Department of Human Services and Early Learning
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Browsing Department of Human Services and Early Learning by Subject "children"
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Item Children’s connectedness with siblings and friends from early to middle childhood during play(2021) Leach, Jamie; Howe, Nina; DeHart, GanieThe purpose of the present study was to investigate children’s connected communication during play with a sibling and friend from early to middle childhood. Participants included 65 4-year-old focal children at time 1 (T1) and 46 7-year-old focal children at time 2 (T2) who were videotaped at home in separate semi-structured free play sessions with an older or younger sibling and a same-aged friend at both time points. Data were coded for connectedness in communication (e.g., smooth and flowing or disjointed and fragmented) across relationship contexts and time. Research Findings: Focal children made more failed attempts at establishing connectedness and engaged in more self-talk with their siblings than with their friends, whereas they maintained connectedness more often with their friends. In terms of the partners’ balance of participation, at T1 focal children ended connected interactions more often than their siblings, and the siblings engaged in more self-talk and unclear statements. In contrast, the balance of participation did not differ between friends at T1 and T2, nor did siblings differ at T2, suggesting friend partners made equal contributions to the play interactions, whereas developmental differences were apparent for siblings. Practice or Policy: The findings contribute to our understanding of developmental and relationship differences of children’s connected communication during play from early to middle childhood. Parents and educators need to be aware that opportunities for connection and disconnection during sibling play are typical and provide experiences for children to practice communication skills.Item Harnessing the power of flight: devising responsive theatre for the very young(2022) Ayles, Robyn; Fitzsimmons-Frey, Heather; Mykietyshyn, MargaretSuccessful theatre hinges on relationships. In our research, we devised an immersive theatre piece about urban wildlife through key early childhood education concepts outlined in the Canadian document Flight: Alberta’s Early Learning and Care Framework. The project’s guiding question was: How could we better understand audience engagement in the early years demographic by using the reflective process, rights-based perspectives, and holistic play-based goals of the Flight framework to interpret children’s experiences? Our creative team aimed to develop democratic and playful relationships with children during theatrical exploration, and using the Flight framework to analyse what children were communicating grounded our theatre creation and dramaturgy in respectful and agentic relationships between actors, theatrical objects, and young children.Item Linking quantities and symbols in early numeracy learning(2022) LeFevre, Jo-Anne; Skwarchuk, Sheri-Lynn; Sowinski, Carla; Cankaya, OzlemWhat is the foundational knowledge that children rely on to provide meaning as they construct an exact symbolic number system? People and animals can quickly and accurately distinguish small exact quantities (i.e., 1 to 3). One possibility is that children’s ability to map small quantities to spoken number words supports their developing exact number system. To test this hypothesis, it is important to have valid and reliable measures of the efficiency of quantity-number word mapping. In the present study, we explored the reliability and validity of a measure for assessing the efficiency of mapping between small quantities and number words – speeded naming of quantity. Study 1 (N = 128) with 5- and 6-year-old children and Study 2 (N = 182) with 3- and 4-year-old children show that the speeded naming of quantities is a simple and reliable measure that is correlated with individual differences in children’s developing numeracy knowledge. This measure could provide a useful tool for testing comprehensive theories of how children develop their symbolic number representations.Item Playing, early learning and meaning making: early childhood curriculum unfolding(2017) Makovichuk, Lee; Lirette, Patricia; Hewes, Jane; Aamot, BrittanyPlay, Participation, and Possibilities: An Early Learning and Child Care Curriculum Framework for Alberta is a sociocultural curriculum framework intended to provoke dialogue on and thinking about young children’s playing and learning. Viewing curriculum as situated, contested and always-already happening in early childhood programs, the authors draw on a mini-narrative of children’s play and educator practices to make visible what it means to co-construct curriculum in the here and now with young children. They describe curriculum-meaning-making processes that support deep and further complexified thinking, including pedagogical dialogue, critical revisiting of pedagogical documentation and curriculum crosschecking. Through honouring young children as mighty learners and citizens, and co-imagining possibilities, multiple new potentialities for children’s play and learning are revealed.