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Within the field of K-2 computer science (CS) education, unplugged computational thinking (CT) activities have been suggested as beneficial for younger students and shown to impact young students' skills and motivation to learn about CS. This study sought to examine how children demonstrate CT competencies in unplugged sequencing tasks and how children use manipulatives to solve unplugged sequencing tasks. This case study approach examined two unplugged sequencing tasks for six children ranging from ages five to eight (pre-kindergarten to 2nd grade). Children showed evidence of several CT competencies during the sequencing tasks: (1) pattern recognition, (2) algorithms and procedures, (3) problem decomposition, and (4) debugging. The strategies and use of manipulatives to showcase CT competencies seemed to evolve in complexity based on age and developmental levels. Taking into account children's abilities to demonstrate CT competencies, this study suggests that sequencing is a developmentally appropriate entry point for young children to begin engaging in other CT competencies. In addition, these unplugged sequencing tasks can also be easily integrated into other activities commonly experienced in early childhood classrooms.

Teachers are essential in ensuring children and society are aware of neurodiversity by actively incorporating inclusive children's literature into their classroom activities to promote understanding and acceptance of neurodiverse individuals. Integrating such literature may enhance children's awareness and acceptance of neurodiverse individuals. Many teachers encounter barriers to promoting neurodiversity awareness through this medium. This paper draws upon Vygotsky's sociocultural theory (1962) to analyze teachers' perceptions and beliefs concerning neurodiversity and their practices for using children's literature to promote neurodiversity awareness. This qualitative research study investigated the barriers teachers face in promoting neurodiversity awareness. Data collection involved semi-structured face-to-face interviews with eight K-2 grade teachers. A thematic analysis was used for interpretation. The findings indicate inadequate teacher knowledge and understanding, lack of collaborative professional development, and limited access to appropriate educational resources are significant barriers to promoting neurodiversity awareness in classroom activities through inclusive children's literature.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is America's most common childhood disorder. Although an ADHD diagnosis can bring positives, recent research uncovers potential negatives associated with diagnosis. This study examines understudied racial-ethnic heterogeneity in the relationships between an early elementary school ADHD diagnosis--with or without medication treatment--and children's future perceived self-competence, teacher-rated school behaviors, and parent-rated educational expectations. Findings are consistent with the notion that diagnosis can trigger racialized patterns of stigma. That is, relative to undiagnosed matches of the same social class and regardless of medication use, diagnosed Black children demonstrate worse teacher-rated school behaviors, diagnosed White children report poorer perceived self-competence, and parents of diagnosed Hispanic children report poorer educational expectations. Racialized patterns of stigma might amplify the consequences of negative-ability stereotyping on Black children, academic pressure on White children, and mental health stigma on Hispanic children. Findings also highlight the challenges of identification posed by differential unobserved selection into diagnosis.

This longitudinal, mixed-methods study reports on the development and implementation of an early phonological awareness screening and intervention program for struggling emergent readers in a French immersion school in Manitoba. The program was created by a professional learning community made up of the school administrator, teachers, and clinical support staff. This paper describes the process of developing the phonological awareness program and the intervention itself. Forty-two children participated in the phonological awareness intervention that lasted 10 weeks. The intervention was given in English in kindergarten. Significant gains were found in the phonological awareness skills of the children who participated in the intervention. Results also indicated that children's phonological awareness skills in English predicted their French reading levels in Grade 1. In addition, we provide insight into the roles played by key members of the school's PLC through qualitative analysis of a series of semi-structured interviews. The work of the school's professional learning community offers a model that may be implemented by other school teams to promote equity and accessibility for all learners in FI programs.

This study examined the perceptions of participants regarding the use of embedded video demonstration lessons during literacy professional development sessions. The videos were captured in an urban elementary classroom and modeled two new literacy strategies. Based on survey responses from 160 kindergarten through fifth grade elementary school teachers and 117 school or district administrators and instructional specialists, the findings revealed positive participant perceptions and effective instructional use of the videos that modeled the implementation of the strategies in a relevant classroom setting. The analysis of the use of videos during the professional development (PD) sessions was found to positively affect the instructional capacity of teachers to implement the strategies in their classroom settings. The findings also suggest that school administrators more positively understood the process of using the strategies to support the standards, resulting in increased leadership capacity. Implications of using specifically created videos to enhance clarity and credibility of PD for participants are discussed.

The aim of this research is to reveal the effects of symbolic play content activities organized in kindergarten to first reading and writing skills. For this purpose, mixed-method research has been designed. In the first stage of this research, four experiments, including pretest-posttest applied, a paired experiment-control group, were applied. 30 kindergarten students from 15 experimental and 15 control group-students participated. The data obtained from the experimental process were analyzed with the Man-Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. In the second stage, the data were collected through semi-structured observation and interview forms. 20 first-grade students from 10 experimental and 10 control group-students participated. Qualitative data were analyzed through descriptive analysis. The control group participants who successfully acquired the read-write preparation outcomes in the kindergarten and passed to the first grade were more successful in obtaining the first reading and first writing compared to the supervisory set participants who passed the first grade without acquiring the literacy preparation achievements in the kindergarten.

This study investigated the noticing of teachers who teach mathematics at different grade levels in the context of lesson study. The study specifically focused on teachers' noticing during the planning phase of the lesson. For this, the lesson planning phase of a group of four teachers consisting of kindergarten and primary school 1st grade teachers (vertical teacher team) was investigated. Teachers' planning process for the 1st grade level mathematics lesson was the focus in the context of lesson study. We examined categories and subcategories that emerged in the planning phase of the lesson study and noticing levels dealt with those categories. We examined which categories and subcategories emerged in planning and at which noticing levels they dealt with those categories. The results of the study provide comprehensive data on categories and noticing levels of teachers teaching mathematics at different grade levels in the collaborative planning process of a lesson study focusing on improving problem-solving. The results of the study showed that the teachers' noticing was clustered under three categories: curriculum, teaching methods, and conceptual understanding. In terms of noticing levels, the study's results revealed that noticing is performed at the attending to level in all categories. Although less frequently than the attending to level, teachers noticed making sense of level in all the other categories except the curriculum category. Besides, noticing that the deciding to respond level did not occur at any level might be due to the cultural challenges of adaptation of lesson study and the amount of support, we researchers provided teachers as facilitators.

Public school board members are charged with the responsibility and accountability to provide governance-level advocacy for equity and excellence in public education. This qualitative study examined the perceptions of school board members in three K--8 school districts in the midwestern part of the United States regarding the 50+ year Race-Based Academic Achievement Disparity (RBAAD) in public education. Virtual one-on-one interviews, a virtual focus group, and member checks were used to gather data. Utilizing servant and moral leadership as the theoretical frameworks, the findings revealed that school board members are empowered with governance-level authority and the responsibility to address the RBAAD phenomenon, school board members encounter obstacles that challenge their ability to mitigate the RBAAD phenomenon, and school board members contend that opportunities exist to promote mitigation of the RBAAD. Implications for future research and practice are addressed.

Elasticity, the capacity for students to explore or investigate their own questions of interest during or after teacher-directed events in the classroom, is highly beneficial for students in terms of their retention and deeper understanding of the content. An elastic environment is child-centered and inquiry-based. An inelastic environment (teacher-directed) results in students refraining from asking, investigating, or exploring their interests/curiosities. Teachers' perceptions of their classroom environments become an important consideration when evaluating their ability to enact elastic explorations. In this pilot study, teachers (two separate public-school districts) completed surveys describing perceptions of elasticity in their classrooms. Results indicate teachers' high value for elasticity in learning, inquiry-based investigating, and authentic student questioning. However, most teachers describe their environments as highly inelastic due to multiple barriers including time, standards, testing, stress, and a lack of training. The authors discuss potential pathways for increasing elastic environments including teacher training, professional development, and administrative support. The authors also discuss the relationship between teachers' beliefs and developing an elastic classroom environment.

We investigated the stability and developmental interplay of word reading and spelling in samples of Swedish (N = 191) and U.S. children (N = 489) followed across four time points: end of kindergarten, grades 1, 2, and 4. Cross-lagged path models revealed that reading and spelling showed moderate to strong autoregressive effects, with reading being more predictable over time than spelling. Regarding the developmental interplay, we found a bidirectional relationship between reading and spelling from kindergarten to Grade 1. However, starting in Grade 1, reading predicted subsequent spelling beyond the autoregressor but not the other way around. In all analyses, the findings were similar across the two orthographies. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role in children's development. It has been shown in previous studies that emotional intelligence not only influences academic performance but also benefits children's social and interpersonal lives. This study proposes a new strategy that integrates dialogical reading with visible thinking routines to develop young children's emotional intelligence. Children's books have been shown to benefit the development of young children's emotional skills. This study builds upon past research by utilizing visible thinking routines during dialogic reading of both children's books and self-made books to create an engaging and comfortable environment for young children to demonstrate and practice their emotional knowledge and skills. A mixed class of sixteen kindergarten and first-grade children, mostly immigrants from Central America, participated in this study. Through classroom observations and monitoring of the children's interactions and performance over time, the intervention was found to develop children's performance in these key areas of emotional intelligence: recognition, expression, regulation, and empathy.

In this article, we provide an overview of the ways one ecosystem-based literacy program uses high quality racially affirming picturebooks with kindergarten-third grade teachers within communities of practice to develop racial literacy and enact more effective and equitable reading practices. Racial literacy here refers to teachers' ability to understand the ways in which race and racism impact reading instruction and reading outcomes in their classrooms. High quality racially affirming picturebooks offer teachers important access to race-based content in ways that are accessible, emotional, and deeply pedagogical. We explore connections between racial literacy and reading practice, the role of high quality racially affirming picturebooks in this work, and provide examples of how we use these books, and the ways they support racial literacy development. Finally, we present a case study highlighting an example of our partner teachers engaging in this work that showcases the role of racial literacy in the development and delivery of effective and equitable reading practices.

The present longitudinal study investigated the hypothesis that early musical skills (as measured by melodic and rhythmic perception and memory) predict later literacy development via a mediating effect of phonology. We examined 130 French-speaking children, 31 of whom with a familial risk for developmental dyslexia (DD). Their abilities in the three domains were assessed longitudinally with a comprehensive battery of behavioral tests in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we examined potential longitudinal effects from music to literacy via phonology. We then investigated how familial risk for DD may influence these relationships by testing whether atypical music processing is a risk factor for DD. Results showed that children with a familial risk for DD consistently underperformed children without familial risk in music, phonology, and literacy. A small effect of musical ability on literacy via phonology was observed, but may have been induced by differences in stability across domains over time. Furthermore, early musical skills did not add significant predictive power to later literacy difficulties beyond phonological skills and family risk status. These findings are consistent with the idea that certain key auditory skills are shared between music and speech processing, and between DD and congenital amusia. However, they do not support the notion that music perception and memory skills can serve as a reliable early marker of DD, nor as a valuable target for reading remediation.

Individual characteristics of neighborhood context, like concentrated socioeconomic disadvantage, are associated with children's cognitive development, including their academic skill development and executive functions. However, questions remain regarding how neighborhood structural, process, and physical features uniquely predict children's cognitive skills when measuring neighborhoods more holistically. Exploiting within-child changes in neighborhood conditions over time in a nationally representative sample of children followed from kindergarten through fifth grade (N ˜ 13,550), this study examined unique associations between structural (i.e., concentrated disadvantage), process (i.e., violent crime, learning resources, and aspects of school quality), and physical (i.e., green space and pollution) characteristics of neighborhoods and children's achievement skills and executive functions. Fixed-effects models demonstrated that increases in neighborhood violent crime and pollution predicted decreases in children's reading and math skills, while increases in neighborhood school quality, learning resources, and green space predicted increases in reading and math. Children's executive functions were better when neighborhood pollution was lower and when school quality was better. Our results suggest that improving neighborhood structure, processes, and physical conditions may foster children's cognitive skill development, especially academic achievement.

Digital technology has long been ubiquitous in many communities within Australia and internationally, thereby requiring suitable digital proficiencies. While a majority of Australian children experience digital literacies as part of their everyday lives, limitations in access disadvantage others. In educational settings, there is a clear need for teachers to incorporate the digital literacies of learners while also working towards addressing inequities by providing rich literacy experiences that bring together print and digital forms of texts. Well-established understandings about the importance of literacy development early in a child's life support teachers of the first years of school to teach essential digital literacies. In Australian schools, teachers are mandated by a range of documents, including the Australian Curriculum, that provide content for teachers to teach. Situated within a frame of New Literacies theories, this paper reports findings from analyses of the ways these mandated documents may support teachers in the first years of school to design learning experiences that respond to learners' needs in producing digital texts. We then determine implications for teachers' responsiveness to these documents. With the recent release of the Australian Curriculum version 9.0, we argue for the pedagogical knowledge that teachers require to implement digital text production experiences within the mandates of the curriculum and, consequently, the professional learning they need for realising the potential of all children's digital capabilities in their classrooms.

Purpose: In this validation study, we examined the factor structure of the mediated learning observation (MLO) used during the teaching phase of dynamic assessment. As an indicator of validity, we evaluated whether the MLO factor structure was consistent across children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). Method: Two hundred twenty-four children (188 typically developing and 36 DLD) from kindergarten to second grade completed a 30-min individual mediated learning session on narrative production. Performance during the session was rated using the 12-item MLO by clinicians on affect, behavior, arousal, and elaboration. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to establish the factor structure and reliability of the MLO. Results: Factor analysis of the MLO suggested a stable three-factor model with adequate fit indices across kindergarten and school-age samples, across both typically developing and DLD subgroups with good to excellent reliability. The final 11-item MLO (one item was removed due to low factor loading) comprises three subscales including (a) cognitive factor, (b) learning anticipation, and (c) learning engagement. Conclusions: The MLO is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing language learning skills in children with and without DLD during dynamic assessment. Practical implications and suggestions for future research addressing the utilization of MLO in dynamic assessment are provided.

Purpose: In the current age of greater digital delivery of services, it is important to examine the validity and differences between spoken and digital delivery of materials. The current study is a practice-based research partnership between school-based speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and researchers, evaluating presentation effects and validity of a narrative retell assessment tool created by SLPs. Method: Fifty-one children across kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 completed the narrative retell task, retelling "One Frog Too Many and Frog Goes to Dinner" in three in-person story presentation conditions administered 1 week apart: spoken, iPad with audio-recorded natural rate of speech, and iPad with slow rate of speech. This was followed by 10 comprehension questions related to story events. Children also completed the Story Retelling subtests from the Test of Integrated Language and Literacy Skills (TILLS). Results: Children recalled significantly fewer events in the spoken condition compared to audio-recorded iPad conditions. No significant effect of speaking rate was found. Presentation condition and rate did not affect performance on comprehension questions. Correlations among retell measures and corresponding subtests on a standardized language test ranged from weak to strong, providing some evidence of concurrent validity. Conclusions: This practice-based research partnership provided valuable insight into differences in delivery modality as well as the validity of a school-based SLP created narrative retell assessment tool. This study found that rate did not impact recall of events or performance on comprehension questions. Additionally, children performed better on narrative retell measures when stories were told using an iPad. This highlights the potential for iPad delivery as an option in narrative retell tasks. Finally, this study provided an initial examination of the Narrative Evaluation Tool's validity, finding the tool captures ability to recall narrative events; however, future studies are needed to examine the tool's validity as a measure of narrative comprehension.

Purpose: This study explored the relation between therapy group size and language outcomes for children receiving school-based language therapy through an implementation science lens. Method: Data for the current study were gathered as part of the Speech-Language Therapy Experiences in Public Schools study. Participants included 273 English-speaking kindergarten through second-grade children with language impairment receiving business-as-usual therapy on the caseloads of 75 speech-language pathologists. Data were collected over an academic year, including weekly therapy logs, speech-language pathology questionnaires, and pre-- and post--language measures. Results: Descriptive analysis revealed that children primarily experienced small-group therapy sessions (two to four children); however, there was considerable variability in group size. Hierarchical general linear modeling indicated that caseload size did not explain group size variability. However, the number of student cancellations was positively associated with receipt of large-group sessions. Notably, a significant negative association was found between receipt of large-group sessions (i.e., five to 10 children) and language outcomes. Children who received more than the average number of sessions in large groups (i.e., more than 5% of total sessions) experienced 0.18 SD less language gain over the academic year compared to the mean (0.54 SD). No other group size configurations (i.e., individual, small group, and extra large) yielded significant associations with language outcomes. Conclusions: The findings suggest that young children receiving language-based therapy in large groups make substantially fewer language gains over an academic year. These results have considerable implications for educational policy and clinical practice, which are discussed through an implementation science frame.

Presently, in Malta, syllabi are being replaced by learning outcomes. For ages 3-7, the outcomes are framed holistically (e.g. identity, communication, etc.), and it is recommended that children learn mathematics informally through play and projects. For ages 8-11, learning outcomes are subject-based, and new mathematics textbooks are being phased in. I discuss the importance of a smooth transition between informal and structured approaches to learning mathematics. I draw on Anna Sfard's 4-element definition of discourse, linking the theory with my research classroom data. I argue that a discourse perspective can provide a basis for ensuring continuity across Grade levels.

Despite decades of sociolinguistic research, African American Language (AAL) remains stigmatized throughout the United States education system. There have been proposals to counteract this through curricula and/or ideological interventions targeted at teachers that seek to validate AAL while maintaining Dominant American English (DAE) as an educational target. However, such approaches have been criticized for giving limited attention to combating the racism that underlies much linguistic marginalization. We used a mixed-methods approach to explore the benefits and limitations of a dialect-shifting curriculum in shaping teachers' language ideologies. Participants (n = 40) were K-1 teachers in a predominantly Black mid-Atlantic city. They were participating in an efficacy study of a dialect-shifting curriculum; schools were randomly assigned to teach the curriculum (intervention condition) or continue with business as usual. Before and after the intervention, teachers completed a survey of their language attitudes, and a subset (n = 16) participated in semi-structured interviews. On the survey, teachers displayed more favorable attitudes toward language variation at the end of the school year, regardless of condition. The interviews revealed a range of perspectives, revealing a tension between a belief in the utility of DAE for their students and an understanding that many students will wish to use AAL in their communities. The curriculum provided shared vocabulary to discuss this tension and increased some teachers' acceptance of AAL in non-academic settings, but many did not view dialect variation as relevant to their priorities as K-1 teachers. These findings clarify the trade-offs involved in work toward a more (linguistically) inclusive education system.

We examined the relation between home literacy environment (HLE), parents' reading skills, and children's emergent literacy skills (pinyin letter knowledge, phonological awareness, and vocabulary) and reading (word reading and reading comprehension) in a sample of 168 Chinese children (M[subscript age] = 74.26 months) followed from kindergarten to Grade 1. Results of structural equation modeling showed that code-related HLE activities and access to literacy resources continued to predict children's emergent literacy skills after controlling for the effects of family's socioeconomic status and both parents' reading skills. Parents' reading skills also exerted a direct effect on children's reading comprehension. These findings suggest that HLE exerts a true environmental effect on children's reading skills that is not due to a genetic confound.

This study investigated the role of tools in supporting students to reason about even and odd numbers. Participants included Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2 students (ages 5-8) at two schools in the USA. Students took part in a cross-sectional early algebra intervention in which they were asked to generalize, represent, justify, and reason with mathematical structure and relationships. Interviews were conducted with students before, during, and after the year-long intervention to explore the ways in which tools mediated their engagement in these practices in the context of questions about parity. In addition to cubes and "dot cards," which were introduced during the interviews, we found that students also used their fingers and hands as tools. We outline the affordances and constraints of these tools in supporting students' reasoning about the properties of even and odd numbers.

Pragmatics refers to the ability to effectively use and interpret language in different contexts. Pragmatic abilities develop and refine through childhood, and they are essential for socialization, academic achievement and wellbeing. The scarcity of assessment tools in this field makes it challenging to provide a comprehensive assessment of pragmatic abilities. The Pragma test, originally developed for Finnish and also adapted into Italian, consists of a battery of tasks assessing children's pragmatic abilities. In this study, a first evaluation of the psychometric qualities of a Norwegian adaptation of this test is presented. In addition, we investigated pragmatic development between ages 5 and 7, and explored possible gender-based differences. Altogether 119 Norwegian-speaking children participated in the study. The children were tested with the Pragma test and parents completed the Children's Communication Checklist-2. The children were allocated into three groups: 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds. The psychometric qualities of this Norwegian adaptation supported its use as a tool for assessing pragmatics in children aged 5-7. Strong and significant growth in pragmatic competence was observed from age 5-6, subsequently flattening out between age 6 and 7, and gender differences in favour of girls were identified. These findings indicate that pragmatic ability, as measured by the Pragma test, shows similar age effects in a Norwegian setting as in Finnish and Italian contexts, paving the way for further cross-cultural and cross-linguistic studies.

The Learning Forward Academy is Learning Forward's flagship deep learning experience, committed to increasing educator and leader capacity and improving results for students in the ever-changing landscape of education. For over 30 years, the academy has supported the problem-based learning of teachers, teacher leaders, instructional coaches, principals, regional leaders, superintendents, and others whose jobs involve supporting the learning of other adults and students. The academy brings together educator leaders with expert coaches to create successful and sustainable change in their educational systems. Over the professional learning program's 2 and a half years, participants learn about and implement several system improvement tools, such as root cause analysis and theory of change, and work together on their individual problems of practice. At the core of the academy is an understanding that educational improvement is iterative and requires continuous assessment, adaptation, and refinement, as well as ongoing learning among all educators in a system. This article examines how a principal was able to use the lessons she learned at the academy to improve reading grade levels and combat chronic absenteeism at her school in New Jersey.

The Australian government funded the West Australian project 'Reporting Values to Parents' as part of 'The Values in Action Schools Project' (2009). The two aims of the qualitative study were to develop a common values language supported by observable behaviours and an appreciation that values education is fundamental to schooling. Teachers used an action research process to create authentic values activities and involve parents in the assessment process. Parents shifted their perspectives to ratify teachers' role to teach values explicitly. Students experienced a deeper sense of connection and belonging at school. Educators can adapt the activities in this paper to infuse values into their teaching. Future research is warranted to support and retain preservice teachers by examining the 'hidden curriculum' and personal biases to create inclusive classrooms. All students have a right to access an education that reflects their interests and values and teachers need urgent support for this quest.

Theoretical models hold that written products (e.g., quality of written composition) are the outcome of the writing process (e.g., translation, transcription, revision) and skills and knowledge on which the writing process draws (e.g., language, transcription, cognitive skills). In the present study, we examined the relations among writing quality; the writing production process measured by writing fluency; and language, cognitive, and transcription skills, using longitudinal data from English-speaking beginning writers who were followed from kindergarten to Grade 2 (N = 261). Children's working memory, attentional control, spelling, handwriting fluency, vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, and writing quality were measured in kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. Writing fluency was measured in Grade 2 in two ways, using a process-based measure, writing burst length (chunks of text produced between pauses during writing), and a product-based measure, the number of words produced per total writing time. Results from structural equation modeling showed that Grade 2 writing fluency was moderately related to Grade 2 writing quality (0.40) and completely mediated the relations of Grade 1 spelling and handwriting fluency skills to Grade 2 writing quality. In contrast, Grade 1 vocabulary was directly related to Grade 2 writing quality over and above Grade 2 writing fluency. Kindergarten working memory was indirectly related to Grade 2 writing fluency via Grade 1 spelling skill. These findings indicate that the writing production process measured by writing fluency mediates the relations of transcription skills to writing quality, and executive function is indirectly related to writing fluency via transcription skills for beginning writers.

This study investigated the relationship between task-based teacher training and novice English language teachers' cognitions and implementations of tasks in Honduran bilingual schools. After participating in a four-week training program on task-based language teaching, teachers with little or no prior teaching experience designed task-based lessons and were video-recorded implementing those lessons with English language learners ages 5 to 12. Following the classroom observation, teachers participated in a stimulated recall interview. A rubric aligned with 10 key principles of task-based language teaching (TBLT) as outlined by Long (2015) was used to rate teachers' performance and code stimulated recalls. Ratings of video observations showed varied success in TBLT implementation after training, with some teachers' lessons clearly aligned with key TBLT principles, and others relying on focus on forms strategies. Analysed data also uncovered a link between previous training and teaching experiences and the success of teachers' implementations. Stimulated recalls showed that teachers focused primarily on maintaining a cooperative learning environment, and less on reactive aspects of TBLT such as providing corrective feedback. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for teachers and teacher training programs seeking to implement TBLT as an approach to language teaching.

Background or Context: There is increasing research focusing on dual language (DL) education program policies and practices regarding who has access to bilingualism and whose bilingualism is valued and represented. However, limited research is situated in the context of Chinese-English DL education and its service of emergent bilingual learners with disabilities (EBLWDs). Purpose, Objective, Research Question, or Focus of Study: The current study examines DL policy documents from one Chinese-English DL charter school to answer the following research question: How do a Chinese-English DL charter school's policies and practices address racial and disability injustice? Research Design: Textual analysis is conducted to examine publicly available educational policy documents from school, district, and parent-hosted websites; photos from school Facebook pages; and meeting minutes from the school principal, with permission. Conclusions or Recommendations: Drawing from a Disability Critical Race (DisCrit) stance, this study reveals textual silences on disability and race and the exclusion of EBLWDs through no-excuses accountability policies. Discourses of elite bilingualism and neoliberalism are perpetuated and reproduced by White, nondisabled, middle-class, English-speaking families who control the right to make policy decisions. These discourses shape the lived experiences of EBLWDs, who are deemed as deviant for their racial/ethnic identities and deficient for disability and linguistic status, and are thus denied access to bilingual DL education.

This study aimed to examine the validity of the "simple view of reading" (SVR) model in the diglossic Arabic language. Using a longitudinal design, we tested whether decoding and listening comprehension (LC) in kindergarten can later predict reading comprehension (RC) in the first grade and whether the contribution of LC to RC differs between the spoken and literary varieties of Arabic. The participants were 261 kindergartners who were followed to the first grade. Our results from separate SEM analysis for the spoken and literary varieties revealed some similarity between the explained variance in the spoken (52%) and literary (48%) variety models. However, while the contribution of LC to RC was higher than the contribution of decoding in the spoken variety model, an opposite pattern was observed in the literary variety model. The results are discussed in light of the diglossia phenomenon and its impact on comprehension skills in Arabic, with theoretical and pedagogical implications.

Restrictive instruction and punitive discipline often run parallel in schools, prompting a continued need to provide authentic learning opportunities that value children's literacy strengths in an inclusive community. Restorative justice has been identified as a pedagogical stance in addressing harmful policies in schools, and it is most often examined in secondary contexts and specifically in relation to discipline--rarely in relation to young children's literacies and learning. This multisite case study explored the intersections of restorative practices and literacy learning in elementary classrooms (K-3) across three schools in the same large public school district in the United States. Using relational literacies and languaging as theoretical frames, the talk, reading, and writing practices were analyzed through actions and thoughts of the teachers and students. Findings indicate that children and teachers engaged in relational literacies to build collective meaning-making that honored individual strengths and capacities in, with, and for texts and one another. The findings demonstrate a blurring of storied and lived worlds and how children work with, in, and alongside texts collaboratively. The findings indicate a need for viewing literacy and community-building practices holistically and the importance of centering how young children build meaning relationally.

This study examined a professional development (PD) intervention that provided kindergarten-through third-grade teachers with drama-based pedagogy to improve student reading achievement. The PD consisted of collaboration between teaching artists and teachers to integrate drama into English language arts instruction for a school year. Twenty-six classroom teachers and their 815 kindergarten, first-,second-, and third-grade students participated in this quasi-experimental study. Student reading achievement was measured with the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) in the fall, winter, and spring. With the exception of first-grade students, results indicated statistically significant student growth in favor of the experimental group relative to a business-as-usual comparison group. Implications in terms of embodied theories of cognition and classroom practice are discussed.

The early development of spatial reasoning skills has been linked to future success in mathematics (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009), but research to date has mainly focused on the development of these skills within classroom settings rather than at home. The home environment is often the first place students are exposed to, and develop, early mathematics skills, including spatial reasoning (Blevins-Knabe, 2016; Hart, Ganley, & Purpura, 2016). The purpose of the current study is to develop a survey instrument to better understand Kindergarten through Grade 2 students' opportunities to learn spatial reasoning skills at home. Using an argument-based approach to validation (Kane, 2013), we collected multiple sources of validity evidence, including expert review of item wording and content and pilot data from 201 parent respondents. This manuscript outlines the interpretation/use argument that guides our validation study and presents evidence collected to evaluate the scoring inferences for using the survey to measure students' opportunities to learn spatial reasoning skills at home.

Drawing from principles of ethical research derived from our review of national and international policy documents, in this paper we reflect on our research experiences working in partnership with Indigenous educators in a project to support young Indigenous children's oral and written language development through collaborative action research. Then, acting on lessons learned from this first partnership project, we describe our efforts to attend to these ethical research principles in a second partnership project to support Indigenous children's writing and Indigenous language and cultural learning through teacher-initiated, culturally specific, play-based activities. We offer our reflections as a starting point for conversations that will inspire and call for the necessary ethical and relational responsibilities of doing partnership research with and for Indigenous communities.

Theory is an important element of literacy research. Research designs are informed by theories that explain what literacy is, how it develops, and how it should be taught and evaluated. Sociocultural theories emphasize the socially situated nature of literacies engagement and practices, whereas cognitive theories emphasize the underlying skills and processes used when reading and writing print. Research designs oriented in one of these theories are common in literacy research. Whilst some researchers have identified ways to unify across literacy theories, there is little ongoing dialogue about the ways in which a socio-cognitive orientation can contribute to literacy research. This paper discusses a student case study from a research project that gathered and analyzed data on literacy difficulties in Victoria, Australia, using both sociocultural and cognitive understandings of literacy. It uses findings from this case to explore the utility of a socio-cognitive theoretical perspective when engaging in print literacy research, proposing that it helps to identify students' loci of print literacy difficulties, recognize factors enabling and constraining literacy development, and pinpoint pedagogical elements that may require adaptation. This paper outlines broader possibilities and challenges with taking a bi-focal stance in literacy studies and invites others working across literacy paradigms to connect and share their work.

Elementary principals are increasingly responsible for the supervision, support, and evaluation of early childhood teachers and young children. Previous research demonstrated that principals may prefer to hire elementary-certified rather than early childhood-certified teachers and that principals without early childhood preparation may not advocate for developmentally appropriate practices. This study examines elementary principals' preparation for and perceptions of early childhood education, including their knowledge of child development and hiring preferences. We use state certification data to understand principals' preparation and survey data to explore principals' perceptions and practices. Findings indicate that few principals hold early childhood certification while most supervise early childhood teachers and young children. Principals also indicated a lack of commitment to the PreK-3 continuum. Along with previous literature, our findings suggest that principal preparation requirements should be revised to ensure that all who support and evaluate early childhood teachers and young children receive relevant coursework and experiences.

This study explores the impact of professional learning communities on student achievement in a small school setting. Aaron Hansen's book, "How to Develop PLCs for Singletons and Small Schools," offered a guide for arranging vertical, grade-level teams with one teacher per grade level at one private, K-8 school. The faculty engaged in high quality, effective professional development using PLC objectives and norms to analyze NEWA MAP data. They adapted instructional practices and implemented formative assessments to influence student growth in math and reading scores. Results indicate that the PLC training that took place between the Fall and Winter MAP testing cycles positively impacted student growth results from Winter to Spring tests. Research limitations are addressed in the discussion section.

With business relations and international travel on the rise between China and English-speaking countries, the need for English teachers in China has also increased. One method of teaching English in China occurs through summer English camps. The research presented here examines the teacher, camp coordinator, student, and parent experience with a three-week summer English camp for kindergarten through grade eight students hosted by an international school in China. The objective of the study is to describe the lived experiences from the perspective of the various partners to examine whether the curriculum adequately meets their needs, whether children are improving their English skills, and whether the teachers are sufficiently prepared for their experiences. Findings suggest that all participants indicate a high level of satisfaction with the summer camp, especially the importance of relationships in English language learning. Some of the expressed concerns lead to recommendations for improvements. In this study, the practice of the summer English camp is linked to the current English as an additional language research, making this research relevant to a broad international audience. Not only are summer English camps in high demand in China, but in other countries around the world as well.