This investigation examined Chinese children's development of place-value numeration concepts from ages 3 through 9, compared the development of place-value understanding of these Chinese children with that of American and Genevan children whose performances had been described in the literature, and examined the influence of adult assistance during Chinese children's performances on some of the place-value tasks.

Mass media such as television, video players, video games, compact disks, and the computers are commonplace in current American culture. For English as a Second Language children, television may be the only source of English in the home serving as models of grammar, syntax, story structure. An investigation was made using English as a Second Language (ESL) kindergarteners, the classroom writing center, participant-observation, teacher as researcher, and case study methodology to investigate the following questions: Do ESL kindergarten children use media in their writing? If so, how do they use media in their writing? Upon examination of the data, it was found that all these ESL children did use media in the writing process. The function and form of the media references varied from child to child. Media was a cultural context for the childrenÕs social interactions. Oral language (with and without media references) not only informed the writing for some, but also served: to initiate, participate in, and sustain social relationships with peers. Findings indicated that two case study subjects used social dialogue as a separate operation from the production of a written story. Language informed the writing but it also had a socialization function in addition to what …

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether implementing Success For Life in Thailand would meet the needs of Thai public policy, the Thai educational system, and Thai culture. There were 46 respondents, including 4 early childhood professionals, 4 preschool owners, 6 directors, and 32 teachers. All respondents received the Success For Life training workshop. Each participant was requested to complete a questionnaire on their understanding and awareness of brain development and function, thoughts about implementing Success For Life in Thailand, and the appropriateness of Success For Life for the Thai educational system, Thai public policy, and Thai culture. In addition, all of the 4 early childhood professionals, 4 preschool owners, and 6 directors, and 8 teachers were interviewed to expand the information provided in the questionnaires. Two preschools implemented Success For Life in November 2000. Another 6 preschools implemented Success For Life in June 2001. Participating teachers in the preschools where Success For Life was implemented in November 2000 were also asked to write bimonthly journals. Journal entries included information about how participants changed their teaching styles after receiving the Success For Life training. Research findings indicated that Success For Life was appropriate to the preschool level in …

The purposes of this study were to determine the childrearing expectations of the Korean—American immigrant parents as measured on the five subsets of the Parent As A Teacher Inventory (PAAT), and to identify the influential factors within the Korean-American immigrant parents as a function of sex of child, family size, sex of parent, age of parent, education, income level, language, cultural aspects, accessibility, length of residence, and racial discrimination (independent variables). PAAT and the Parent Identification Questionnaire (PIQ) were administered to 118 Korean-American immigrant parents, 53 fathers and 65 mothers in North Texas. All subjects had children ages three through five and were natives of Korea. A multiple regression analysis was used to determine which independent variables would be the best predictors of parent expectations using PAAT subset scores and the total score as dependent variables: Creativity, Frustration, Control, Play, and Teaching-Learning; and eleven independent variables.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between the learning style of a kindergarten child and the level of achievement in language arts. The study was done at the request of the school district of a small community in north Texas, and it incorporated the total public school kindergarten population, 110 subjects. Instruments were the Learning Style Inventory: Primary by Perrin, the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, and an achievement test developed by the regional education service center. The LSI:P was administered to all students by one person while the two achievement tests were administered by individual teachers to their own classes. The children were divided into groups according to their rating on the LSI:P, using the Prescription Circle by Dunn and Dunn as modifier. ANOVA and chi square analysis were utilized to compute frequencies and percentages at the .05 level to determine relationships between learning styles' group membership and attainment in language. A definite relationship was found between a child's learning style and achievement on the language arts objectives. Indications were that the elements of motivation, persistence and responsibility, and perceptual mode preferred by the learner had strong relationship to success in achievement. …

The purposes of this study are to examine the reported childrearing beliefs and practices of family day home caregivers, to examine the reported childrearing beliefs and practices of parents whose children are in a family day home, and to determine the congruency of the reported childrearing beliefs and practices between caregivers and parents. The childrearing beliefs and practices selected for the study are in the areas of discipline, sleeping, feeding-eating, toilet training, sex-role development, and selected home activities.

The problem of this study was a comparison of young children's intensity of task—involvement in child—selected activities. A group of 23 children, four to six years of age, was selected as the subjects from a university affiliated child development laboratory school. These children were observed during child-selected activities for five consecutive weeks. The instrument utilized to collect the data was the Intensity Of Involvement Scale, composed of seven categories of intensity from "Unoccupied" to "Complete." To obtain reliable data, two observers were involved in the observation and a carefully planned procedure of observation was followed accurately. The comparison of children's intensity of task-involvement among child-selected activities, using statistical methods of mean and standard deviation, yielded a similar result among various groups of children. The learning centers in which children were involved most intensely were water play, family living, manipulative, and art centers. The children, however, were involved in the reading, block, and writing centers less intensely. In comparing children's intensity of task-involvement between age-groups and sex-groups, the analyses of two-way t-test revealed that age-differences were significant (p<.05) but sex-differences were not significant in children's overall intensity of task-involvement. Also, the results showed that the significance of differences in children's intensity …

The problem of this study was to discover the relationship between field-independent and field-dependent cognitive styles and social behaviors during free-play of preschool children in a school setting. This study also compared the field-independent and field-dependent cognitive styles and social behaviors during free-play between age-groups and sex-groups. Thirty-six children from a university child development laboratory were subjects. They were selected from a 3-year-old classroom and a 4-year-old classroom. The research instrument, the Preschool Embedded Figures Test, was utilized to measure field-independent and field-dependent cognitive styles. The children's social behaviors were observed during free-play for four consecutive weeks. The nine categories of social behavior were solitary, parallel, and group play; .unoccupied, onlooker, transitional, and aggressive behaviors; and conversations with teachers and conversations with peers. Correlations between field-independent and field-dependent cognitive styles and social behaviors indicated that field-independence/field-dependence was related to social orientations in preschool children and also related to the choice of play activity. Field-dependent children tended to engage in conversations with teachers more often than field-independent children. Four-year-old children who were field-independent tended to spend more time in solitary play than 4-year-old children who were field-dependent. Four-year-old boys who were field-independent tended to play more often in the manipulative learning …

The problem of this study was to describe, analyze, and compare the effects of learning centers and curricular themes upon the writing production of four children within a kindergarten classroom which followed the whole language approach. This study was conducted in a public school. Four subjects were identified from the administration of the Book Handling Knowledge Task. Using the qualitative research method of case studies, the teacher-researcher kept observational notes concerning the writing behavior of the subjects. The written compositions of the subjects were collected daily throughout the school year and were assigned a context, learning center and curricular theme. The compositions were then coded as to writing frequency, function, and form. The following findings resulted from the study: writing occurred most frequently in the art center followed by dramatic play, language, sand, science, social studies, "other," eyes and hands, mathematics, and library-listening; writing occurred most frequently during the curricular theme of Christmas followed by self-concept, shapes and colors, farm animals, Thanksgiving, Winter, transportation, nursery rhymes, patriotic, Valentine, food and nutrition, Halloween, Spring, wild animals, community helpers, gingerbread man, Summer, Easter, and pets; all five functions of language were used in the art center, four in the language, dramatic play, …

The first purpose of this study was to develop and validate the Inventory of Opinions About Persons with Disabilities (IOPD). The IOPD was developed to collect preservice early childhood educators’self-report data related to inclusion. A total of 332 participants enrolled in graduate programs in a college of education served as the validation sample. After validation and revision of the IOPD, the researcher used the instrument to investigate preservice early childhood educators’ beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge about students with disabilities and their inclusion in general education classrooms. Data were collected from 172 participants from 10 universities in Texas during their student teaching/final intern semesters. This research demonstrated that an instrument, the IOPD, could be developed to effectively measure preservice early childhood educators’ beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge about the inclusion of children with disabilities in their classrooms. The participants reported positive self-perceptions (mean = 2.0388) about their beliefs and attitudes toward inclusion. However, the participants reported less positive attitudes about training (mean = -.09884). Discriminant function analyses indicated a negligible statistical effect for type of program (professional development school or traditional) and a statistically significant effect for preferred classroom setting (non-inclusive, special education, inclusive). Further research with the same participants or similar …

The Thai government has strongly advocated for the learner-centered education for the past decade. Success For Life Thailand (SFLT), a brain-research-based early childhood education program blended with the theories of the developmentally appropriate practices and child-centered philosophies, has been implemented in Thailand for over 8 years. The purposes of the present study were to: (a) describe the current statuses of the Thai early childhood educators' learner-centered beliefs and practices, (b) identify if the SFLT training workshop affects teachers' learner-centered beliefs and practices, and (c) examine if other variables, along with familiarity with the SFLT program, predict teachers' learner-centered beliefs and practices. Ninety-three preschool and kindergarten teachers participated in the study. Among them, 17 were SFLT trainees in 1999 and 2000 (i.e., the previously trained group), 43 were trained in Year 2006 (the currently trained group), and the others were comparable to the currently trained group by matching the key personal and school variables. The Teachers Beliefs and Practices Survey: 3-5 Year Olds (Burts et al., 2000) and the Learner-Centered Education: the Assessment of Learner- Centered (ALCP) for K-3 (McCombs, 2001) were used to collect data on the various domains of the learner-centered beliefs and practices. Findings reveal that: (a) Thai …

The purposes of this study were to determine the effect of a short-term parent-education program and to investigate the relationship between parents' knowledge of child development and parents' attitudes toward parent-child relationships. The basic problem under consideration was to assay whether the level of parental knowledge of child development principles makes a difference in the attitudes of the parent in the relationship. Hypothesis I predicted that subjects participating in the training sessions would exhibit a significant gain in knowledge of child development. An analysis of covariance determined the gain to be significant at the .01 level. Hypothesis II stated that a significant relationship would exist between the subjects' knowledge of the defined principles of child development and the subjects' attitudes toward parent-child interactions. A Pearson Product-Moment Correlation of the scores of experimental group and control group on the PARI and the cognitive test revealed a negative correlation of -0.1363. Thus, the second hypothesis that a significant relationship would exist had to be rejected. Hypothesis III projected that a significant difference would exist between the posttest attitudes of the participants of the experimental group and those of the control group. Analysis of covariance was used to determine the significance of the …

A study was made to determine the views of elementary principals regarding criteria for a quality kindergarten program and to plan a staff development program based upon the data collected. The study was limited to elementary principals in the eight Texas counties of Education Service Center Region 10 with kindergartens on their campuses during the 1973-1974 school year. Principals who had kindergartens on their campuses before the 1973-1974 school year did not perform better on the questionnaire than the principals with kindergartens for the first time during the 1973-1974 school year. Comparisons of individual and composite item scores showed similar responses from both groups, the only exception being on an item pertaining to the appropriateness of wheeled toys on the elementary playground. There was a difference of approximately 15 percent in favor of the more experienced group. Principals who had completed early childhood education courses scored slightly higher than principals who had not completed such courses. An increase in the number of semester hours completed did not appear to improve performance on the questionnaire.

This study investigated the role of the public library in serving children from infancy to age six. The purposes of this research were to obtain recommendations from early childhood education authorities pertaining to the areas of services, programs, materials, physical facilities, and personnel and to utilize these data in the development of guidelines for public libraries. Findings revealed that the majority recommended utilization of volunteers and of early childhood education consultant; preparation of children's librarians in working with adults and young children; provision of services and programs focusing on parent education, led by specialists; preparation of child care personnel in storytelling; programs involving parent and child participation; coordination of public library efforts with those of other community agencies in order to avoid duplication; and services, programs, materials, and physical facilities which facilitate and encourage interest in books and which relate to reading. The minority recommended services, materials, and physical facilities which focus on unstructured recreational play; and services, programs, and materials which focus on formal teaching or testing in cognitive areas.

The purposes of this study were to determine if there are differences between the responses of abusive and nonabusive adults to potentially anger-provoking child behaviors; if there are differences between abusive and nonabusive adults; if there are differences between the children of abusive and nonabusive adults; and if there are combinations of these characteristics of the adults and characteristics of children as well as the behaviors of children which relate to child abusiveness in adults. The basic problem was to determine factors that help identify potentially child abusive adults. Certain factors, such as the limited size of the sample and the initial use of a new instrument, served as limitations to broad generalizations. However, based on the analysis of the data of this study, the following conclusions seem tenable 1. Certain behaviors of children are more upsetting to abusive adults than to nonabusive adults. 2. Characteristics of adults are not necessarily related to child abusiveness in adults. 3. The age of the child and the number of children living in the home are significantly related to child abusiveness in adults. 4. The findings indicate that a predictive model may be developed in conjunction with the Child Behavior Inventory for use …

In this qualitative investigation, the ways in which four ethnically diverse mothers' perceptions of early childhood education combined with the school experiences of their children were examined. Research tools included audiotaped interviews with Mexican-American, Korean-American, African-American, and Anglo mothers; videotaped school experiences; and a video message with a viewing guide requesting written reaction.

This study describes the language behaviors and social strategies of English as Second Language (ESL) and English as Primary Language (EPL) pre-kindergarten students during cooperative Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) experiences. Thirty-three pre-kindergarten subjects ages four to five years, were videotaped at two personal computers during self-selected center time. The sources of data for this descriptive study were a parent computer survey, videotapes, a subject interview derived from the Young Children's Computer Inventory, and written records.

In this study, 78 kindergarten and first-grade children were interviewed about their writing to identify indicators of self-assessment. Writing samples for each participant were saved over a three month period, then compared and discussed by the child. Results indicated that these young children did engage in self:-assessment behaviors. The classroom teachers were asked to place the participants in their classes along a writing continuum known as a Writing Band. Graphs were presented to show the writing levels of the children by classroom. In addition, each classroom was surveyed to document events which promote literacy development within the framework of an integrated curriculum. Writing samples for each child were collected and kept in a portfolio. Participants were interviewed regarding the contents of the portfolio. Children in two of the kindergarten classes were interviewed using 5 samples collected over a 2 1/2 month time period, and all other participants were interviewed using 6 writing samples collected over a 3 month period. Findings indicated that not only did these young children recognize growth in their writing, but they also assessed that growth based on outward, physical features of their writing. The writing ability of each child at the beginning of the study did …

Many school districts consider literacy and oral language as a top priority for pre-kindergarten students. In the district under study, pre-kindergarten English language learner (ELL) students are encouraged to attend a special summer school program to increase their oral language ability in English. This study compared three groups of children: ELL students attending summer school v. ELL students not attending summer school v. English speaking students not attending summer school. The students' primary reading inventory scores from the end of pre-kindergarten to the middle of kindergarten in the areas of reading, writing and oral language were compared. As expected, ELLs who attended summer school showed significant growth in oral language development from the beginning of summer school to the end of summer school. While it was hypothesized that ELL students attending summer school would show more improvement in oral language than other children over time, there was no significant difference between summer school and non-summer school children's scores by the middle of kindergarten.

Interactions of children and adults in two child care groups were observed and examined. Each group was observed as a same-age multiple caregiver group and eight months later as a multi-age constant caregiver group. Twenty indicators were used to evaluate positive interactions. Analysis showed positive interactions occur in multi-age constant caregiver groups. Multi-age constant caregiver groups enhance the interest of caregivers in children and promote development and interaction of language between caregivers and peers. This study indicates a multi-age constant caregiver group is an alternative to meet the needs of young children by increasing and enhancing positive interactions with caregivers and peers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teenage motherhood on the school readiness, literacy skills, and parental involvement of children participating in the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) early intervention program, as well as make recommendations for optimal outcomes. Study children were participants in HIPPY at five diverse, urban school districts. Using a mixed method design, this study examined the results of quantitative measures of children's school readiness, literacy skills, and parent involvement along with qualitative data collected through mothers' responses to two, open-ended questions related to their satisfaction with HIPPY. According to results of independent samples t-test, mean scores on school readiness and parent involvement measures were not statistically significantly different for the children of teenage mothers and the children of traditional age mothers. However, there were moderate effect sizes for parent involvement and physical development indicating some practical significance. Chi-square results of literacy skills indicated that the children of teenage mothers were almost twice as likely [c2 (1, N = 36) = 4.21, p < .05] to have literacy skills that were "not on grade level" according to scores on the TPRI/Tejas. Descriptive discriminant analysis (DDA) indicated that the multivariate relationship …

Western educational policies and practices have impacted Taiwanese early childhood programs. The concept of developmentally appropriate practice has become part of the educational program for young children in Taiwan. This research study was completed to: (a) describe Taiwanese parents' beliefs about developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) in early childhood programs; (b) examine group differences between fathers' and mothers' beliefs about DAP; (c) investigate group differences between parents of different socioeconomic statuses beliefs about DAP; (d) explore group differences between parents' beliefs about DAP when their children attend different types of schools (public and private); and (e) identify salient factors related to the variability of developmentally appropriate beliefs of Taiwanese parents. Three hundred seventy-nine matched Taiwanese parent pairs (mothers and fathers) participated in this survey research study. All parents had at least one child between the ages of 3 and 6 years. Four hundred forty-eight children attended public schools, and 415 attended private schools. The Teacher Beliefs Questionnaire was modified and used to collect data in this study. Findings showed: (a) fathers' and mothers' beliefs about DAP are significantly correlated; (b) fathers' and mothers' socioeconomic statuses are significantly correlated with their developmentally inappropriate practice beliefs; and (c) parents' socioeconomic status was a …

The history of day care licensing standards in Texas was traced from the beginnings in voluntary welfare organizations to the 1976 revisions. The jurisdictional foundations of day care licensing was presented in a summary of the related legislation passed in Texas during the years from 1848 to 1975. Categories of licensing requirements in the different sets of standards promulgated in Texas were compared. The attempt was made to derive a contextual milieu of social, political and educational factors which influenced Texas day care legislation and the development of licensing standards. It was recommended that funds are essential to adequate enforcement of licensing standards. In addition, to facilitate acculturation of day care licensing, consultation and training efforts should expand proportionately to the expansion of day care. The fact that issues related to specific requirements surfaced repeatedly in the different decades studied, a need for carefully controlled research to validate the individual requirements was indicated.

This research study addressed the nutritional beliefs and habits of African-American parents of children aged 3 to 6 years old. Both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods were employed. Quantitative data was collected via the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire as well as a demographic questionnaire. Qualitative data was collected from oral interviews conducted by the researcher. Seventy-five parents or guardians participated in the study. Findings for the research questions revealed the participants' beliefs about nutrition directly correlated with food they provided for their children and most believed nutrition rather than genetics played a role in their child(ren)'s weight. Furthermore, parents from lower income families consumed more home cooked meals per week and those with higher incomes did not consume more fast food per week. Food intake restriction and control in feeding was similar among all participants, regardless of restriction and control in feeding was similar among all participants, regardless of education or income level. Suggestions for future research were included.