This study investigates how visual storytelling supports emotional expression, engagement, and intercultural awareness among Iranian children learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Employing a qualitative, arts-based case study design, 20 upper-elementary learners (ages 9-12) participated in drawing-based storytelling activities over six to eight weeks in a private EFL classroom. Data were collected through visual artifacts, classroom observations, reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews and analyzed thematically. Findings reveal that visual storytelling enabled children to externalize emotions, construct complex narratives, and develop empathy toward peers and imagined characters. Teacher scaffolding and guided reflection further enhanced learners' linguistic confidence, emotional literacy, and intercultural perspective-taking. The study highlights the transformative potential of integrating arts-based multimodal practices into early language learning, demonstrating their capacity to promote holistic cognitive, affective, and social development. Implications for pedagogy, limitations of the study, and directions for future research in non-Western EFL contexts are discussed.
Young children's digital technology use increased rapidly during and after the global COVID-19 pandemic. In early childhood years, parents and teachers either allow or prohibit children's digital technology use. Teachers play an important role in guiding families and communicating with parents about children's digital habits, development, and well-being. This qualitative study explored preservice and in-service teachers' perspectives on young children's increased digital technology use, including their mediation strategies (e.g., restrictive, active mediation, co-use). Using purposive sampling, the authors collected data from 70 participants in T & uuml;rkiye (35 preservice and 35 in-service teachers) through open-ended written response forms and semi-structured focus group interviews. Thematic analysis was used to identify key patterns across responses. The findings revealed that in-service teachers emphasized practical strategies, such as setting screen time limits and curating appropriate content, while preservice teachers highlighted the need for coursework and practice to effectively guide parents in children's digital technology use. Both groups emphasized the importance of family routines and safety concerns. These findings suggest the need for relevant coursework, application opportunities, and professional development programs to enhance preservice and in-service teachers' technology and pedagogical skills and the need to raise awareness among parents and offer parent education initiatives.
This research explores the role of education through music as a central pedagogical tool in early childhood settings, assessing its influence on multiple dimensions of child development. While music is recognized in early years frameworks such as the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), it is often relegated to an ancillary role. This study examined how music can be used not merely as an enrichment activity, but as an embedded method of teaching, influencing children's personal, social, and emotional development; communication and language skills; and expressive arts engagement. Using a case study methodology situated within a constructivist and interpretivist framework, the study draws on observations, Leuven Involvement Scale assessments, and parent questionnaires of three children. It is acknowledged that the small sample size limits generalizability. Data analysis revealed gains in emotional resilience, verbal and non-verbal communication, social interactions, and creative expression. The findings and recommendations suggest that music could be repositioned as a key foundational educational medium, potentially providing valuable insights for curriculum design and pedagogical practice in training programs for early years practitioners. Recommendations are made for early years educators and policymakers to recognize and operationalize the developmental potential of music in early learning environments.
Children's right to participate is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and embedded in Portuguese early childhood education and care (ECEC) curriculum policies. Nevertheless, constraints and barriers to the fulfillment of this right have been identified. Drawing on the Lundy Model, this study aimed to analyze the narratives of ECEC professionals, namely coordinators, teachers, and assistants, regarding participatory practices and conditions perceived as influencing children's participation. Findings from focus group interviews conducted with 25 professionals revealed that the four dimensions of Lundy's model (Space, Voice, Audience, and Influence) were present in professionals' narratives. Moreover, key enabling conducive conditions related to leadership and setting conditions, professional development, and participatory environment were identified. Findings also revealed that distinctive professional backgrounds and roles accounted for variability in professionals' narratives on participation practices and conditions. Implications are drawn on the need to target professional development initiatives involving all ECEC staff as a core contribution to close the gap between rhetoric and the practical implementation of children's participation rights.
Three hundred forty-one early childhood educators (84.5% female, 53.3% white, U.S.) filled out a survey about addressing race; 49.6% of the educators addressed race due to children noticing skin color, children's prejudice and stereotyping, and adults expressing racial prejudice. Educators avoided addressing race and racism in depth, and emphasized racial differences and similarities, reading books, designing art activities, and using racially representative materials. Regarding a vignette about a child noticing a guest speaker's skin color, 70.0% of educators would use this as a "teaching moment," 57.3% would tell the child that we all have different skin colors, and the guest's is brown, 22.9% wrote in open-ended responses, 4.6% would ignore the comment and possibly come back to it later, and 1.5% would tell the child that it is rude to point out people's skin color. Regarding a vignette about a white child telling a Black friend that they cannot be the princess, 77.1% of educators would tell the child that princesses can have different hair and skin colors, 57.0% would use this as "teaching moment," 45.5% would tell the child that anyone can be a princess, 18.3% would tell the child that is not a nice thing to say, and 13.4% wrote in open-ended responses. Implications for practice are discussed.
This study used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the impact of a preschool STEM professional learning approach on the teaching practice of lead preschool educators. The model included features of promising practices in professional learning and showed positive impacts on attitudes, beliefs, confidence, and knowledge in math and science. This study analyzed data qualitatively and quantitatively from treatment and control group teachers who participated in a randomized trial, including self-reported teaching behaviors, classroom observation data, teacher reflection coaching meeting transcripts, and external evaluator reports of teaching practice impacts. Results revealed positive changes in small-group math, science, and integrated STEM teaching practice for the treatment teachers compared to the control, with no main effects on global classroom quality changes. Treatment group teachers who were coded as most receptive to professional learning scored higher on classroom quality measures than those who were less receptive or the control group teachers. Qualitative data analysis revealed three interrelated themes showing participants' increased confidence, positive attitudes, knowledge, awareness, and purposefulness in their STEM teaching practices. Challenges with instrumentation alignment, rethinking the interrelationships between factors in our theory of change, and the importance of teachers' personal characteristics in understanding the complete picture of intervention impacts are discussed.
Storytelling leads to narrative transportation, a cognitive process that immerses the audience in the narrative world. As a fundamental tool in communication and learning, narrative transportation allows children to engage with and understand the world. Given the importance of this process in educational and psychological contexts, this study conducts a systematic review extending the current literature on children's narrative transportation. Based on an analysis of 22 peer-reviewed articles from seven major academic databases (N = 1909; 1,407 children), this review identifies narrative transportation's key theoretical foundations and core constructs, including its person- and narrative-related antecedents, health and social outcomes, and narrative media (e.g., books and video games). Studies were selected and analyzed according to PRISMA 2020 guidelines. Most studies supported a predictive and correlational link between narrative transportation and a range of children's social and health-related outcomes. Notably, narrative-related antecedents were more frequently examined than person-related antecedents. These results highlight the need for comparative studies investigating differential effects of various narrative media on children's narrative transportation experiences. Extending this framework to children provides several directions for future research, such as investigating narrative elements, media tools, intrapersonal traits, and their interactions to enhance narrative transportation's role in children's development.
It is well-established that shared book reading is an important activity for supporting children's language development in early childhood classrooms. However, there is notable variability in shared book reading experiences across early childhood classrooms and in the books shared while reading aloud. To further explore shared reading experiences in early childhood classrooms, we leveraged data from naturalistic observations of two groups of US classrooms: 30 in which children demonstrated higher language gains over the course of the school year and 30 in which children demonstrated lower language gains. We examine whether certain characteristics of shared book reading activities (i.e., frequency, duration, grouping format) as well as characteristics of the books used during shared reading (i.e., genre, sophisticated vocabulary, quantity of language input, and syntactic complexity of book text) differed among the two groups of classrooms. Findings indicate similarities across the higher and lower language gains classrooms for both the characteristics of the reading activities and of the books shared. Implications for practitioners and teacher preparation programs are presented, and directions for future research are discussed.
A child's transition into elementary school is a significant shift for families, and this important milestone can be associated with difficulties for many mothers. Accordingly, this study aims to identify clusters of difficulties experienced by mothers during their children's school transition, and to explore these experiences by ethnicity, language proficiency, area-level socioeconomic status, and duration of difficulties experienced, to understand how social and cultural factors may influence mothers' experiences and identify groups who may benefit from additional support. Data from 5,708 mothers participating in a longitudinal birth cohort study were analyzed using two cluster analysis methods, each revealing three and four different clusters of mothers. The first method clustered mothers' difficulties into attachment-focused concerns, adaptation-focused concerns, and children's school adjustment concerns. The second method clustered them into maternal socio-emotional concerns, specific needs, transition support, and school adjustment. Significant differences were observed across clusters by ethnicity, language proficiency, and duration of difficulties experienced. This study underscores the need for support programs and parent-school collaboration that address mothers' difficulties during their children's transition to elementary school.
More needs to be known regarding what precipitates parents' decision to delay school entry for their children. Using the ECLS-K:2011 (n = 13,149), patterns in parents' ratings of school readiness items were investigated, and associations with decisions to delay school entry were examined. Latent Class Analysis was used to investigate the presence of subgroups of parents based on their ratings of school readiness items. A three-class solution was selected (resulting in groups labeled Essential (42.11% of sample), Very Important (38.12%), and Making Distinctions (19.77%)). Next, the demographic breakdown of the three groups was investigated. Distinct patterns in both race and ethnicity and socioeconomic status emerged from the descriptive analyses. Finally, the three groups were used to predict parents' decision to delay school entry. A significantly higher percentage of parents in the Making Distinctions group delayed school entry than in the Very Important group but not significantly more than in the Essential group. Results suggest that distinct subgroups of parents exist, and those subgroups helped to explain parents' decision to delay school entry.
The use of educational technology (EdTech) has grown rapidly, yet there remains a lack of synthesized evidence on how EdTech tools are evaluated for math and literacy learning. This study conducted a systematic review of how EdTech has been evaluated in K-8 education, based on 44 peer-reviewed studies published between 2013 and 2024. It explored key dimensions, including study methodology (e.g., design), technological features (e.g., device types), evaluation aspects (e.g., user experience), assessment tools (e.g., surveys), and math and literacy learning outcomes (e.g., counting, vocabulary). The analysis showed that majority of the studies employed quasi-experimental designs (57%), pre-posttest designs (66%), and featured medium sample sizes (55%). Twelve distinct EdTech platforms were identified, with educational games most common in math and web-based applications in literacy. Tablets and iPads were the most frequently used devices, and feedback was the most frequent educational feature. Performance assessments, particularly pre-posttests, were used in most studies (86%), and nearly half relied on platform-generated data (41%). Outcome measures focused largely on basic math skills and reading comprehension, with limited focus on integrated math and literacy learning outcomes. These findings provide a structured lens for evaluating EdTech in elementary education, therefore, guiding the creation of more comprehensive and effective methods.
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings play a key role in fostering young children's social-emotional development. Skilled professional teams are essential to creating inclusive, supportive learning environments that promote these competencies. In response to the need for systematic enhancement of social-emotional support in ECEC, this study examined the perceived impact of a professional development program, grounded in a program-wide positive behavior support (PW-PBS) approach, on children's social-emotional competence and behavior. The study involved 139 professionals and considered both institutional and professional characteristics. A blended-learning professional development program, delivered through a train-the-trainers model, was implemented across diverse ECEC settings in Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal. Participants reported improvements in children's social-emotional outcomes and in their own professional skills, highlighting the program's promising effects despite its relatively short duration. Findings further indicated that more experienced professionals, teachers working with larger groups, professionals in the social (nonprofit) sector, and those in centers without existing behavioral guidelines perceived greater benefits from the training. Overall, higher perceived quality of the program was associated with stronger perceived impact. These results extend existing knowledge on PW-PBS implementation in Europe and underscore the importance of targeted professional development to support young children's social-emotional development.
Teachers' mindsets and beliefs significantly influence their competence, awareness of current educational trends, and classroom practices, as well as their willingness to adopt new educational methodologies. This survey-based study examined the growth mindsets of 486 Taiwanese preschool educators regarding glocalization. Descriptive and inferential statistics, along with structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, were employed to investigate the following key findings. First, SEM analysis revealed that preschool educators' growth mindsets exerted a moderate effect on their attitudes toward glocalization. Specifically, educators demonstrated a positive growth mindset concerning glocalization, with particular emphasis on their response to adversity. Second, the findings indicated that preschool educators exhibited heightened awareness of glocalization in terms of their professional competence and instructional strategies. Finally, contextual factors-including school size, the distinction between private and public institutions, and educators' certification qualifications-were found to influence educators' growth mindsets toward glocalization. Based on these findings, the study recommends integrating professional development initiatives and collaborative lesson planning centered on glocalization into early childhood education programs and preschool language policy to enhance educators' competencies and instructional practices.
Despite policy commitments to inclusive and student-centered education, public primary schooling in Bangladesh remains shaped by centralized curricula, examination pressures, and deficit-oriented views. In this educational framework, the focus is on students' deficits rather than their strengths. Guided by the funds of knowledge (FoK) framework, this qualitative study explores how primary school teachers identify students' home- and community-based knowledge, how they perceive it, and how they view the potential of FoK-informed pedagogy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 government primary school teachers from rural and urban schools across four districts, and data were analyzed thematically. Findings show that students bring diverse FoK, including caregiving, cooking, agricultural work, craftsmanship, creative and performing arts, and physical skills developed through everyday family and community participation. Teachers primarily learned about these resources through classroom discussion, observation, limited home visits, and mothers' assemblies. Although teachers viewed FoK as highly beneficial for enhancing engagement, confidence, and learning, its classroom enactment was constrained by rigid curricula, exam-oriented accountability, time pressures, and deficit-oriented institutional practices. The study highlights a gap between teachers' recognition of students' strengths and their pedagogical use, shaped largely by structural and policy conditions.
This study explores differences in ways that child-centered play spaces and teacher-centered discussions provided opportunities for children to engage in mathematical thinking. Drawing on Bakhtinian discourse theories, we analyzed the quality of children's question asking, mathematical claims, and evaluation of mathematical arguments in whole-class discussions and play-based activities during a weeklong geometry unit in kindergarten. The research team video recorded and took field notes on each lesson. Analysis demonstrated that play contexts provided richer opportunities for children to actively participate in the construction of heteroglossic mathematical discourses than whole-class discussions did. During play, children often made claims about the mathematics, defended their conclusions to peers, and reflected on their learning. In whole-class discussions, children tended to accept and revoice the mathematical claims of the teacher. In addition, analysis showed that open-ended tasks and engagement with peers proved particularly important for children's sense-making, relative to other qualities of play (e.g., use of interesting toys, freedom to move the body).
