Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Bronwyn Fees / An increased focus on school readiness in recent years has placed more attention on the importance of quality early care and education settings for children ages 3 to 5 years. The first five years of a child’s life represent a crucial period for development, and care settings impact children’s outcomes in a variety of domains. Preparation of teachers in order to provide a high-quality level of care that supports positive outcomes for children is critical. This report assesses the current state of the literature on effective professional development for early childhood professionals (primarily those working center-based settings with children ages 3 to 5 years), specifically as it relates to improved outcomes for children in the areas of social-emotional competence and language and literacy development. Methods for adult learning are also reviewed and recommendations for appropriate models of professional development based upon this review are provided. It is recommended that specific aspects within models of professional development be reviewed further to determine more concrete predictors in terms of what is effective for adult learning and application of concepts. It also is recommended that early care and education providers take part in professional development activities that have an added level of support and feedback, such as coaching, to assist in improving instructional practices to impact developmental outcomes in targeted areas, such as literacy.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Special Education, Counseling, and Student Affairs / Judy Hughey / Successful transition practices are essential in moving students forward into new facets of learning and life. Noteworthy is the transition into kindergarten, as students experience a new environment, with new academic, social, and behavioral expectations. Research has reviewed teacher and student perceptions on this topic, but has traditionally overlooked the parent stakeholder. Specifically assessing kindergarten transition from parents’ vantage point provides a varied and necessary perspective that is often underutilized in effective school transitioning programs. Therefore, this study surveyed parents of children transitioning into kindergarten to identify their experiences and involvement in transition programming. Specifically to: (a) assess the concerns of parent stakeholders upon transitioning their children into formal schools (b) assess the perceptions of parent stakeholders in regards to their children’s transition into kindergarten, (c) assess the areas in which parent participants would like more information about the transition process, and (d) explore environmental variables and demographics that may impact student transitional success. The study utilized a retrospective pretest survey design to examine the experiences and perceptions of parents whose children were enrolled in full-day kindergarten in two school districts of comparable size in Northeast Kansas. A sample size of 91 participants was generated, as a parent or guardian of every student enrolled in kindergarten for the 2010-2011 school year in the surveyed schools was selected and solicited as participants for this retrospective pretest study. The final study population included 68 participants (n = 68) amongst the two respective schools, for an overall response rate of 74.7%. Survey mean results indicated that no particular item in academic, behavioral, or social domains were considered a great concern for parents transitioning their child into kindergarten. However, items that received the highest rating for concern prior to kindergarten were in the areas of academic success in comparison to peers, and adjusting to new routines and surroundings. Parents also rated adjusting to new routines and surroundings as the area with the least amount of transitional success. Seventy-three percent of participants agreed or strongly agreed to feeling engaged in the transitional process. Also, a significant difference in parents’ perceived need for both social and behavioral support emerged between first and second born children as they transition into formal schooling indicating parents of firstborn would like more information and support. Finally, results also showed that significance emerged between parents’ desire for counselor services and their concern as to the child’s level of behavioral success upon entering kindergarten.

Globalization and neo-liberal practices have influenced education and schooling in various ways, particularly through curricula. As a result, interest in elementary school, particularly kindergarten, education has been generated by supranational organizations; specifically the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as well as international organizations such as the European Union and numerous federal and provincial governments, including the Canadian, Ontario and Hellenic governments. This research explores how democratic citizenship education is reflected in kindergarten curricula in Ontario, Canada and Hellas, Greece. Because of growing concerns with democratic citizenship education, in this study, I have analyzed and compared the kindergarten education curricula of Ontario and Hellas in terms of democratic citizenship education and how it is reflected in their respective curricula. I analyzed supplementary and supportive reports, guides and other educational documents about democratic citizenship education published by supranational and international organizations. In order to accomplish this, I utilized a critical pedagogic perspective through Critical Discourse Analysis. In addition, important concerns about citizenship education in kindergarten are discussed and recommendations for curriculum studies are provided. This study is significant in its exploration of the ways that democratic citizenship education is being reflected in kindergarten curricula in Ontario and Hellas and in the revelation of similarities and differences between them, as well as within a global context.

Aboriginal Head Start Urban and Northern Communities (AHSUNC) Initiative in Ontario provides an early childhood development program specifically for urban Aboriginal children between 3 and 5 years old. Twenty-nine families from Waabinong Head Start in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, completed two questionnaires given four months apart covering a range of health and education topics. The completed surveys supported a trend toward healthier lifestyle choices, improved education of the children, upward mobility in employment, increases in self-perceived general and mental health of primary and second caregivers, and decreases in smoking, illegal drug use, and alcohol use. Families reported an increased sense of pride in being Aboriginal shown by their children, plus learning of culture and Ojibwe language, which has lead to improvement in all of the child’s skills and abilities.

The pressing environmental crisis compels educators to question the purposes and practices of formal education and to adopt environmentally-informed transformative approaches to education. Critical place-based learning refers to a wide variety of approaches to teaching and learning that take the local context as the starting point for curriculum that fosters a critical stance towards the status quo. There is a need for more research that brings together environmental and critical learning goals in the early years. In this qualitative case study, I explored critical place-based learning and teaching in kindergarten. I explored the parallels between critical place-based learning and a Reggio Emilia-inspired emergent curriculum approach. I considered how teacher researcher collaboration served to support teacher professional development. This study demonstrated the possibilities, benefits, and challenges, of critical place-based learning in the early years. I conclude with some recommendations for facilitating critical place-based learning in the early years.

The pressing environmental crisis compels educators to question the purposes and practices of formal education and to adopt environmentally-informed transformative approaches to education. Critical place-based learning refers to a wide variety of approaches to teaching and learning that take the local context as the starting point for curriculum that fosters a critical stance towards the status quo. There is a need for more research that brings together environmental and critical learning goals in the early years. In this qualitative case study, I explored critical place-based learning and teaching in kindergarten. I explored the parallels between critical place-based learning and a Reggio Emilia-inspired emergent curriculum approach. I considered how teacher researcher collaboration served to support teacher professional development. This study demonstrated the possibilities, benefits, and challenges, of critical place-based learning in the early years. I conclude with some recommendations for facilitating critical place-based learning in the early years.

In Canada and internationally, policy makers are moving towards more comprehensive and integrated service delivery models for early learning that include parent involvement and support as integral to their design. The current study was part of an ongoing evaluation of the Best Start project in Peel Region, a municipality in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Best Start aims to integrate preschool, junior/senior kindergarten, child care, public health and parenting programs into a seamless, easily accessible early child development system. This study examined whether parents with kindergarten children enrolled in Best Start schools, where kindergarten and child care were co-located and service integration was underway, would report lower levels of parenting daily hassles compared to parents of children in demographically similar schools where there was no service integration. Parental perceptions about hassles specific to child care and early learning settings were measured using the Early Childhood-Parenting Daily Hassles Scale (EC-PDH) (Arimura, 2008). Three areas of parenting stress that could potentially be reduced through service integration were explored: (1) seamless day – seamless access to care, education and family support; (2) connectedness – parents feeling involved and connected to their child’s school; and (3) parenting capacity – parents feeling confident in their parenting role. The study also combined hassles scores from Best Start and comparison schools to examine all parents’ involvement in the early learning and care system and the hassles they may or may not face on a daily basis as a function of parent demographics and program usage. Parents from 369 families in 10 schools were included in this study. Although Best Start parents did not report lower levels of parenting daily hassles compared to comparison parents, qualitative analyses at Best Start sites where parents used child care suggested that parents were feeling supported and they were forging positive relationships with staff. The positive relationships reported among parents and ECEs or other staff were not as frequent between parents and kindergarten teachers. Combined data indicated that all parents seemed to be experiencing the greatest hassles in the parenting capacity domain. Results are discussed in terms of policy implications for parent involvement in integrated full-day early learning programs such as full-day kindergarten.

Stories are complex linguistic constructions through which we share our interpretations of the social world. The ability to comprehend and produce stories is referred to as narrative competence. Narrative competence is rooted in social interactions in the preschool years that foster a sense of story structure and familiarity with story language. It has been shown to play a critical role in reading and writing achievement in the elementary school years since the language of literacy, like the language of storytelling, is predominantly decontextualized. The mastery of decontextualized language poses a significant challenge for children who enter kindergarten with little previous exposure to the majority language. The storytelling ability of these children was the focus of the present study. The study's primary aim was to examine second language narrative competence across the kindergarten years by comparing the fictional stories generated by a cross-section of EL1 and ELL junior and senior kindergarten children in response to a wordless picture book from the point of view of macrostructure (story structure), microstructure (story language), and the use of evaluative language. Grade and gender differences across and within language groups were also considered. A second aim of the study was to examine the relationship between narrative competence and receptive vocabulary and between narrative competence and print-based emergent reading skill. Overall, the results suggested that the ELL children's narratives were comparable to those of their EL1 counterparts with respect to most measures of microstructure, and with respect to macrostructure and evaluative language use. The one clear language-based difference favouring the EL1 children related to morpho-syntactic quality. Age-related differences were obtained on most measures and the results suggested parallel developmental trajectories across language groups. Gender was found to play a more prominent role in ELL than EL1 narrative performance. Few aspects of narrative were predicted by receptive vocabulary, suggesting dissociation between word- and discourse-level skills, particularly among the ELL children. On the other hand, emergent literacy scores predicted several aspects of microstructure, macrostructure and evaluative language use. The study provides evidence that various aspects of narrative competence might be differentially related to vocabulary and emergent literacy skills in ELL and EL1 kindergarten children.

Aboriginal Head Start Urban and Northern Communities (AHSUNC) Initiative in Ontario provides an early childhood development program specifically for urban Aboriginal children between 3 and 5 years old. Twenty-nine families from Waabinong Head Start in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, completed two questionnaires given four months apart covering a range of health and education topics. The completed surveys supported a trend toward healthier lifestyle choices, improved education of the children, upward mobility in employment, increases in self-perceived general and mental health of primary and second caregivers, and decreases in smoking, illegal drug use, and alcohol use. Families reported an increased sense of pride in being Aboriginal shown by their children, plus learning of culture and Ojibwe language, which has lead to improvement in all of the child’s skills and abilities.

In Canada and internationally, policy makers are moving towards more comprehensive and integrated service delivery models for early learning that include parent involvement and support as integral to their design. The current study was part of an ongoing evaluation of the Best Start project in Peel Region, a municipality in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Best Start aims to integrate preschool, junior/senior kindergarten, child care, public health and parenting programs into a seamless, easily accessible early child development system. This study examined whether parents with kindergarten children enrolled in Best Start schools, where kindergarten and child care were co-located and service integration was underway, would report lower levels of parenting daily hassles compared to parents of children in demographically similar schools where there was no service integration. Parental perceptions about hassles specific to child care and early learning settings were measured using the Early Childhood-Parenting Daily Hassles Scale (EC-PDH) (Arimura, 2008). Three areas of parenting stress that could potentially be reduced through service integration were explored: (1) seamless day – seamless access to care, education and family support; (2) connectedness – parents feeling involved and connected to their child’s school; and (3) parenting capacity – parents feeling confident in their parenting role. The study also combined hassles scores from Best Start and comparison schools to examine all parents’ involvement in the early learning and care system and the hassles they may or may not face on a daily basis as a function of parent demographics and program usage. Parents from 369 families in 10 schools were included in this study. Although Best Start parents did not report lower levels of parenting daily hassles compared to comparison parents, qualitative analyses at Best Start sites where parents used child care suggested that parents were feeling supported and they were forging positive relationships with staff. The positive relationships reported among parents and ECEs or other staff were not as frequent between parents and kindergarten teachers. Combined data indicated that all parents seemed to be experiencing the greatest hassles in the parenting capacity domain. Results are discussed in terms of policy implications for parent involvement in integrated full-day early learning programs such as full-day kindergarten.