As the school year revs up, a renowned child developmental psychologist highlights the robust benefits of pretend play on cognitive, social, and emotional development in children and cautions how “learning through play” has changed with the demands of contemporary society. Given natural selection’s shaping of childhood for the acquisition and refinement of species-adapted social-cognitive skills – much through pretend play – he says it’s unfortunate that modern culture is ignoring the evolved wisdom of how best to educate young children.
Tag: Preschool
Preschoolers show cultural differences in generosity, competitiveness
In a set of sharing experiments, Spanish-speaking Latino preschoolers were more likely to choose options that would be more generous to others, even over a more equal sharing choice.
Preschoolers From Low-Income Families May Have Worse Health and Benefit Less From Health Promotion Interventions Than Children With Higher Socioeconomic Status
Mount Sinai study focused on Harlem preschools emphasizes the need for specialized health promotion programs in classrooms starting at an early age
Preschoolers with larger vocabulary before they begin education, perform better in class – study shows
Children who enter preschool with good vocabulary and attention skills do better in class, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Early Education and Development. The findings based on 900 four-year-olds from eight US states show how a child’s ability to engage with teachers and peers is affected by the range of words they know.
Doll Houses — A Toy Aimed at Teaching Compassionate Living with People with Disabilities in the Society
A lecturer from the Faculty of Education, Chulalongkorn University has developed a toy that instills a sense of compassion in children while teaching them to live happily with people with disabilities and the elderly in society.
How a virtual program may help kids get ready for kindergarten
Researchers found that the reimagined Summer Success at Home program was feasible to operate, was popular with teachers and parents, and had at least modest success in helping the children learn literacy skills, early math skills and emotion understanding.
Universal Preschool in the United States by 2040 is Achievable
Universal high-quality preschool is achievable within the next 30 years if the federal government and state and local governments partner to share costs under a two-part plan proposed by the National Institute for Early Education (NIEER) at the Rutgers Graduate School for Education.
Pandemic Threatens Current and Future Funding for State Preschool Programs
The pandemic’s impact on state budgets and preschool enrollment threatens future funding for preschool programs, similar to the years of cuts to preschool following the great recession, according to a new report from the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).
America’s Preschoolers Lose Important Learning Opportunities Due to Pandemic, Raising Concerns for the Future
America’s preschools schools failed to provide students adequate support after shutting down in-person instruction in March due to the coronavirus pandemic according to a nationwide survey by the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER) at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
Grant funds UIC study on access to early childhood education in Illinois
Researchers to examine parental feedback on the effects of their child’s expulsion from program
Should preschool writing be more communication and less ABCs?
Writing instruction in early education should be about more than letter formation and penmanship, argue Michigan State University researchers who found preschool teachers don’t often encourage writing for communication purposes.
To Learn English, Bilingual Children Need Robust Vocabulary from Parents and Caregivers
A study examining parents’ vocabulary and grammar as an influence on children’s acquisition of English, shows that the quality of child-directed speech depends on the speaker’s language proficiency. Children who hear a rich vocabulary acquire a rich vocabulary and children who hear a rich vocabulary in full sentences acquire the ability to put their words together in full sentences. Findings have broad implications for immigrant parents’ language choices at home and for staffing practices in early care and education centers.