Introduction to Pedagogical Possibilities for Early Childhood Education

The early childhood period (from birth to age 8) is critical in developing children’s foundational educational and academic skills (e.g., [1] ). Early childhood classrooms have been shown to support the development of not only children’s academic skills but also their social/emotional and executive skills (e.g., [2,3,4]). When a child receives a quality preschool education, they are more likely to begin kindergarten with more vital academic skills than a child who did not attend preschool ([5]). Given what we know about the importance of the early childhood classroom, it is critical that we examine the most effective pedagogies to support academic, social/emotional, and executive function development in young children.

This Special Issue includes a broad range of articles about different aspects of early pedagogy. A total of six out of the nine articles included focus on aspects of school environments because most research addresses what skills children acquire in preschool. However, children’s early learning is not limited to what occurs in preschool. Accordingly, three articles focus on aspects of young children’s home environments. The children come from different countries: the United States, Finland, Greece, China (Hong Kong), Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Including children from countries other than the United States is important given how many studies are limited mainly to children from just the U.S. Many aspects of academically oriented learning are included, such as emergent writing skills, children’s reported interest in music, math skills, and attention regulation. Most of the articles focus on typically developing children, but one addresses the need to ensure that instruction is also relevant for atypically developing children. Several themes emerged in many of the articles. Perhaps the most critical one is engaging children’s interest in the instructional activity. Finally, most articles suggest what actions teachers and parents can take to facilitate children’s learning.

Douglas H. Clements, Renee Lizcano, and Julie Sarama (this issue) focus on early mathematics education in preschool classrooms and emphasize the need for empirically supported pedagogical strategies. As they discuss, however, there is little agreement on how early math might best be taught. Clements and his colleagues paint a picture of research-based and research-validated pedagogical approaches and strategies for teaching early math. Most approaches share core characteristics, including concern for children’s interests and engagement and working on content matched to children’s level of thinking. Learning trajectories are an especially useful organizing structure because they combine and integrate educational goals, the development of children’s thinking, and empirically supported pedagogical strategies. Therefore, they help teachers interpret what the child is doing, thinking, and constructing and offer instructional activities that extend children’s mathematical thinking. Simultaneously, teachers can see instructional strategies from the child’s perspective, offering meaningful and joyful opportunities to engage in learning.

Barbara D. DeBaryshe (this issue) focused on preschool children’s emergent writing skills. As she argued, emergent writing is a key component of early literacy development and contributes to later school success; however, it receives little attention in most preschool classrooms. Her paper presents the results of a quasi-experimental study of a teacher professional development package that included writing as one of four focal areas. The study was conducted in 15 Head Start classrooms located in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The participants were 39 lead and assistant teachers and 240 children. Intervention teachers had higher-quality writing environments and overall classroom environments, while intervention children showed better outcomes on emergent reading and upper-case letter knowledge. Children’s emergent writing skills, assessed only in the intervention group, showed large gains along with changes in code-related skills needed for invented spelling. The results are discussed in terms of recommended practices for early writing instruction and teacher professional development.

The article by Coral Ayelet Shachar, Dorit Aram, and Marie-Lyne Smadja (this issue) also addressed children’s writing, this time by exploring young children’s online writing with the support of their parents. They explored the nature of online discourse. They studied parents’ potential influence on their children’s executive function (EF) development by directing their online discourse. After a workshop in the preschools on supporting children’s writing and the promotion of ethics in online discourse, they encouraged parents to support their children in writing messages to their friends within a closed online forum. They asked them to help their children by responding to a child who had not yet received any comments and by writing new posts. The participants were 174 Hebrew-speaking parents and their children (M = 65.57 months) from eight preschools in Israel. They analyzed the written messages (N = 1167), including posts and comments. Parents guided their children to write positive, friendly messages that included empathic expressions. We identified fourteen themes (e.g., sharing experience) in the posts and four in the comments. Despite the positive nature of the online discourse, 49 children did not receive any comments, while others received several. The authors suggest that guided writing in closed forums can be a sufficient platform for promoting EF and teaching children to use the network empathetically.

It is important that children’s exposure in preschool go beyond just traditional literacy (including writing) and numeracy learning. Ho and Bautista (this issue) evaluated the sufficiency of kindergarten children in Hong Kong’s exposure to music education using quality review assessments. The assessments raised concerns that the kindergarten children were not exposed to a sufficient amount of enjoyable music education. As the authors further noted, the evaluations centered on what teachers were doing. Children’s viewpoints and actual learning were not assessed. The authors noted the importance of future work, including children’s viewpoints and learning.

The purpose of the study by Inbar Lucia Trinczer, Tom Maayan, and Lilach Shalev (this issue) was to investigate the effectiveness of a small group intervention program named “Attentive Kindergarten” (AK), aimed at enhancing attention functioning among typically developing preschool-aged children. The program focuses on improving sustained attention, selective spatial attention, and response inhibition based on cognitive training principles. Participants included 51 Israeli children, 15 of whom received the AK intervention and 36 of whom served as a control group. Computerized cognitive tests were used for pre- and post-intervention evaluations to assess sustained attention, response inhibition, and selective spatial attention. Quantitative analyses were conducted to examine the differences between the two groups as a result of the intervention program. (3) The AK group demonstrated improvements in all attention functions that were measured. These improvements were larger than those obtained in the control group. The results suggest that cognitive training programs, such as Attentive Kindergarten, can enhance attention functioning in young children. The present findings have important implications for early intervention programs aimed at improving young children’s cognitive skills, which, in turn, can decrease the likelihood of future attention problems and other related difficulties.

Samuli Ranta, Jonna Kangas, Heidi Harju-Luukkainen, Tuulikki Ukkonen-Mikkola, Marita Neitola, Jarmo Kinos, Nina Sajaniemi, and Arniika Kuusisto (this issue) described that early childhood education (ECE) in Finland is defined in education policies and research as an activity with an emphasis on pedagogy as a holistic and Nordic model of education. Pedagogical competence can be viewed as a special expertise of teachers responsible for the implementation of pedagogy in ECE. However, it is unclear how a teacher’s pedagogical competence is defined, understood, and implemented in pedagogical practices and policies. Previous studies define pedagogical competence from different, often narrow, perspectives, and various skills have been defined as a part of teachers’ pedagogical expertise. In this study, the authors aimed to take a closer look at how teachers’ pedagogical competence is defined in the research literature in Finland. They used a narrative literature review of research papers published between 2010 and 2020. They identified fourteen different definitions of pedagogical competencies that could be categorized into three main categories: (a) meta-competencies, (b) professional competencies, and (c) practical competencies. In summary, they argued that pedagogical competence is often narrowly understood. To implement high-quality ECE, teachers’ pedagogical competence should be considered broadly and wholly. Particularly, the shared values and reflection of ethical questions are essential for supporting children’s development and learning through holistic education.

Maria Daskolia and Vassiliki Koukouzelihe (this issue) explored the relationship between Waldorf education and the sustainable school approach through a small-scale qualitative research study conducted in a Greek Waldorf school. Following a semi-structured interview protocol, four teachers shared their views and beliefs on the congruence between the two approaches as reflected in the philosophy and everyday practice of their school. The study’s findings indicate that the Greek Waldorf school has several of the quality criteria that define a sustainable school, with pedagogy identified as the most relevant aspect, particularly in terms of the quality of teaching and learning processes. Participants also identified common features between the two approaches on both the social/organizational and physical/technical levels. Although not all the criteria of a sustainable school are fully met, the teachers believe that the sustainability concept is implicitly interwoven with the philosophy and practice of Waldorf education and that their school is moving in the direction of education for sustainable development (ESD).

Clarissa Bunch Wade, Murat Koc, Andreia Searcy, Christan Coogle, and Heather Walter argued that the promotion of equity and access for all children to learn science is critical in early childhood settings. Inclusive STEAM is a topic of critical importance in today’s classroom, especially in the preschool classroom. In order to promote access to STEAM pedagogy in inclusive, early childhood settings that include young children from birth to 8 years of age with or without disabilities, educators need to be intentional about their practice. This article provides a four-step approach to using an intentional framework, universal design for learning (UDL), to plan for and implement STEAM pedagogy in the inclusive classroom. Practical implications are illustrated through examples of an early childhood educator and a child with autism in an inclusive, urban education setting.

Merfat Ayesh Alsubaie (this issue) explored the factors affecting the early literacy learning spaces of young children in home environments in Saudi Arabia from mothers’ perspectives. The authors used a qualitative research methodology. In-depth and semi-structured interviews with 15 mothers of young children (2–5 years of age) were conducted. A coding approach was used to analyze the qualitative data, which revealed three themes: (1) direct factors that influence the early literacy learning space at home; (2) indirect factors that influence the early literacy learning space at home; and (3) challenges in creating early literacy learning spaces at home. Several pedagogical implications are suggested at the end of this study that could be useful to parents and caregivers who want to support and improve their children’s early literacy learning spaces.