Skills In Early Years Research Articles

Exploring the relationship between young children’s self-concept and prosocial behaviour in the Greek Early Childhood Education and Care setting: A study on soft skills assessment

The aim of this study was to investigate young children’s perspectives of their self-concept and to examine its association with their prosocial behaviour. The psychometric properties of the Adaptive Social Behaviour Inventory (ASBI) in the Greek Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) context were also investigated. The study guided by the Social-Emotional Learning Framework that highlights the importance of the development of the soft skills in early years. The sample comprised 102 young children (Mage= 3.79 years, SDage= .20 years) and their teachers from nine ECEC settings. The measures used were the Adaptive Social Behaviour Inventory (ASBI) and the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance (PSPCSA). Results from factor analysis supported the four-factor structure of the ASBI and its high reliability: prosocial behaviour, co-operation/conformity, antisocial behaviour, and confidence. Findings showed that young children’s self-concept beliefs associated positively with the children’s prosocial behaviour. Collectively, the findings highlight the importance of supporting young children’s self-concept beliefs and their impact on children’s behaviour.

Teaching communication skills in early years of medical education through telemedicine.

Teaching communication skills in early years of medical education through telemedicine.

Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Early Years through Early Childhood Care and Education

Today’s children need to learn how to filter useful informationfrom a plethora of information. For this purpose they need to learn criticalthinking skill. Our educational practices do not allow children to think andexpress their ideas, as the teachers in our schools consider themselvesauthority on the knowledge. Moreover, the main purpose of teaching is tocomplete the syllabi and enable students to pass examination. The NationalCurriculum of Early Childhood Care and Education 2017 providesguidelines for developing critical thinking skills in young children. Thisstudy was an attempt to find out whether the classroom environment andinstructional strategies used at ECCE level are appropriate for developingcritical thinking skills in young children. The sample included 15 ECEclassrooms in Muzaffarabad city. These classrooms were observed andinformal interviews were taken from the teachers of these classes. It wasconcluded that the teachers at ECE level were not fully aware of animportant objective of the national curriculum suggested for this level. Theactivities and strategies required for developing critical thinking skill arerarely adopted by the teachers. Their basic focus remains on reading,writing and numeracy. Teachers mostly use the traditional methods ofteaching that make the kids passive learners.

Study protocol: DigiHand – the emergence of handwriting skills in digital classrooms

This protocol article presents the project “DigiHand: The emergence of handwriting skills in digital classrooms.”1 The project is a longitudinal natural experiment investigating how the use of different writing tools influences students’ handwriting and letter knowledge, word reading, spelling, written narrative composition and teacher–student interactions in Grades 1 and 2 (students aged 6 years in Grade 1). Participants are 33 schools (n = 585 students) representing three occurring conditions for learning writing skills in early years. Students in these conditions either (1) learn to write on a tablet while postponing handwriting, (2) learn both to handwrite and write on a tablet or (3) learn to handwrite. Effect analyses are conducted on four main domains of measures: (i) students’ letter knowledge, spelling competence and word reading competence; (ii) students’ handwriting fluency; (iii) students’ ability to write narrative compositions; (iv) quality of teacher–student interactions. This protocol describes the background, design and pre- and outcome measures for the research project.

Executive Function Buffers the Association between Early Math and Later Academic Skills.

Extensive evidence has suggested that early academic skills are a robust indicator of later academic achievement; however, there is mixed evidence of the effectiveness of intervention on academic skills in early years to improve later outcomes. As such, it is clear there are other contributing factors to the development of academic skills. The present study tests the role of executive function (EF) (a construct made up of skills complicit in the achievement of goal-directed tasks) in predicting 5th grade math and reading ability above and beyond math and reading ability prior to school entry, and net of other cognitive covariates including processing speed, vocabulary, and IQ. Using a longitudinal dataset of N = 1292 participants representative of rural areas in two distinctive geographical parts of the United States, the present investigation finds EF at age 5 strongly predicts 5th grade academic skills, as do cognitive covariates. Additionally, investigation of an interaction between early math ability and EF reveals the magnitude of the association between early math and later math varies as a function of early EF, such that participants who have high levels of EF can “catch up” to peers who perform better on assessments of early math ability. These results suggest EF is pivotal to the development of academic skills throughout elementary school. Implications for further research and practice are discussed.

How Do Students Prove Their Learning and Teachers Their Teaching? Do Teachers Make a Difference?

Problem Statement : Gaining reasoning skills in early years affects the formal proving skills in the following years, thus it is quite significant. The acquiring of this skill is only possible with the approaches that the teachers used in the process. At this point, the problem to be researched in terms of making proofs is seen in how middle school students prove a mathematical expression; what kinds of reasoning and proof types they use in this process; how the teachers of these students prove the same expression; and how they reflect it to their instruction. Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this study is to investigate the middle school students’ and their teachers’ reasoning types and proof methods while proving a mathematical expression. Method: A basic qualitative research design was conducted to investigate the research problems. Participants in this study were two middle school mathematics teachers who have different professional experiences, and 18 students from 6 th , 7 th and 8 th grades. A clinical interview technique was used to collect data and the interviews were video recorded. A thematic analysis method was used to analyze the data. Findings and Results: The middle school students tried to decide on the argument by following specific cases in order to verify a mathematical expression, and in this context they performed several actions, such as pattern recognition, seeking the relationship between two variables, and making conjectures. They have performed three types of actions, namely verification, explanation and abstraction during the proving of a mathematical expression. Moreover, they have provided some arguments which were not accepted as proof, by offering experimental, intuitive or illogical justification. On the other hand, it has been observed that the middle school mathematic teachers thought in the same way that their students thought while proving a given mathematical expression. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations : As a result of this study, it has been found that students had difficulties in proving mathematical statements; they preferred to use experimental proofs and mostly adapted an inductive approach. On the other hand, the proving tendency of the teachers was mostly at a verification and explanation level; they have a similar structure of thinking with their students in the process of proving mathematical expressions. Reasoning and proof should be the fundamental aspects of mathematics teaching, should play a significant role in mathematical contents without taking it independently, and should be developed in the earlier years. In addition, to what extent mathematics textbooks and mathematics curriculum in each grade level support the reasoning and proof standards should be investigated.

Differences in Mean Number of Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Words Decoded between Letter-Sound Readers and Non Letter-Sound Readers

Children’s failure to develop simple word decoding skills in early years is linked to future poor reading, school dropout, and poor health [1] [2]. Letter-sound knowledge is needed for word decoding development; however questions remain on what types of letter-sound knowledge help children decode simple words [3]. This study investigated the differences in mean number of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words decoded between two groups of children, a letter-sound reading group and non letter-sound reading group. Children aged 4 to 6 in both groups, attempted to decode a variety of simple words such as tan, sit, hen, pig, dot, and fun. Analysis determined word decoding differences existed between the two groups. The alternate hypothesis was accepted; the letter-sound reading group had a significantly higher mean in number of consonant-vowel-consonant words decoded compared to the non letter-sound reading group. The study informs the teaching approaches needed to improve early decoding skills showing letter-sound reading ability is an important step for learning to decode simple consonant-vowel-consonant words.