Preparing young children for kindergarten is an important task. There are many skills that need to be learned. Simple everyday school and daily living tasks are kindergarten readiness skills that need to be taught. Many preschool students struggle to learn these skills unless taught directly. There are a sufficient number of interventions that have been used to teach various skills to students, but few have been identified as evidenced-based practices for teaching skills to at-risk preschool students in the classroom. Literacy based behavioral interventions (LBBI) (Bucholz, Brady, Duffy, Scott, & Kontosh, 2008) are a class of intervention that have been found to be effective to teach a variety of skills. This type of intervention consists of a combination of sequenced visuals and words to either teach a new skill and/or increase or decrease a behavior. Several studies have shown that a storybook LBBI is an effective intervention for teaching new skills including daily living skills, but to date only one study has looked at the effects of a storybook LBBI with preschool children who are at-risk (Hall, Brady, & Morris, 2017). This study expanded the storybook LBBI literature by exploring the effect of small group-delivered storybook LBBIs on preschool students who were at-risk and struggling to learn basic kindergarten readiness skills. Using a multiple baseline design across skills, this study examined the effectiveness of using LBBIs delivered in a small group to teach kindergarten readiness skills and the children’s ability to maintain and generalize these skills. Four preschool students were taught three skills including cutting with scissors, using liquid glue, and matching. Data were collected on the steps correct and independent on the task analysis for each skill. The results found an increase in skill acquisition with students learning the new skills and maintaining those skills after the removal of the LBBI. Students were also able to generalize these new skills to novel materials. Implications for research and practice are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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Research has shown that young children have some understandings of death. However, adults are hesitant (or even avoidant) to discuss death with young children for fear that they will scare them, or they are not sure what to tell them. Sessions were part of this project, educating adults in a child’s development and how that development affects what young children understand about death. The three sessions, completed over two weeks, included three topics including anxieties the adult may have about death, cognitive and emotional development of the young child, and the adult’s role in discussing death with young children. Participants completed a pre- and post-test. Results indicated that adults felt more comfortable discussing the death of a person with a young child, as well as feeling less avoidant of having those discussions.

Young gifted students experience school in a variety of ways. They become bored in classrooms where they are not challenged. They can develop disruptive behaviors or underachieve in order to feel accepted by their classmates or teachers. Three gifted first graders in the teacher-researcher's classroom participated in this case study. A variety of assessment tools were used to identify the student participants. Data were collected through teacher observations, videotaped classroom activities, videotaped interviews with students, audiotaped interviews with parents, and portfolios. Data are reported and discussed within the frame of five themes that emerged: high parent involvement, social relationships, characteristics of the learning environment, student-centered learning, and asynchronous development. The classroom context is richly described as it is critical to understanding the data and transferability.

The aim of this study is on the development of young children's arithmetic and geometric concepts. To achieve this aim, teachers motivated young children's curiosity through the use of interesting illustrated books. In particular, the target is the advance in young children's knowing and understanding of geometric figures and numbers within 10. There were altogether three phases. In the first phase, the investigator designed a mathematical activity (a pre-test) for the teacher to capture young children's entry behavior. The second phase referred to the use of illustrated books in ordinary instruction. During the third phase, the mathematical activity (identical to that of phase 1) was carried out again, in order to find out if advancement in young children's mathematical ability was present. Data collection and administration included investigator's observation notes; video analyses; notes on teacher interviews; and investigator's self reflections record. Data analyses and results were two: geometric concepts and arithmetic concepts. Geometric concepts. Using illustrated books could advance in understanding and increase in curiosity of young children; also to promote young children's recognition in variation in polygon; and arouse young children's imagination and creativity in individual figures and combination of patterns. Arithmetic concepts. Using illustrated books could cause the interests in change of numbers; cultivate young children's sensitivity in the addition and subtraction of numbers; and promote the ability of combination and decomposition of numbers within 10. The findings of this study suggested that illustrated books are important and useful in assisting young children to explore mathematical concepts. Illustrated books encourage young children to think and allow room for oral presentation, clarifying and reflecting one self. Finally, teachers are suggested to integrate the use illustrated books in teaching mathematics, and follow up with related mathematics activities, to upgrade young children's development in various mathematics concepts.

The purpose of the survey was to find out how early childhood teachers work with the curriculum of I Ur och Skur with children between 1-3 years in the forest and how such educators are using the outdoor pedagogy in the forest environment in preschool. In order to answer the study's aim and objectives interviews were performed with six teachers in I Ur och Skur kindergartens. What emerged from this study is that forest excursions are a central part of the curriculum and is seen as their educational place. The teachers are working to create a feeling of security among the youngest children of enjoying the woods and also to raise an interest in the children. Natural materials are used during the forest stay and no other toys or materials. The results reveal that educators work to get the smallest children to use and develop their imagination at play and at the same time they are involved with the children in their discovery of the woods. With the smallest children in kindergarten it involves being on the level of children and as a teacher to have the flexibility to change the forest stay environment if needed.

This dissertation describes an emotion knowledge intervention which was designed and conducted with four year old children with behaviour problems. The children’s parents and preschool teachers kept daily records of the children’s noncompliances to determine if there was any change in behaviour throughout the duration of the study. The children’s emotion knowledge and vocabulary ability were assessed and their parents completed a child behaviour checklist both before and after the intervention. The emotion knowledge intervention consisted of six sessions over a three week period. During the sessions the emotions angry, happy, sad and scared were discussed with the use of storybooks and games were played that involved identifying the emotions on faces of emotion cards and the children also practiced making the faces themselves. Results indicated that the intervention did not result in an increase in the children’s level of emotion knowledge or result in a change the children’s behaviour. Possible reasons for this lack of effect may have included an insufficient number of sessions to result in a change of emotion knowledge or the intervention may have been ineffective at increasing the children’s level of emotion knowledge.

This study is of moral development in young children, with a focus on justice as fairness, a term appropriate to the life experience of three- and four-year-old children. The subjects were twenty-eight children attending two groups in a preschool centre (sessional kindergarten), eighteen female and ten male. The ages ranged from three years four months to four years eight months at the commencement of the study. The children were studied for one year at their kindergarten. Five problem areas were explored: (1) moral reasoning; (2) behaviour in peer conflict interactions; (3) relationship between moral reasoning in response to hypothetical dilemmas and behaviour in real-life conflicts;(4) construction of an instrument to describe and measure early moral reasoning and behaviour; (5) moral education within a preschool setting. Semi-structured interviews using Kohlberg-type dilemmas, and naturalistic observations of spontaneous social interactions in free play situations, were the methods used. Pretest and post-test interviews and observations were six months apart. Teachers of one group of children participated in a moral education project which included a process for using naturally-occurring peer conflict in the kindergarten to facilitate moral development.

Social and emotional competencies have received increased attention as important components of school readiness for young children. Universal programs incorporating social and emotional learning (SEL) instruction for all preschool students are needed given the relation between social and emotional competencies in early childhood and later developmental outcomes. The Strong Start: Pre-K program is a low-cost, developmentally tailored educational curriculum targeting important social and emotional knowledge and skills. Although this program is part of an evidence-based SEL curriculum (Strong Kids), the preschool component lacks empirical investigation. This pilot study used a single group pre-post within-subjects design to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of implementation of Strong Start: Pre-K and the impact of the curriculum on social and emotional knowledge and skills of 39 students in two preschool classrooms. Feasibility and acceptability were evaluated through descriptive data on social validity and treatment integrity. In addition, preliminary evidence of effects was established through analysis of observed child and teacher behavior. Results suggest that teachers and students find the Strong Start: Pre-K curriculum to be highly acceptable and that teachers are able to implement the curriculum with moderate to high levels of fidelity with limited training. Preliminary evidence of effects suggests that children who participated in the Strong Start: Pre-K curriculum demonstrated increases in social and emotional strengths and resiliencies as well as increases in social and emotional knowledge following exposure to the Strong Start: Pre-K curriculum. Direct observations of child behavior also demonstrated increases in pro-social behavior and decreases in disruptive behavior.

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