International Issues

Current International Research Topics in Australia

·         Working together and building partnerships in early childhood settings

·         Learning and teaching through play

·         Engaging families: Building strong communication

·         Understanding children's feelings: Emotional literacy in early childhood

Interesting Insights I Gained Exploring,  http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/ website

Under the Early Childhood News tab I read an article titled, “New Era for Early Childhood.”  It highlights the changes in Australia’s early education to ensure quality across early childhood services and improve educational and developmental outcomes.   Over time the achievement gap between struggling and on level children are expanding. The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) is partnering with governments and the early childhood sector to ensure a national system of high-quality early childhood education and care for all children. The changes are results of the raised awareness of early education on children’s critical development during the early years. 

Click the link to read the article: http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/every_child_magazine/every_child_index/editorial_new_era_for_early_childhood.html

Other interesting information:

The Early Childhood Australia website has a host of information and links to early childhood resources.  Here are a few I found really interesting:

Children and Respect: http://extension.umaine.edu/publications/8050e/

Routines and Procedures: http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/briefs/wwb3.html

: Research that Benefits Children and Families

I was checking out the Child Trends websites and I found a research article related to my research topic, school readiness and poverty. The title of the article is “Disadvantaged Families and Child Outcomes: The Importance of Emotional Support for Mothers.” The purpose of the study was to examine the availability of emotional support for disadvantaged mothers and its effects on their children. The findings of the research discovered that children from disadvantage backgrounds have better social and behavioral outcomes when mothers have emotional support in parenting. Emotional support from mothers offers a safeguard against negative child outcomes such as depression and grade retention. The researchers propose specifically that children are more likely to display social competence and school engagement. The summary of the research was all children from advantage and disadvantage backgrounds benefit when their mothers having emotional support. The highlight of the research is to value finding ways to ensure that mothers and families from disadvantaged backgrounds receive the support they need.                                               

Here’s the link to the article if you would like to read it- http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends-2012_03_21_RB_MaternalSupport.pdf?utm_source=Disadvantaged+Families+and+Child+Outcomes%3A+The+Importance+of+Emotional+Support..&utm_campaign=Disadvantaged+Families+and+Child+Outcomes%3A+The+Importance+of+Emotional+Support+for+Mothers&utm_medium=archive

My Personal Research Journey

My Research Topic

The research topic I decided to write about is school readiness. As I reflected on my topic and my passions I want to learn more about school readiness and children living in poverty. I selected this topic because I was intrigued by the inequalities in school readiness skills among children exiting preschool programs and entering kindergarten. During an assignment in one of my classes at Walden I learned that a large number of the families’ in the community I work in are living in poverty. I have also learned that children living in poverty are at risk of many disadvantages including inadequate early childhood experiences and limited access to quality early childhood education.  This motivated me to learn more about supporting the children I encounter and learn how I could improve their school readiness skills.  Therefore I would like to research how to increase the quality of school readiness among children living in poverty and identify strategies and practices to improve school readiness skills among children living in poverty. If you know of any resources or have any suggestions that would help me in my research process I would really appreciate the information. Thanking you in advance!

Constructing the research chart and other insights…

I think the research chart is helpful when you are reading a book, article and etc. and you would like to reflect on what you learned from the text. It is a good reference to refer back to on particle topics and also build a personal glossary to use when reading other research documents. Week 2’s discussion assignment was pretty cool, prior to this week I didn’t know how to find out if a website was credible or not. I’m glad I now have a better idea of how to evaluate websites and research articles. I will also be sure to share the information with my colleagues.

Here’s a list of Good Credible Resources:

http://www.childtrends.org/

http://www.naeyc.org/

http://nieer.org/

http://www.zerotothree.org/

Good luck on you researching journey!