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Early Childhood Australia, through its Australian Journal of Early Childhood, is dedicated to the promotion and support of best practice in early childhood education. They do this through the dissemination of research findings and the critical appraisal of concepts, theories, policies, programs and resources that underpin and/or have the potential to impact upon the field, favourably or otherwise. This issue of AJEC illustrates this endeavour, bringing together an eclectic collection of articles that extend our ways of thinking about, and practicing, early childhood education.
The paper by Alcock, Cullen and St George explores young children's literacy learning through rhythm, music, humour and play. Their study reveals the interplay of aesthetic, emotional, social and cognitive dimensions of communication with the musike in young children's communication. It also illustrates how word-powerplays and rule-making in communicative/music events provide a communicative space for children to become active and empowered learners.
Ashton, Woodrow, Johnston, Wangmann, Singh and James' article addresses the relationships between early childhood services, families and schools––especially in terms of successful transitions to school––and their capacity for enhancing children's cognitive development. Drawing on the work of Vygotsky, the authors argue for collaborative dialogue regarding values, philosophies and experiences between early childhood services and schools in order to appropriately scaffold children's cognition at this important time of transition.
Ferrier and Skouteris continue the theme of cognitive development by exploring adult cognitions, relationships and interactions, and their bearing on infant learning. In essence, infant development was found to be positively affected by playful parent–infant interactions. While intuition would indicate that enhancing parent–infant interactions should be a key focus of intervention, the authors propose that changing parent views about playfulness may be a more effective strategy.
In their investigation of physical activity programs in long day care and family day care settings, Lawlis, Mikhailovich and Morrison draw our attention to the 'obesity epidemic'. They found a dearth of resources aimed at child care and family day care that, were they available, could help to address this important issue. Indeed, their review found only one resource targeting child care and family day care services, even though they are well-positioned to impact positively in fostering active and healthy lifestyles.
Little and Wyver also address children's health, focusing on risk minimisation in outdoor environments. They ask: Does avoiding the risks reduce the benefits? In their sights is the increasingly risk-averse culture we seem to be developing into. They petition for risk management rather than risk elimination, as the latter would seem to overly limit children's participation in stimulating and challenging outdoor learning that can promote optimal health and wellbeing. As a researcher whose own area is closely tied to outdoor learning––from the perspective of environmental/sustainability education––I fully support these authors' viewpoint.
In their paper focusing on children birth to three, Macfarlane and Cartmel challenge pedagogical approaches based on sequential stages with identifiable milestones. As an alternative they propose an 'agentive' view that positions children as key contributors in their own learning. Furthermore, they argue that the 'ability to exhibit agency is tied to the development of resilience'. Their conception of children as having agency and their new model of practice based on this concept offers a provocative argument for rethinking how parents and carers might engage with the very young.
The final paper is by Singer who makes the case for greater attention to be given to the development of children's musical intelligence in early childhood education. She makes clear links between brain research, language learning and musical experiences in early childhood, and tantalises us with reference to the 'Mozart Effect'. No, listening to Mozart won't make your child smarter, but parents and carers can do a powerful lot of good for their children through the provision of quality musical experiences.
Finally, this issue closes with two book reviews. Connor discusses a 2007 title about young bilingual learners while Slee reviews the third edition of Porter's text on young children's behaviour. Read these reviews to find out why both books are highly rated. In summary, this is an interesting, varied set of papers and reviews on topics of interest to generalist early childhood educators. Furthermore, there are gems for those with specific early childhood research and practice interests. I recommend this issue to you.
Julie Davis
Queensland University of Technology
Australian Journal of Early Childhood – Volume 33 No 2 June 2008, p. ii.
Don't forget, Australian Journal of Early Childhood is tax deductible for early childhood professionals
You can read more from this issue of the Australian Journal of Early Childhood now.
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AJEC is changing its name ...
To reflect its diverse readership and commitment to international early childhood debate,
the Australian Journal of Early Childhood will soon be changing its name to
the Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. Follow the link to learn more. |
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 04 June 2009 )
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