How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development—in the womb and in the first months and years—have reached the popular media....
Consequences of Three Preschool Curriculum Models through Age 15
This report of the High/Scope Preschool Curriculum study traces the effects on young people through age 15 of three well-implemented preschool curriculum models—the High/Scope [play based instruction] model, the Distar [direct teacher led instruction] model, and a model in the nursery school tradition. Sixty-eight impoverished children in Ypsilanti, Michigan were...
Socioemotional versus Academic Emphasis: Impact on Kindergartners’ Development and Achievement
Differential effects of academically focused versus socioemotional kindergartens were assessed for a range of developmental domains and early skills acquisition in two cohorts of inner city kindergartners. The sample of 307 children was 94% African American and 48% female, with 75% qualifying for subsidized lunch programs and 57% living in...
Children’s Descriptions of Playing and Learning as Related Processes
Many studies have examined children’s understanding of playing and learning as separate concepts, but the ways that children relate playing and learning to one another remain relatively unexplored. The current study asked 5- to 8-year-olds (N = 92) to define playing and learning, and examined whether children defined them as...
The effects of the Head Start classroom experience on some aspects of child development: A summary report of national evaluations, 1966–1969.
This report summarizes the findings of previous technical reports on the immediate changes in child development associated with Head Start and presents a statement of the extent to which these changes have been enhanced or attenuated by different program experiences for different children. Background information presented includes an overview of...
Young Children Are Natural Inquirers: Posing and Solving Mathematical Problems.
Carefully observing young children at play in a mathematically rich environment has led me to reflect on the way children naturally pose and solve interesting mathematical challenges. Here, three examples of the playful learning of six-year-old children illustrate the problem solving and persistence children can display. Teachers are encouraged to...
Efficacy of the flipped classroom to teach play therapy: A mixed-methods study
This mixed-methods study, including quantitative and qualitative measures, evaluated how a flipped classroom learning environment that included a hands-on experiential skills lab to teach play therapy improved student's knowledge, attitude, and skills related to play therapy. Participating students (n = 18) completed the Play Therapy Knowledge, Attitudes, and Skills Survey...
Three Evidence-Based Strategies that Support Social Skills and Play Among Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
Research demonstrates young children with autism and other developmental disabilities can benefit from participation in play activities with peers. Play provides opportunities to increase social skills across developmental domains in an integrated manner and provides opportunities to develop a sense of belonging and friendship; these goals are†critical for young children...
Supporting Kindergarten Children’s Social and Emotional Development: Examining the Synergetic Role of Environments, Play, and Relationships
This study examined how teachers support kindergarten children's social and emotional development in everyday contexts. It used an ethnographic qualitative mode of enquiry, employing participant observations and semi-structured and structured interviews to examine the ways teachers optimize opportunities for supporting kindergarten children's social and emotional development. Data were analyzed through...
Young children’s experiences with contemporary art
This ethnographic study describes how an in-depth preschool learning pathway developed around children's investigations into a contemporary artist. It found that learning with Yayoi Kusama's art favoured habits of exploration, reflection, revisitation and development of ideas, and enriched children's visual awareness, inclusive artlearning conversations and their learning in mathematics, literacy...
Improvements in Physical Activity Opportunities: Results From a Community-Based Family Child Care Intervention
Introduction: Reaching preschool-aged children to establish healthy lifestyle habits, including physical activity, is an important component of obesity prevention efforts. However, few studies have examined family child care homes where nearly 1 million children receive care. Study design: A pre- and post-intervention evaluation without a control group was conducted to...
Preschoolers understand and generate pretend actions using object substitution
Pretend play is often considered to be an imaginative or creative activity. Yet past experimental research has focused on whether children imitate pretense, follow instructions to pretend, or understand others' pretense. Thus, we cannot be sure that children's pretense is in fact novel or whether children simply copy or follow...
A systematic review of play-based interventions for students with ADHD: implications for school-based occupational therapists
The results are presented from a systematic review of the literature that examined findings of published studies about play-based interventions for children and youth with ADHD. Guided by the research question, "What is the current status of evidence for using play-based interventions to improve outcomes for students with ADHD?, "...
How effectively does the full-day, play-based kindergarten programme in Ontario promote self-regulation, literacy, and numeracy?
This study investigated the effectiveness of the Full-Day Early Learning Kindergarten (FDELK) programme, which integrates play-based learning and team teaching, in promoting 32,027 kindergarteners' self-regulation (SR), literacy, and numeracy outcomes. Outcome measures derived from teacher reports of students' school readiness in the Early Development Instrument were analysed in separate hierarchical...
Unhappy families: Using tabletop games as a technology to understand play in education
In this article, we argue that tabletop games provide a helpful means of rethinking the affordances of digital games in pedagogy. We argue that tabletop games offer a distinctive technology from digital games in exploring the idea of play as experience, providing a sociable, accessible and tactile platform that can...
The Implementation and Feasibility of the Supporting Physical Activity in the Childcare Environment (SPACE) Intervention: A Process Evaluation
This study describes the process evaluation of the Supporting Physical Activity in the Childcare Environment (SPACE) intervention, consisting of educator physical activity training, provision of portable play equipment, and a modified outdoor schedule (i.e., 4 â—Š 30-minute periods). Educators (N = 49) from 11 childcare centers in London, Ontario, Canada,...
Using classroom game play in introductory microeconomics to enhance business student learning and lecture attendance
The author examined whether game play improves students' comprehension, attendance, and exam performance. The author designed three games; 120 students in introductory microeconomics classes participated in these experiments. The evidence showed that game play enhances students' attendance, comprehension, and exam performance. It also showed that attendance and exam performance are...
Can Guided Play and Storybook Reading Promote Children’s Drawing Development?
Children's drawings are implicated in their emotional, cognitive, artistic, and semiotic development, raising the question of how early educators may best facilitate drawing development. This study compared three activities to determine their relative efficacy in promoting children's drawing. Seventy-seven preschoolers from a Head Start program were randomly assigned to one...
Benefits of scripted role-plays in physical education curricula for underage orphans
The article overviews findings of the multiannual studies geared to improve the physical education models for preschool orphans. Based on the study findings, we offered and tested a few new physical education models for preschool orphans including: scripted role-plays with an emphasis on the entertaining aspect, such as finger games,...
Beyond uniform reproduction: Exploring children’s imaginative play through the lenses of their teacher
The voices of both early childhood education teachers and children tend to be weak in the choir of agents that constitute the aims and practices of early childhood education. In this article, a video that a teacher made of four children playing dragons, followed by open-ended interviews exploring why she...
