Young children learn through the interactions they have within their environments. These interactions include all of the people who support them (parents, family members, interventionists, therapists, childcare providers, and other practitioners). This session will focus on how practitioners can help parents, families, and other adult caregivers develop the types of interactions needed to have a lasting positive impact on the learning of their young children with disabilities. Objectives: Explore strategies for helping families understand early communication attempts of children before language is developed or in the presence of a delay or disability Explore how adult-child interactions change to promote children’s learning Explore the role of the environment in the interaction between parent and child

One of the most challenging tasks for many early childhood providers is how to support families who are facing tough, difficult issues like death of a parent, PTSD, abuse, and neglect. Not only do these issues impact the family’s overall functioning and well being and the quality of parents’ interactions with their young children but they also affect the relationship between the family and the early childhood providers (e.g., missed appointments and adversarial interactions). Dr. Carol Trivette will cap her yearlong webinar series sharing resources and discussing evidence-based practices that providers can implement when they are working with military families in particular, who are facing difficult situations. Participants are encouraged to engage and share challenges, resources, and successes they have experienced working with families of young children with disabilities.

Come join the Military Families Learning Network Early Intervention team on Weds. March 30 from 12:30-1:30 ET for an interactive discussion related to the webinar held on Mar. 17. We want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to the Key Points Carol Trivette, PhD shared during the webinar and how you've applied these points recently in your own practices. Were you not able to participate in the webinar on the 17th? No worries! We'd still love to hear from you! Come share your expertise and learn from others during this interactive forum.

Come join the Military Families Learning Network Early Intervention team on Wed., June 29, from 12:30-1:30 ET for an interactive discussion related to the webinar "Engaging Families to Focus on Intervention Strategies" held on June 23. We want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to interactions you have had with families of young children with disabilities and how those interactions strengthen the family’s ability to support their child’s learning. Were you not able to participate in the webinar on the 23rd? No worries! We would still love to hear from you! And if you want, you can go to the archived webinar and listen to it before the Lunch & Learn. Come share your expertise and learn from others during this interactive forum.

Join the Military Families Learning Network Early Intervention team on Wednesday, December 14 from 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm ET for an interactive discussion related to the webinar Strategies to Support Families Experiencing Difficult Circumstances held on December 8. We want to hear your thoughts, opinions, and experiences related to interactions you have had with families of young children with disabilities and how those interactions strengthen the family’s ability to support their child’s learning. You can share with us verbally** or via the chat pod! (***login using a mic-enabled headset ten minutes before the session begins) Not able to attend the related webinar on December 8? No worries! We would still love to hear from you! And if you want, you can go to the archived webinar (posted by December 10) and listen to it before the Lunch & Learn. Come share your expertise and learn from others during this interactive forum. The cover image by StockSnap for this webinar is licensed CC0 Public Domain.

The early childhood education (ECE) workforce provides care and education to young children, birth to age five. Little research examines how teachers are trained to interact with and support families. Policy is identified as a way to increase qualification attainment, however, how policy may best support qualification attainment is widely unstudied. The current study seeks to fill this gap to understand how states differ in order to best support policy advancement. This involves a qualitative policy analysis using emergent techniques for all 50 states. Policies regulating ECE teacher qualification attainment, specifically mentioning family engagement are examined. Results demonstrate that policies regulating family engagement in qualification attainment for the ECE are overall, minimal. Only 30 states include mention of family engagement in policy. This research provides insight into how family engagement is supported in the workforce at a national level, and subsequently, how family engagement is supported throughout individual states.

Professionals in education continue to explore technology as a way to instruct young students, and there is an accompanying belief that this technology can make an educational and academic difference. Despite the high percentage of young students in classrooms using technology, the impact of this technology on the early literacy skills of young children remains largely unknown. Guided by Vygotsky’s social learning theory, this study reports a 24-week investigation on whether regular use of Istation®, an integrated learning system used by approximately 3,000,000 students in the United States, had an effect on the early literacy achievement of children in twelve kindergarten classrooms. A mixed-method, quasi-experimental design was constructed using propensity scores. Also investigated were the effects of the level of teacher literacy support on early literacy achievement and the interaction between Istation® use and the level of teacher literacy support. A descriptive discriminant analysis was performed to determine the main effect of Istation®. The level of teacher support and the interaction effect was then tested using a multivariate between-subject analysis. Results indicated that Istation® did have a statistically significant effect on the early literacy skills of the 72 kindergarten students studied and was able to explain 17.7% of the variance in group differences. Hearing and recording sounds and letter sound knowledge were the main contributors to group differences. Teacher literacy support and the interaction between teacher support and Istation were not significant. This study considers the relationship between technology and early literacy and concludes that Istation® can serve as a more knowledgeable other as students develop some early literacy skills; however, teachers are still needed to provide complete literacy instruction for young students.

This Diploma thesis is dealing with problematics of architectural solution of working space within kindergarten in context with conception of contemporary preschool education in the Czech Republic. The goal of the thesis is to analyze architectural and spatial conditions within selected kindergartens in the Czech Republic. The thesis is divided into two parts. Theoretical part is focused on preschool child, kindergarten, laws regulating architectural space solutions in kindergartens in the Czech Republic, and architectural and spatial parameters for kindergartens. The goal of thesis' practical part is to analyze how different spatial dispositions affect ongoing educational processes in examined kindergartens. Practical part states objectives of the thesis, research questions and methodological tools, applied during research phase of the thesis. It focuses on selected faculty kindergartens with different disposition solutions and analyzes their spatial disposition in relationship to educational processes and child's play. Then analyzes and compares different points of view to the problematics from selected professional educationalist and architects. Further the thesis summarizes recommendations on spatial arrangements, so they suit well all the needs of those participated in educational process. The...

This diploma thesis deals with the question of how fairy tales affect preschool children. The theoretical part of the work presents the definition, history, development, types and forms of fairy tales, its function and meaning. It also presents the archetypes in fairy tales, the meaning of fairy tales in kindergarten, or the process of reading. Other chapters of the theoretical part of the work characterize the individual developmental periods of the child according to developmental psychology and importance is given mainly to the period of preschool age. The work also deals with the influence of fairy tales on the development of children's thinking, fantasy, attention, memory or communication. The empirical part is processed in the form of qualitative research, the output of which is a project week focused on the importance of fairy tales in a particular kindergarten and interviews with teachers.

The thesis comprises a business plan describing the Expansion of the Company in the Area of Child Daycare. Based on the analysis the draft describes concrete marketing plan, scheme of sales, staffing and financial plan including the economic evaluation. Important is the profitability of the business plan and the ability of its implementation.