Early writing reflects a multifaceted literacy process with certain aspects (i.e. composing) less well understood than others (i.e. transcription). Composing is assessed variously, but recent work suggests promise in examining how children transform their writing from planning (i.e. describing what they want to write prior to writing) to reviewing (i.e. describing what they have written following writing) as a potential proxy for generating and translating ideas. Additionally, research suggests that broad early writing skills are associated with a range of other abilities, including executive function, oral language, and reading. That said, limited research explores these skills alongside specific composing outcomes. This study examined the relationships between children's composing across two tasks and their executive function, receptive vocabulary, and reading (print knowledge), finding significant linkages between composing transformation and these factors. Research Findings: The study suggests that children's approaches to composing through transformation (retaining ideas versus modifying ideas versus both) in one task relate to executive function (F = 4.33, p = .006), vocabulary (F = 5.19, p = .002), and print knowledge (F = 3.12, p = .03). Practice or Policy: Group-level differences indicate that children who retained and modified ideas scored higher on these measures than those modifying ideas only. Implications are discussed.
Research Findings: Although recent research has explored the reciprocal relationships between parental behaviors and children' s self-regulation, few studies have examined the bidirectional associations between parenting styles and preschool children' s executive function (EF) observed in everyday contexts. Moreover, the moderating role of children' s sex in these reciprocal relationships remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, this study employed a cross-lagged design to investigate the prospective reciprocal associations between parenting styles and children' s EF, as well as the moderating effects of children' s sex in China. Data were collected in two waves, eight months apart, from children aged 3-6 years and their parents. The results indicated that (1) authoritative parenting and preschool children' s EF showed reciprocal longitudinal associations, (2) authoritarian parenting and children' s EF exhibited mutual predictive relationships, and (3) child sex showed suggestive moderation of the association between authoritarian parenting and children' s EF. Specifically, EF deficits positively predicted authoritarian parenting style among boys. Conversely, authoritarian parenting positively predicted EF deficits among girls. Sex did not moderate the reciprocal relationship between authoritative parenting and children' s EF. Practice or Policy: These findings may offer a reference for parents when responding to EF-related difficulties among preschool children of different sexes. Educational authorities could also consider strengthening home-school-community partnerships and providing brief, feasible parenting guidance.
Research Findings: Using a 12-week, three-arm quasi-experimental design, this study examined whether Contextualized Construction Play (CCP)-block-building projects embedded in narrative storyline-enhances executive function (EF) among 90 Chinese preschoolers (Mage = 55.8 months). Children were allocated to CCP, Non-Contextualized Construction Play (NCP), or Business-As-Usual control (BAU) conditions. EF was assessed at three time points (pretest, posttest, and a 2-month follow-up) using a multi-task battery targeting cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control, and delay of gratification. Relative to BAU, both intervention conditions showed greater EF gains at posttest, and these gains were maintained at the 2-month follow-up. In addition, CCP yielded larger improvements than NCP at posttest, with the advantage persisting at follow-up. Findings provide preliminary support that embedding cooperative construction play in meaningful narrative contexts may strengthen preschoolers' EF beyond non-contextualized construction activities. Practice or Policy: CCP offers a feasible, low-cost way to enrich everyday classroom play with structured opportunities for planning, rule use, and collaborative problem solving. Practitioners can anchor weekly builds in familiar picture books or locally relevant stories and use brief prompts to support goal setting, turn taking, and reflection.
Reasearch findings: Young children's verbal interactions with teachers and peers in preschool settings are a key mechanism for development. Evidence suggests individual differences in children's access to verbal interactions with teachers and peers in the classroom, yet such evidence comes primarily from brief, infrequent observations, and reveals little about how children's social network experience shapes access to talk in the classroom. This study examined the extent to which preschool children's interactions with teachers and peers vary within and across classrooms, and whether aspects of the classroom social network help explain that variation. Children's verbal interactions were recorded at eight timepoints throughout the school year. Teacher-reported sociometrics were used to calculate social network indices. Multilevel models revealed substantial heterogeneity in all outcomes with meaningful variance within and between classrooms. Results indicated that over time, incoming utterances from teachers and teacher-child conversational turns increased, whereas child-peer conversational turns decreased. Both child- and classroom-level social network indices were significantly associated with children's verbal interactions with teachers and peers. Practice or Policy: Results highlight the importance of identifying children at the periphery of the classroom social network, as these children are most at risk of being isolated from verbal interactions in the classroom.
