlers can belong in public space. Belonging-in-transience is here seen as a collectively shared emotion system that can be described as ambivalent pre-personal intensities of emotions not yet stated. When a small group of preschool toddlers enters the public transport system - what the anthropologist Marc Augé terms non-places that lack particular shared cultural and social meaning - they both integrate into the routines and rhythms and intervene with the practice of traveling. The article outlines how belonging-in-transience consist of multiple ways to belong that always emerge in and through specific situations and places at hand. The methodological concepts vocal mappings and voice belongings, was developed as a way to delineate how the toddlers orientated themselves in the feeling of belonging through experimentations. Voice belonging and vocal mapping expose belonging as reciprocally dependent on the situation that at the same time influences possible ways of belonging.

LEGO as Learning Enabler in the 21st-Century Preschool Classroom: Examining Perceptions of Attitudes and Preschool Practices

LEGO as Learning Enabler in the 21st-Century Preschool Classroom: Examining Perceptions of Attitudes and Preschool Practices

Explicating professional modes of action for teaching preschool mathematics

ABSTRACTPlay-based preschool pedagogy usually relies on informal teaching while policy trends and some research call for increased formalisation of the pedagogy. Using Bernstein’s concepts of classification and framing, this article characterises mechanisms that link evaluation of preschool to the push towards the formalisation of teaching in preschool. Moreover, it is suggested how preschool teaching of mathematics can be conceptualised in a way that widens the pedagogical responsibilities of the teachers to include a broader range of social activities than typically expected. These responsibilities concern how teachers are involved in pedagogical situations, if situations are planned and if the mathematics is a pedagogical goal in the situation or instrumental in some other activity. It is argued that a practice built on these principles could both honour well-developed play-based preschool practices and provide a structure for teaching preschool mathematics in which using traditional child–teacher interaction is only one of many options.

Exploring Issues On Teaching And Learning In Malaysian Private Preschools

The Malaysian government, as with the rest of the world is becoming increasingly aware of the importance of early childhood education towards nation building. This involves constant monitoring on the quality of preschool education. To improve the Malaysian preschool system, it is crucial to identify the issues encountered in the preschool teaching and learning in actual practice. Hence, this study aimed to explore the issues regarding teaching and learning in Malaysian private preschool settings. Three in-service preschool teachers from the Klang Valley were selected through purposive sampling. Data was collected through open-ended interviews. Observation was also carried out to triangulate the survey findings. Thematic analysis of the findings then resulted in four themes and eight sub-themes. Findings indicated the structured and formal preschool environment with excessive emphasis on academic outcomes, which contradict the established principles of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) as well as requirements in the national preschool curriculum. Mismatch between teachers’ beliefs of the ideal practice and the actual practice was also discerned. Recommendations for stakeholders were included to tackle the identified issues towards developing a more conducive environment for the optimal development of Malaysian pre-schoolers. This present study will benefit policymakers, curriculum developers and relevant authorities related to early childhood education to catch a glimpse of the actual practice in many private preschools in Malaysia. Most importantly, it is hoped that this study would be a platform for a revamp in the Malaysian preschool education towards a more effective and holistic education for all Malaysian pre-schoolers.&nbsp

‘The unfinished business’: Exploring teachers' views on gender and pedagogical practices in public preschools in Nairobi county, Kenya

‘The unfinished business’: Exploring teachers' views on gender and pedagogical practices in public preschools in Nairobi county, Kenya

Play-based creativity-fostering practices: the effects of different pedagogical approaches on the development of children’s creative thinking behaviours in a Chinese preschool classroom

ABSTRACTHong Kong’s policy and curriculum guide advocates the development of creativity, and stresses the importance of child-centred and play-based practices in preschools. Effective pedagogical approaches for creativity reform should reflect a sociocultural perspective. This study aimed to compare the pedagogical effects of two teaching approaches, in a teacher-led, problem-solving activity. A case study research method was employed in a preschool setting. The Analysing Children’s Creative Thinking framework was used to document the creative thinking behaviours of two groups of six-year-old children in terms of exploration, involvement and enjoyment, and persistence. The results revealed that children in the teacher-guided approach exhibited more creative thinking behaviours than children in the hands-off approach. It was evident that Chinese children benefit when the level of choice is not overwhelming and learning occurs in a progressive way. The findings suggest that cultural and contextual appropriateness should be taken into consideration when promoting creativity in education.

Situated decoding of gender in a Swedish preschool practice

ABSTRACTThis article is based on data generated in an ethnographic study of gender in a Swedish preschool. Drawing on Judith Butler’s understanding of performativity and (un)doing of gender, a new theoretical concept, situated decoding of gender, is further developed by showing how the material and spatial dimension of the educational practice and the teachers’ actions contribute to establishing and maintaining this process in an early childhood educational setting. Instead of normalising the gender binary, a reverse process occurs that turns what is perceived as feminine or masculine into a gender decoded state in which gender is made less relevant, or even irrelevant. It is argued that this continuous reiterative process emerges and is maintained by three main factors: (a) the preschool’s physical environment, (b) the regular and repetitive structure of the educational practice and (c) the consistent actions of the teachers in the everyday practice.

Edukacja na temat prawidłowego żywienia poprawiła praktyki związane z realizacją żywienia w przedszkolach w Polsce

Edukacja na temat prawidłowego żywienia poprawiła praktyki związane z realizacją żywienia w przedszkolach w Polsce

Mathematics and Puppet Play as a Method in the Preschool Teacher Education

This study explores students’ perceptions and understanding of mathematics as a subject and using aesthetic expressions in their own mathematics teaching in preschool, more specifically, with puppet play as a method. In all teacher education in Sweden, mathematics in preschool is taught in different ways, which means that the teaching about the aesthetic possibilities as a part of the teaching of mathematics in preschool varies. The main purpose of the study has been to investigate students’ mathematical development in preschool practice based on the changes made in the educational and methodological implications during teacher education. The data collection consists of texts from 73 students. The qualitative content analysis focuses on the students’ descriptions of understanding and meaning of mathematics and aesthetics in their own teaching with the children. The results show that the methodological implications in the course’s organization and structure enabled a variation of qualitative changes in the students perceptions and beliefs about mathematics and aesthetics, but also that the conceptual languages of mathematics could be varied and concretized by new methodological strategies.