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When implemented appropriately, computational thinking (CT) experiences in early childhood settings build essential literacy skills and foster initial explorations of sequencing, engineering design principles, and cause-and-effect relationships. While existing research explores CT in K-12 settings, there is insufficient research documenting the true scope of CT skills for preschool-age children (ages 3–5 years old). Thus, the paucity of research in this emerging area warranted a scoping review approach. This scoping review surveys existing CT studies with preschool-age participants and maps what is known of CT learning experience design, intended educational outcomes, and CT study design. Evidence from the reviewed articles (n = 17) indicate most studies used physical kits, task-oriented activities, and varying experience timeframes and adult scaffolding. Most studies focused on learning sequencing and events with few embedding remixing and reusing skills. Additionally, studies primarily implemented pre-post research design approaches, and few utilized qualitative methods. The analysis of the reviewed articles indicates gaps exist in CT experience designs, scope of CT interventions, and CT tool research and development. We conclude with recommendations for closing the knowledge gaps by providing specific future research directions.

The development of patterning strategies during the year prior to formal schooling was studied in 53 children from 2 similar preschools. One preschool implemented a 6-month intervention focusing on repeating and spatial patterns. Children from the intervention group demonstrated greater understanding of unit of repeat and spatial structuring, and most were also able to extend and explain growing patterns 1 year later. The findings indicate a fundamental link between patterning and multiplicative reasoning through the development of composite units.

Play-based learning is an integral component of the early childhood classroom; however, little research has been conducted around how children with and without disabilities engage in play within an inclusive preschool setting during center time. The present investigation utilizes the Play Observation Scale and Test of Playfulness to descriptively compare the play behaviors of children with speech-language impairments and developmental disabilities in relation to their peers. Findings indicate that while children with and without disabilities are more alike than they are different in terms of their play, there are trends in play preferences and interest across comparison groups in terms of dramatic play behaviors and sustained attention during play activities. Implications for researchers and practitioners’ facilitation of play in inclusive preschool settings are presented.

Abstract Background: Four expert panels from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States issued physical activity (PA) recommendations for young children that are quite similar. The aim of this study was to determine compliance with the new PA guideline (defined as ≥15 min/hr of total PA) in two independent samples of preschool children. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of children attending preschools in Columbia, South Carolina. A total of 286 children in one sample and 337 children in a second sample participated. The main outcome of interest was total PA (sum of light, moderate, and vigorous intensity activity) measured by accelerometry. Compliance with the PA guideline was determined for both samples. Separately for each sample, mixed logistic models were used to determine whether there were differences in compliance with the PA guideline between groups based on sex, race/ethnicity, parent education, and weight status, controlling for preschool. Results: Total PA was 14.5 and 15.2 min/hr in the first and second samples, respectively. The prevalence of meeting the PA guideline was 41.6% and 50.2% in the first and second samples, respectively. In both samples, more males than females met the guideline (53.5% vs. 33.5% and 57.6% vs. 45.9%) in the first and second samples, respectively (p<0.05). Conclusions: Approximately one half of children in two independent samples met the guideline for PA in young children. Policies and practices designed to increase PA among preschool children are needed, given that most children are not meeting this PA guideline.

The present study assesses the quality of preschools in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and examines differences in quality between government and private preschools. Thirty-seven preschools (16 government and 21 private) and 37 preschool teachers from Addis Ababa participated in this study. Data were collected using the Global Guidelines Assessment (GGA) Scale which contains 76 items across five areas of practice: Environment and Physical Space, Curriculum Content and Pedagogy, Early Childhood Education Educators and Caregivers, Partnership with Families and Communities, and Young Children with Special Needs. Items are rated on a 5-point scale. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Specific analyses also considered if preschools were meeting adequate quality standards. Both private and government preschools had less than ‘adequate’ quality. Private preschools had relatively better quality compared with government preschools. The GGA is an important measurement tool to measure quality in ECE services that can inform policy and advocacy efforts to deliver higher quality early childhood education in the Ethiopian context. Preschools in Ethiopia could use the GGA scale, as a self-evaluation tool, to identify how and where to focus their efforts in order to deliver quality early education to children and families.

Nowadays children aged between 3 and 6 years are mostly attending one of the two major forms of preschool viz. public and private preschools in India. Even though public preschools are free of any financial cost to the parents, their preference is more towards private preschools. Based on a primary sample of 1369 children from 1369 households, this study explores the determinants of parents’ preschool choices between public and private. Acknowledging the possible sample selection bias in dealing with households of only those kids who have attended a preschool, we deploy Heckman sample selection model as our main regression design. Our results show the choice of a type of preschool heavily depends on parent’s socioeconomic status. Economically better off and educationally more aspirant parents prefer private preschool over public preschool in spite of the fact that the former does not provide any other facilities other than education.

Most accountability policies monitor Head Start quality at the center level by selecting a subset of classrooms within a center to represent quality. This study explores variation in classroom quality in Head Start and implications for accountability systems and children’s well-being. We find that one third to one half of the variation in quality was due to differences between classrooms within center and that 37% of centers would receive different accountability decisions depending on which classrooms were selected. Average center-level quality was not related to children’s development. However, differences in within-center classroom instructional quality were related to children’s academic and social skills. Findings suggest that accountability systems miss important variation in classroom quality within centers, which may lead to inaccurate high-stakes decisions.

There are unique challenges to estimating causal effects of preschool for students with special needs that have not received attention in the literature. We revisit the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) to illustrate that when and how special needs is defined has implications for the internal validity of and interpretation of special needs subgroup impact estimates. We find that the treatment group in the HSIS was three percentage points more likely to be classified as special education (SD = 0.11. P <.001) at baseline, likely biasing the impact estimates for this subgroup. We also find that the estimated intent-to-treat effects of Head Start on cognitive and socioemotional measures are sensitive to subgroup definition.

Background Evidence suggests that children from low-income families begin the preschool stage with less academic and non-academic skills development compared to higher-income families. There are several successful experiences of early stimulation of cognitive and social-emotional skills; however, there is scarce evidence of the effectiveness of a video game that incorporates the stimulation of these skills simultaneously. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a video game in stimulating cognitive, emotional, and social competence skills in developing academic skills in socioeconomically disadvantaged preschool children. Methods A cluster-randomized controlled trial design will be used. A tablet-based video game that stimulates cognitive and socio-emotional skills to improve the development of academic skills is compared with a tablet-based game where students draw and paint with no explicit stimulation of cognitive and socio-emotional skills. Eighteen schools and 750 Chilean preschool students will be recruited. The effectiveness of the intervention will be assessed using a direct evaluation of children on literacy learning and pre-calculation skills at baseline, immediately after stimulation, and at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months post-intervention. The mediating effect of working memory, inhibitory control, emotion recognition, and prosocial behaviours will be assessed on the effectiveness of the intervention. Discussion The proposed study will be the first to test the effectiveness of a tablet-based video game stimulating cognitive and social-emotional skills to improve academic skills in socioeconomically disadvantaged preschool children in Chile, controlling for gender, age (in months), mental health, and baseline conditions of stimulated skills. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05224700. Registered on February 2022

This paper examines the role of interprofessional collaboration in the identification and reporting of a child in need. Such collaboration is especially important in the context of the global pandemic caused by the novel Coronavirus disease of 2019, known as COVID-19. The child protection system must have the capacity and resources to respond to increased demands during this time, and early childhood educators serve as an essential link for child protective services in identifying and reporting a child in need. As an effective system to accomplish these two aims requires a working collaboration among its participants, Bronstein’s interdisciplinary collaboration model was used as a framework to interpret this practice. A small-scale qualitative study was conducted that included principals of nursery schools and child protection workers from one region in Estonia. Findings indicate that effective collaboration was believed to require communication and ongoing systematic relationship building. Collaboration in practice varied, as principals reported a high turnover rate for the child protection workers, which hindered the development of a working relationship and support for the process of noticing and thereby identifying a child in need. In contrast, child protection workers assessed collaboration more positively, recognizing the need to have a supportive system in place for nursery schools. Both groups of collaborators acknowledged the need to train teachers, particularly to conduct joint training exercises to foster a common understanding of the child in need and of the intervention process itself.