The Balancing Act:  How Two Kindergarten Teachers Manage to Meet BOTH Their Students’ Developmental Needs AND Their State’s Curriculum Mandates
Lisa S. Goldstein, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
Examination of instructional practices used by kindergarten teachers who strive to create developmentally appropriate environments that also satisfy state requirements regarding knowledge and skills.

“If Someone Gave Me a Hug I Would Feel Better…”  Children’s Perspectives of Stressful Situations and Coping Actions
Aparna Bagdi, Ilka K. Pfister, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA
This research session examines children’s perspectives of commonly occurring and major stressful life events and how children cope with the stressors they face.

Program Options and their Effectiveness on the Progress of School Readiness Skills for Young Children
Donna L. deVries-White, Riverside County Office of Education, Riverside, CA, USA
A multivariate analysis to see if student’s progress on developmental skills, pertaining to school readiness, differs over time due to program option and parent education.

Understanding the Acquisition of Self-Regulatory Skills in Children Ages 3-5
Wanda A.R. Boyer, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
This phenomenological research examines preschool acquisition of self-regulation.  Implications include recognition of developmental trajectories and optimal strategies to reduce gaps in young children’s development of self-regulatory skills.

 “Grandma.  What Gray Hair You Have?”  Exploring Images of Older Women in Picture Books
Patricia A. Crawford, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
This study examines popular representations of older women in the pages of picture books.  Trends will be indentified and implications for teachers will be discussed

Teacher Action Research: Five Classroom Teachers Learn About Teaching Multiple Perspectives in Primary Grades
Mary A. Christenson, Ohio State University at Lima, Lima, OH, USA
This is a yearlong case study of a teacher inquiry group working on teaching multiple perspectives on environmental issues in their classrooms using children’s literature.

Creating Visual Stories to Share School Experiences Among Children from Diverse Cultural Backgrounds
Anna Kirova, Michael Emme, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Creating visual stories picturing school routines, people and places, and depicting school situations and experiences, facilitates culturally and linguistically diverse students’ adjustment to the school culture.

Effective Multicultural Teaching Strategies for Diverse Classrooms
Indranie Dharmadasa, Chicago State University, Chicago, IL, USA
Multicultural teaching strategies will help teachers modify their instructional approaches to address diversity issues, which in turn will lead them to foster their students’ intellectual, social and personal development to their highest potential. It will result in creating more active, successful, and exciting learning experiences for all students in diverse classrooms.

“I Don’t Look At Differences”:  Examining Early Childhood Teacher Education Curriculum
Mary Autry, Jin-ah Kim, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA
This study examines how teacher education curriculum and practical training impacts early childhood students’ attitudes about teaching in urban schools.

Development of Knowledge and Comprehension of Assessment and Evaluation Experiences:  What Children Know and When They Know It
Edward J. Caropreso, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC, USA
This study explores the development of children’s knowledge and comprehension of their assessment and evaluation experiences, an area of cognitive development virtually untapped by previous research.

Service Learning in India:  The Impact of Global Experiences on Future Teachers
Gail McEachron, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA
Pre-post-data, journal entries, and interviews by accompanying professor reveal transforming experiences for preservice teachers participating in a teaching/service learning project in India.

Understanding Their Understanding:  An Examination of Preservice Teachers’ Conceptual Understanding of the Teaching of Comprehension
Karen A. Onofrey, Arizona State University West, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Joan Leikam-Theurer, California  State University at Long Beach, Long Beach, CA, USA
During this presentation we discuss preservice teachers’ knowledge base regarding comprehension instruction and how they come to understand the teaching of reading comprehension.  

Finding the Common Ground: Literacy Specialists as a Catalyst for Change
Cynthia Bertelsen, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA
Leslie Ann Prosak-Beres, Xavier University, Cincinnati, OH, USA
This presentation explores how literacy specialists, across one state, can be a catalyst for change in the professional development of classroom teachers.

FFF-luency and Comp-re-hension: “Making Sense” of the Reading Process
Lynn Cohen, Long Island University, Greenlawn, NY, USA
Rosanne Kurstedt, New York City Department of Education, New York, NY, USA
Maria May, Cherry Lane Elementary School, Carle Place, NY, USA
The purpose of this study is to investigate the issue of fluency and comprehension through an examination of the relationship between fluency rates, oral reading accuracy, and retelling.

Do Teachers Want Family Involvement?—“Yes” and “No”
Lin Moore, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, TX, USA
Karen L. Morrison, Kooken Educational Center, Arlington, TX, USA
Successful partnerships between teachers and parents require active endorsements from teachers.  A survey of kindergarten, first, and second grade teachers explored attitudes about family involvement.

National and International Challenges for Inclusive General and Special Education in Teacher Preparation
Tunde Szecsi, Sally Mayberry, Carolyn Spillman, Florida Gulf Coast University, Fort Myers, FL, USA
Sharing results of a survey of teacher education faculty members in the US and Hungary exploring infusion of special education into general education teacher preparation.

Learning in Leaps and Bounds: Examining Parents Response to Readiness Training
Billie Enz, Michelle Rhodes, Allison Mullady-Mendoz, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
This research report presents findings from a two-year study that examines the impact of a culturally sensitive school readiness program.  The participants are from low-socio-economic homes and predominately Spanish-speaking families who live in a large urban city in the southwest.

Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Teacher Preparation: “Student Teachers’ Understandings of Their Cooperating Teachers’ Implementing Developmentally Appropriate Practices”
Miai Kim, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
This study aims at analyzing student teachers’ understandings of their cooperating teachers’ implementing developmentally appropriate practices and developmentally inappropriate practices in their field placement classrooms.

Identifying Types of Disappointment of Young Children in the Classroom Context
Mi-Hwa Park, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA
This session provides types of disappointment that young children experience in the classroom context. Also differences between real (classroom) and hypothetical situations in children’s reaction to the types of disappointment were discussed. The evidence was documented based upon observations and interviews gleaned from a typical day care center.

Teacher Change:  How Veteran Teachers Reinvent Themselves and Their Professional Practice
Edward Caropreso, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC, USA
This research explored the professional development and experiences of veteran teachers who consistently reinvented themselves to meet the constantly changing demands of their professional responsibilities.

Impacting Parent-School-Community Practice through Book Flooding:  Results of a Study of Four Year Old Children and Their Parents
Dolores A. Stegelin, Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
This presentation describes a successful book flooding experience with at risk four year olds enrolled in public school and private child care 4K classrooms. The study differs from prior research because the book flooding takes place in the child’s home, utilizing the parent as the primary teacher and the classroom teacher as the facilitator.

Extending the Learning Community:  The Birth of a New Teacher Support Program
Donna Sanderson, West Chester University, West Chester, PA, USA
Learn how a university student teacher supervisor sustained a relationship with her students after graduation and formed a supportive learning community to assist them throughout their first year of teaching.

The Role of Service Learning in Early Childhood Teacher Education Preparation:  A Case Study from Eastern Kentucky
Diana Haleman, Morehead State University, Morehead, KY, USA
This research utilizes qualitative data to examine the impact of service learning experiences on undergraduate early childhood education students at a regional Appalachian university.

The ARTS:  The Common Thread Of Humanity…Arts Education Around the World
Robin Fromherz, Willamette University, Salem, OR, USA
How have the political changes in the world impacted the study of the arts in schools in Arabic, Post Communist and European countries?

Gifted with Learning Disabilities
Gail A. McMahan, Southeast Missouri State University, Cape Girardeau, MO, USA
Information gathered by this study could potentially be used to help strengthen existing teacher education programs, as well as improve future educational services that are provided for students who are both gifted and learning disabled.

Preschool Teacher’s Perceptions of Learning Center Adaptations Used in Learning Center Activities
Mark Brown, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL, USA
To examine characteristics of effective center adaptations used by preschool teachers. To determine the relationship between a teacher’s value and usage of specific center adaptations.

Reconceptualizing Pedagogy by Bringing Preservice Teachers into Emerging Literacy Development: Environmental Print as an Assessment and Instructional Tool
Maureen Gerard, University of Arizona South, Sierra Vista, AZ, USA
Jennifer Prior, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA
Teachers in preparation can be thoughtfully and actively involved in assessing, and reflecting on the many foundational sources of  literacy that  young children bring into the classroom from their environments and  from print in the community.

Analysis of Oral and Written Narratives
Tonja Root, Nora Swenson, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, USA
Data was collected from oral and written narratives by college students to be analyzed. Comparisons were made between these formats for linguistic and overall structures.

Improving Teacher Quality in Second and Third Grade Mathematics Classroom: Funded through the No Child Left Behind Act and the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education
Lora Bailey, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA
This project is currently in-progress in two school districts in South Carolina to increase mathematics knowledge for second and third grade mathematics teachers using National Council on Teaching Mathematics (NCTM), South Carolina Mathematics standards and constructivist pedagogy.