2-203 - Teacher-led Interventions to Promote School Readiness

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Between the ages of four and six, children make significant gains in self-regulation, language skills, and their understanding of the physical and emotional world. Due to higher neural plasticity, this period is best suited for interventions that strive to alleviate social disparities and to prepare children for entry into formal schooling (around age 5 in the US and around age 6 in other countries). The symposium is devoted to presenting and evaluating teacher-led interventions in two countries because training teachers is cost-effective. Interventions aim at improving young children’s school readiness by promoting their behavioral self-regulation, math scores, language abilities and consequently their scientific reasoning and emotion knowledge.
In the first paper, the authors evaluate the effects of two variants of the teacher-led Red Light Purple Light self-regulation intervention for Head Start preschoolers on US children’s school readiness in mathematics and literacy.
The second paper presents the effects of the language-based Feeling Thinking Talking (FTT) intervention with teachers on children’s scientific thinking in German Kindergartens.
The third paper examines the effects of the FTT teacher intervention on children’s emotion knowledge at different Kindergarten sites in Germany.
Someone has kindly agreed to discuss the papers.

Sub Unit

• School Readiness/Childcare

Chair

• Maria von Salisch, Leuphana University Lueneburg

Discussant

• Andrew Mashburn, Portland State University

Individual Presentations

• Effects of the Red Light, Purple Light Self-Regulation Intervention for Promoting School Readiness - Presenting Author: Megan McClelland, Oregon State University; Non-Presenting Author: Shauna Tominey, Oregon State University; Non-Presenting Author: Sara Schmitt, Purdue University; Non-Presenting Author: Bridget E Hatfield, Oregon State University; Non-Presenting Author: David Purpura, Purdue University; Non-Presenting Author: Alexis Tracy, Oregon State University

• Promoting Scientific Reasoning in Pre-Schoolers via Language Development - Presenting Author: Merle Skowronek, University of Hildesheim; Non-Presenting Author: Annika Sting, University of Hildesheim; Non-Presenting Author: Claudia Maehler, University of Hildesheim

• Teaching the Teachers. Promoting Emotion Knowledge in Institutions of Early Childhood Education and Care. - Presenting Author: Maria von Salisch, Leuphana University Lueneburg; Non-Presenting Author: Katharina Voltmer, Leuphana University Lueneburg; Non-Presenting Author: Tobias Koch, Leuphana University Lueneburg