In recent decades, children’s rights have gained significant attention within the international community; however, research addressing these rights in early childhood education remains limited. This study presents a systematic review of classroom-based teaching and learning practices related to children’s rights education in early childhood settings. The review examines how educational research has approached the integration of children’s rights into classroom practices, with a particular focus on empirical studies conducted in early childhood education contexts. From an initial pool of 2.029 peer-reviewed articles, 18 studies met the inclusion criteria, specifically investigating classroom-based approaches to teaching and learning about children’s rights. A multifaceted analytical framework was employed to evaluate these studies, considering contextual factors and identifying pedagogical practices that promote children’s rights. The synthesis revealed four interconnected areas: children’s experiences of participation and rights, educators’ conceptions and practices, pedagogical strategies, and the institutional and policy conditions influencing the implementation of children’s rights.These areas reflect diverse research designs and contexts, highlighting both the progress and gaps in current scholarship. Findings from this review contribute to a deeper understanding of classroom practices that foster children’s rights in early childhood education and underscore the need for further research to develop and implement effective rights-based pedagogies.
The learning environment has a meaningful impact on young children's creativity. However, while research has explored the physical environment in terms of fostering creativity, less is known about online learning contexts. This article reports on the elements of the online learning environment that fostered young children's creativity, specifically during STEM activities. In this case study, a group of first grade children in regional Australia engaged in a range of activities delivered online synchronously by a Science Discovery Centre (SDC) 700 km away. Guided by the A-E of Children's Creativity framework, both multimodal video analysis and semi-structured interviews with all participants explored the learning environment element of place that supported the young children's creative thinking. Based upon the findings, a series of recommendations are presented, designed to assist educators and service providers in preparing the learning environment to support young children's creative STEM thinking in the online setting.
This study examined how illustration presentation strategies across picture-book versions from four publishing markets shaped Chinese preschoolers’ judgments of story comprehensibility and version choice. Using a repeated-measures forced-choice experimental design, 285 preschool children from eastern China evaluated illustration versions of two classic stories, Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs. For each story, four market-sourced illustration versions and three matched key plot segments were presented after all textual information had been removed. Version-choice distributions were examined using descriptive statistics and chi-square tests, with supplementary mixed ANOVAs used to explore segment-related variation by age and gender. The results showed that children’s selections clustered around particular versions rather than being evenly distributed, indicating that visual organization systematically influenced perceived ease of understanding. Exploratory gender differences were generally non-significant, whereas age-related variation was selective and segment-dependent. The findings suggest that preschoolers’ judgments are shaped less by visual richness itself than by how clearly illustrations organize action cues, emotional signals, and event relations. Because the task measured perceived ease of understanding rather than direct cultural interpretation, claims about cultural noticing should be treated as provisional.
This study examined early intervention (EI) providers' perceptions of digital media tutorials designed to support adults’ use of dialogic reading (DR) strategies. Using a survey-based design, this study examined providers’ reported use of DR strategies, including PEER (Prompt, Evaluate, Expand, Repeat) and CROWD (Completion, Recall, Open-Ended Questions, Wh-Questions, Distancing), before viewing digital media tutorials, as well as their prospective use of these strategies after viewing the tutorials. It also documented participants’ beliefs about the usefulness of social mediain early intervention practice. Participants included 116 early intervention providers primarily from the Mountain West region of the United States. Survey results indicated that PEER strategies were the most frequently reported prior to viewing the tutorials and remained highly endorsed for future use. CROWD strategies demonstrated the greatest increase in reported prospective use following tutorial exposure. A statistically significant difference was detected between participants’ reported current and prospective strategy use, with a medium effect size observed. Furthermore, participants indicated that they believed digital tutorials and social media may be useful in working with families, and the picture-and-caption-enhanced social media format was slightly preferred over traditional-style videos. These findings highlight the potential of digital media tutorials as a resource for supporting EI providers’ use of evidence-based language and literacy strategies, such as DR, in the digital era.
The Point-Line Interlocking Block Construction Scale (PLIB) was developed as a brief, level-based, and developmentally appropriate tool for assessing preschool children’s point-line interlocking block construction ability. Data were collected from 350 children aged 43–66 months attending kindergartens in Xi’an, China. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a 16-item, three-factor structure comprising construction skills, representational ability, and aesthetic quality. The confirmatory model demonstrated good fit, with CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.06, and WRMR = 0.75; standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.65 to 0.96. The PLIB showed strong internal consistency, with reliability coefficients ranging from 0.84 to 0.94, and criterion-related validity through significant associations with the Block Construction Scoring Scale and the CA Block Construction Level Assessment Scale. These findings support the PLIB as a reliable and practical tool for capturing differentiated levels of point-line interlocking block construction ability in preschool children.
