Early Childhood Development and Education

School readiness is the readiness that children must have to enter elementary school. School readiness includes the abilities that children need to learn well in school so that school success can be achieved. This research is a phenomenological qualitative research which aims to obtain an overview of school readiness that children have when entering the first grade of elementary school. The informants of this study were the first grade elementary school teachers totaling five people. The results of the study show that school readiness must have to be prepared early is the child's internal readiness, family readiness and school institution readiness. The child's internal readiness consists of cognitive readiness and social emotional readiness. Although cognitive readiness has been possessed by majority children, but social emotional readiness has not been fully achieved, even though it seems less attention to its achievements. This condition should not be ignored, because the...

The present study examines in toddlers one of the most crucial components of empathy—attention to distress, and, in particular, attention to distress in a daycare setting where others' distress is a frequent occurrence. Characteristics of the child such as age, gender, and ...

Research findings: An empirical investigation was conducted to test young Palestinian, Jordanian, Israeli-Palestinian, and Israeli-Jewish children’s (N = 433; M = 5.7 years of age) cultural stereotypes and their evaluations of peer intergroup exclusion based upon a number of different factors, including being from a different country and speaking a different language. Children in this study live in a geographical region that has a history of cultural and religious tension, violence, and extreme intergroup conflict. Our findings revealed that the negative consequences of living with intergroup tension are related to the use of stereotypes. At the same time, the results for moral judgments and evaluations about excluding peers provided positive results about the young children’s inclusive views regarding peer interactions. Practice: These findings indicate that practitioners working with young children should focus on inclusion in peer contexts. Curricula, media, and social interventi...

Research Findings: This study examined the effects of educators' participation in an in-service training program on the aggressive and prosocial behaviors of preschool-age children. Seventeen early childhood educators were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. A ...

There has been very few male preschool teachers in the zone and therefore this study investigated the influence of male preschool teachers on the academic performance of preschool children. This present study aimed at finding out the number of male preschool teachers in Waldai zone, the causes of the low number of male preschool teachers and the parents’ views on the low number of the preschool teachers. This study adopted an exploratory approach where it used a descriptive survey design with both random sampling technique and purposive sampling method which gave a sample size of about 11% of the study population. To get the data required in this study, the researcher used questionnaires, observation schedules, interview schedules and documentary analysis. Once the data was obtained, it was analyzed statistically using figures, frequencies, tables, percentages and graphs for easy interpretation. At the conclusion of this study, the findings were found to add to both the theoretical and practical knowledge to the available literature. Its findings has provided information to the stakeholders and the policy makers at the Ministry of Education on how to improve the academic performance of the preschool children in the zone and the nation at large

ABSTRACT Research Findings: This article investigates how a sample of families, educators, researchers, advocates, and policymakers (n = 93) made sense of how children are and should be taught in kindergarten. By examining their conceptions of instruction that define kindergarten in this current era of standards and accountability and what opportunities for change they might support, the findings of this study reveal how these stakeholders sought to redefine what they viewed as a program that has become a joyless race to the test. They worried that there will be both short- and long-term consequences for kindergartners if schools fail to address their concerns over how children are being taught. Practice or Policy: To further reform kindergarten, the stakeholders in this study appeared willing to engage in a public dialogue that could help raise and sustain social and political awareness about how kindergarten has changed so that a possible paradigmatic shift in schooling can emerge that goes beyond the traditional debates over play versus academics. These stakeholders also seemed to be committed to instructional changes in kindergarten, such as guided play, that offer children more choice and voice in their learning, exposure to advanced academics, fostered their social, emotional, and physical development, and nurtured their curiosity as learners.