The Relationship of Classroom Behavior and Income Inequality to Literacy in Early Childhood

This chapter addresses the association between nurturing prosocial classroom behavior in young children, literacy, and income inequality. Literacy will be explored as it relates to social competence in the classroom as influenced by income inequity. One highlighted area of importance is a play-based, child-focused environment that is culturally sensitive and responsive to the needs of the whole child. Socioeconomic disparities in literacy skills have been increasing over the past 40 years. This subject must be addressed in order to effectively meet the cognitive, social, and emotional needs of each individual child. Literacy skills are developed during early childhood. It is also the case that limited literacy during early childhood increases the risk of children displaying aggressive behavior at school as they progress to higher grades. For these reasons, tackling the problem during the early years with developmentally appropriate adult-child interventions are what is needed to reverse the trends placing an increasing number of young children at-risk of academic underachievement.

Children’s graphic representation as a language and its role in preschool education under a whole-child approach

The objective of the present study is to analyze the drawings of the space by children as a representation system involving spatial thinking and higher mental functions such as memory and imagination. Our analysis is based on the historical-cultural theory on human development and on studies about the relation between spatial thinking and the graphic representation of space. Drawing is a language, the first written production by children and is characterized by elements associated with the cognition, culture, motor development and affectivity. Three elements were considered in our analysis: a) the creation of graphic equivalents; b) volume translation; c) perspective. We understand that the topological and projective notions must be based on the development of higher mental functions that mobilize the creation activity, such as memory and imagination, since such these functions constitute instruments to access systematized knowledge.

Engaging a Whole Child, School, and Community Lens in Positive Education to Advance Equity in Schools

Recent decades of education policy, research, and practice have brought focus on a positive education approach as applied within tiered service delivery frameworks to meet diverse needs of varied intensities. Related, the science of implementation has begun to increase understanding of supports to strengthen use of a positive education approach within tiered service delivery frameworks. To date, the body of work has fostered important shifts in how problems are viewed and addressed using a positive lens, supporting more equitable opportunity in education. To realize the full potential, however, there is a need to integrate theory and science as embedded within a whole child, school, and community lens. We propose that positive education will advance equity when grounded in integrated theory and science across developmental systems theory, prevention science, ecological systems theory, and implementation science. We first provide a brief overview of schools as a context to serve as assets or risks to equity, followed by a discussion of theory and science using a whole child, whole school, and whole community lens. We end with directions for science and practice in advancing a positive education approach.

NCS Assessments of the Motor, Sensory, and Physical Health Domains

As part of the National Children's Study (NCS) comprehensive and longitudinal assessment of the health status of the whole child, scientific teams were convened to recommend assessment measures for the NCS. This manuscript documents the work of three scientific teams who focused on the motor, sensory, or the physical health aspects of this assessment. Each domain team offered a value proposition for the importance of their domain to the health outcomes of the developing infant and child. Constructs within each domain were identified and measures of these constructs proposed. Where available extant assessments were identified. Those constructs that were in need of revised or new assessment instruments were identified and described. Recommendations also were made for the age when the assessments should take place.

Embodied Instruction: An Exploration and Qualitative Comparison of Expression and Performance of Yoga Instruction

Background: An inclusive, whole-child model of education is shifting the paradigm into an integrative mind-body approach. Toward contextualizing learning at the close of the cartesian era, the current work explores embodied instruction through the lens of a teacher whose primary focus is the integration of mind and body. Perhaps the longest standing curriculum aimed at embodied learning, yoga provides a unique perspective on techniques and experiences of embodied teaching.Method: This case study employed an in-depth explorative participatory design to observe instructor intentions in and performance of instruction. Consecutive interviews (5) in conjunction with participatory observation of weekly classes (8) were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and triangulated with researcher memos. A grounded and comparative methodology was used to analyze expressed understanding of embodied learning and performed instruction.Results: In-depth interviews revealed four themes of expressed understanding of embodied instruction: energetic state, personality of instruction, inviting experience and student vulnerability. Participatory observations revealed four themes of performance of embodied instruction: scoping, cadence, silence, and inviting practice. Overlap in expressed understanding and observed instruction were found in each theme. An example of the expressed understanding of a thematic concept is inviting experience: “If someone comes in the very first time and the teacher is very invasive and says, “Do this, do this, do this.” And the next pose the teacher is hovering over them, you are not going to go back. You are going to hate it so much [I] let people be really all over the place at the beginning as long as they are safe. [I] allow them that kind of freedom, initially”. This was further supported in the observed instruction; an example of this is: “We’re going to play with [a posture]. that firmness in your abs, engage the core so a foot might lift. Maybe both feet.” And “with the arms firm, maybe the legs straighten”.Conclusion: The current study yields preliminary insight into yoga instruction strategies to support further development of embodied teaching and learning.