This research was based on the development of a Personal Growth Programme to address the emotional needs of ECD practitioners dealing with vulnerable children in previously disadvantaged communities, mostly in Gauteng. Early childhood development practitioners placed emphasis on their emotional needs and the kind of interventions necessary to assist them in dealing effectively with the emotional needs of children in their care. A Personal Growth Programme was designed with the aim of stimulating and sustaining reflexive practices and emotional growth through self-exploration, role-play and sharing of experiences. Relying on semi-structured interviews, the practitioners’ evaluations of the Personal Growth Programme were presented. All agreed that the programme had benefited them as individuals and as practitioners. They reported that the most important skills they had learnt were self-knowledge and empathy with the children in their care, both of which improved their practice. Some cited how these skills had benefited not only their practice but their personal relationships with family. Some of the skills were thus cited as life-changing. Regarding the sustaining of support groups, only three groups managed to meet at least once after the personal growth programme, with the aim of discussing their work or other issues related to it. The programme therefore made a difference for individuals but its sustainability revealed less success, suggesting that sustainability needed more attention. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Psychology / unrestricted

With accountability on the rise, educators are changing their focus to optimizing instructional strategies in the classroom. Their job performance depends upon their ability to show progress on child outcomes. One way teachers advance this process is by executing more evidence-based practices in their classroom. There is a lack of research in early childhood that report treatment integrity of the treatment package. This study utilized a multicomponent coaching intervention to increasing treatment fidelity of teacher implementation of naturalistic teaching strategies in an early childhood classroom. This coaching intervention could prove to be more efficient and practical for educators. This study added to the external validity and generalization of the findings in an early childhood classroom by using one-two year old children with social communication delays. This study found a functional relationship between training early childhood teachers through a multicomponent coaching intervention and the increase in treatment fidelity of implementing naturalistic teaching strategies with children with communication delays. The percentage of child responses per opportunity increased once the teachers implemented the strategies.

The quality of early childhood education and care programs greatly impacts children’s development and well being. The classroom environment, program content and approach and early childhood educators’ characteristics are some of the elements that influence quality and thus have effects on young children’s development. Past research has indicated that early childhood education and care programs in Quebec have received on average low/minimal or mediocre ratings of quality and were also found to lack developmentally appropriate play materials (Drouin, Bigras, Fournier, Desrosiers, & Bernard, 2004; Goelman et al., 2006; Japel, Tremblay, & Cote, 2005). The present study set out to explore elements that may influence the quality of child care classrooms in the province of Quebec. Early childhood educators’ knowledge and developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) were examined to determine the relationship between these elements. Early childhood educators’ knowledge of developmental milestones (KDM) and knowledge of appropriate play materials (KPM) were found to be weak but educators reported strong developmentally appropriate beliefs (BDAP) and practices (PDAP). Results demonstrated positive correlations between early childhood educators’ declarative knowledge of developmental milestones (KDM), knowledge of appropriate play materials (KPM) and their beliefs and practices of developmentally appropriate practice (BDAP and PDAP). Educators’ levels of declarative KDM were positively correlated with their level of declarative KPM. In addition, educators’ BDAP was positively correlated with their level of declarative KPM, but their reported DAP was not linked to their level of KDM. Implications for the field of ECEC as well as early childhood education programs in CEGEPs and Universities in Quebec and across Canada are discussed in light of the study’s findings and limitations.

The first study examined the development of reading, spelling and syntactic skills in English speakers (L1) and children with English as a Second language (ESL) from kindergarten to grade 3. This longitudinal study also investigated procedures for identifying reading difficulties in the early grades of elementary school for both English speakers and children with ESL. Reading, spelling, phonological processing, syntax, lexical access and working memory skills were assessed in kindergarten. Additional tasks were incorporated into the battery to assess cognitive and reading processes in grade 3. By the end of grade 3, the L1 and ESL normally achieving readers performed in similar ways on all tasks except on the spelling, arithmetic and syntactic awareness tasks. The ESL normally achieving readers performed better than the L1 on spelling and arithmetic tasks, however the L1 normally achieving readers performed better than the ESL on the syntactic awareness task. Similar cognitive and reading components predicted word reading and reading comprehension in grade 3 for both language groups. The results show that learning English as a second language is not an impediment to successful literacy learning, and may even be an advantage. In the second part of this study we examine whether the first language of children with ESL affected the reading, spelling and syntactic awareness in English. Seven language groups, Chinese, Farsi, Slavic, Japanese, Romance, Tagalog, and native English speakers groups, were compared in a cross sectional study. This study included all the children with ESL in kindergarten and grades 1, 2 and 3. The results demonstrated positive as well as negative effects in spelling and syntactic skills, resulting from the transfer to English for members of different language groups. Differences across language groups reflect the nature of the native language. Specifically, a positive transfer occurred when the L1 grammar system was more complex than the L2 grammar system. When investigating second language it is necessary to consider the native language and effect on the acquisition of a second language. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

This study examined the early reading development of native English speaking (L1) and children who speak English as a second language (ESL) who are receiving instruction in English. The study addressed whether there are original differences in pre-reading and language skills between L1 and ESL-speaking children, and whether similar patterns of reading development in English from kindergarten to grade 2 exist across language groups. As well, the study examined which skills in kindergarten identify those children at-risk for reading failure from all language backgrounds. The participants of the study were 978 grade 2 children who were seen as part of a longitudinal study that began in their kindergarten year. Within the sample, there were 790 children who are L1 speakers and 188 children who have a first language other than English and who spoke little or no English upon entry to kindergarten (ESL). In kindergarten, participants were administered standardized tasks of reading and memory as well as experimental tasks of language, phonological awareness, letter identification, rapid naming, and phonological memory. At the end of grade 2, children were administered various tasks of reading, spelling, language, arithmetic, and memory. All children received phonological awareness instruction in kindergarten and systematic phonics instruction in grade 1 in the context of a balanced early literacy program. In kindergarten, 23.8% of L1 speakers were identified as at-risk for reading failure and 37.2% of ESL speakers were identified as at-risk for reading failure. In grade 2, 4.2% of L1 speakers were identified as reading disabled and 3.72% of ESL speakers were identified as reading disabled. By the end of grade 2, the majority of the ESL speakers had attained reading skills that were similar to the L1 group. Although there were differences on each of the measures of reading, reading comprehension, spelling, phonological processing and arithmetic between average and disabled readers in grade 2, the ESL and L1 speakers had similar scores on all these tasks. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

This study examines 797 Taiwanese pre-service early childhood teachers' diversity beliefs using the Personal and Professional Beliefs about Diversity Scales (PPBD). The purposes of this study are to: (a) validate the diversity belief's instrument, (b) investigate the relationship between diversity beliefs in both personal and professional contexts, (c) examine the group differences in diversity beliefs between pre-service teachers based on their demographic background, school characteristics, and cross-cultural experiences, (d) explore the influential determinants of diversity beliefs in the personal and professional contexts, and (f) identify the types of training early childhood pre-service teachers need regarding multicultural education in early childhood. The results indicate that (a) the professional context of PPBD is not robust to use in population outside the U.S. and needed to modify by adding more items based on current diversity literature and the cultural context in Taiwan, (b) school characteristics are the major contributors that foster pre-service teachers' diversity beliefs in both contexts, (c) school location is the most influential factor for the dependent variable of personal beliefs while experience of studying in another city and students' major become the salient factors for the professional beliefs about diversity, (d) the type of educational philosophy is contributing factor of predicting diversity beliefs in both personal and professional contexts. It echoes the multicultural education approaches advocated by Sleeter and Grant (2003), which say that the most important component of multicultural education involves an entire school and touches all areas including students, teachers, staff, and administrators.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.