Drawing from and Expanding their Toolboxes: Preschool Teachers' Traditional Strategies, Unconventional Opportunities, and Novel Challenges in Scaffolding Young Children's Social and Emotional Learning During Remote Instruction Amidst COVID-19.

Building on aspects of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory centering around social interaction and adult scaffolding as essential to children's learning, this study investigated the most prominently used strategies by eight teachers to scaffold social and emotional learning (SEL) in preschool children (ages 3-4) in the context of remote instruction during the 2021-2022 school year amidst COVID-19. These teachers (seven females and one male) came from two urban preschools funded by their local Board of Education in the state of New Jersey in the United States. These teachers (ages 28-44 years, M = 32 years) varied in teaching experience from five to 29 years (M = 13 years). Each teacher was interviewed for an average of 40 min virtually via Zoom. The interviews were digitally recorded and then transcribed for analysis. A thematic analysis of the data revealed that the three most salient strategies the teachers implemented to virtually scaffold the children's SEL were: (1) involving book reading and discussion, (2) utilizing visuals, and (3) engaging in targeted conversations. In addition to adapting these three traditional strategies applied during in-person instruction to remote instruction, the teachers creatively and appropriately leveraged online resources to further scaffold and enhance children's SEL in the unconventional virtual environment, thereby expanding their toolboxes. Despite their intentional efforts, these teachers found that there were unconventional opportunities and novel challenges in scaffolding children's SEL during remote instruction not traditionally found during in-person instruction. Collectively, the findings of this study suggest that in-person instruction, due to its social nature, is still the most optimal condition for promoting children's SEL.

Learning gain rather than learning loss during COVID-19: A proposal for reframing the narrative

"Learning loss" has become the new buzzword in education during the COVID-19 era. Learning loss may be real in certain academic subjects (e.g. mathematics and reading) for certain students, as indicated by standardized test scores. However, it only tells a partial story. The other part of the story actually indicates different kinds of learning gain that might have occurred for children experiencing non-conventional learning opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the authors caution against subscribing to a learning-loss narrative, a deficits-based perspective, which can lead one to lose sight of children's potential learning gains that are not necessarily assessed or recognized. Against this backdrop, the authors offer four recommendations: (1) reframing the concept of "learning loss" to "learning gain";(2) applying a strengths-based model rather than a deficits-based model for understanding student learning;(3) investing in the development of the whole child;and (4) ensuring that we focus on young children's socio-emotional well-being (e.g. relationship-building) and not solely on the cognitive domains. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

Facilitating Preschoolers’ Emergent Literacy Development Through a Digital Library

From birth to preschool years, before the young children become conventional readers and writers, children are involved in a developmental process known as "emergent literacy," a concept that was coined by Marie Clay (a New Zealand scholar) in 1966. During this stage, children engage naturally in unconventional literacy behaviors such as pre-reading (e.g., pretend reading by retelling the story from looking at the illustrations) and pre-writing (e.g., drawing, scribbling, letter-like writing). These emergent literacy behaviors are considered foundational to children becoming competent readers and writers, as needed to succeed in formal schooling and beyond. Thus, the emergent literacy phenomenon has important implications for education practice. This developmental process is best mediated and optimized through positive social interactions with adults (e.g., shared book reading) and exposure to a literacy-rich environment with developmentally appropriate materials (e.g., storybooks). This article examines a preschool teacher facilitated emergent literacy development with her students during COVID-19 pandemic when schools were closed.

At the Helm of Navigating the Remote Instruction Terrain

The authors describe how educational leaders in one school district navigated the relatively novel terrain of remote instruction and provided support to their teachers, students, and families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Communicating Digitally: Building Preschool Teacher-Parent Partnerships Via Digital Technologies During COVID-19.

During COVID-19, many schools in the United States restrict parent visits and parent-teacher face-to-face meetings. Consequently, teachers and parents rely on digital technologies to communicate and build partnerships. Yet, little is known about their perceived experiences with digital communication. To contribute knowledge to this area, this study investigated the perceptions of the classroom teacher and parents of preschool children concerning their experiences of communicating with each other via digital technologies during COVID-19. The participants consisted of one teacher and three mothers of 3-year-olds in the same classroom of a private childcare center serving preschool children from mostly middle-class backgrounds in a northeastern state of the United States. The teacher and parents were interviewed individually and virtually via Zoom for 30-60 min (M = 45 min). A thematic analysis uncovered four salient themes: (1) modes of digital communication between the teacher and parents, (2) the nature of digital communication, (3) limitations of digital communication, and (4) digital communication via ClassDojo. The ClassDojo theme further revealed three subthemes: (1) ClassDojo for promoting proactive parent involvement, (2) ClassDojo for building teacher-parent partnerships, and (3) the use of limited functions of ClassDojo. The data were triangulated by analyzing teacher-parent communication artifacts on ClassDojo, which confirmed the findings related to the use of this digital platform.

Thriving Beyond Resilience Despite Stress: A Psychometric Evaluation of the Newly Developed Teacher Stress Scale and Teacher Thriving Scale

Building on theoretical and empirical insights and applying the thriving theory as the conceptual framework, the authors developed two new teacher-specific scales, namely the Teacher Stress Scale (TSS) and the Teacher Thriving Scale (TTS). The goal of this investigation was to evaluate the psychometric properties of these two scales. Data were collected through an online questionnaire administered to a national sample of 122 participating early childhood teachers (ages 22–72 years, M = 41.01) teaching in preschool through third grade in 26 states of the United States during the 2020–2021 school year amidst COVID-19. This study revealed some important psychometric results. First, with respect to their internal structures, both the TSS and the TTS appeared to be best represented as bifactorial and trifactorial, respectively. Specifically, the TSS comprised two constructs: (1) Inadequate School-based Support, and (2) Teaching-related Demands;and the TTS encompassed three constructs: (1) Adaptability and Flexibility, (2) Personal Strengths and Professional Growth, and (3) Positive Mindset. Second, the negative correlation between the TSS and the TTS provided discriminant evidence for each other’s construct validity, while the positive correlations between the TTS and six conceptually cognate constructs (Stress Resilience, Resilience Coping, Coping Efficacy, Teaching Satisfaction, Emotional Support, and Gratitude) demonstrated convergent evidence for construct validity for the TTS. Third, both the overall TSS and the overall TTS as well as their subscales exhibited good internal consistency reliability. Fourth, both the overall TSS and the overall TTS also demonstrated test–retest reliability.

Learning gain rather than learning loss during COVID-19: A proposal for reframing the narrative

?Learning loss? has become the new buzzword in education during the COVID-19 era. Learning loss may be real in certain academic subjects (e.g. mathematics and reading) for certain students, as indicated by standardized test scores. However, it only tells a partial story. The other part of the story actually indicates different kinds of learning gain that might have occurred for children experiencing non-conventional learning opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, the authors caution against subscribing to a learning-loss narrative, a deficits-based perspective, which can lead one to lose sight of children's potential learning gains that are not necessarily assessed or recognized. Against this backdrop, the authors offer four recommendations: (1) reframing the concept of ?learning loss? to ?learning gain?;(2) applying a strengths-based model rather than a deficits-based model for understanding student learning;(3) investing in the development of the whole child;and (4) ensuring that we focus on young children's socio-emotional well-being (e.g. relationship-building) and not solely on the cognitive domains.

Self-compassion as key to stress resilience among first-year early childhood teachers during COVID-19: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

Applying self-compassion as the conceptual framework and interpretative phenomenological analysis as the methodological framework, this study investigated the lived experience of stress and stress coping among eight first-year early childhood teachers (teaching preschool-3rd grade) in the United States during COVID-19. Each teacher was interviewed via Zoom for 90 min. As synthesized by the Stress Resilience Model, the teachers’ stress resilience appeared to have been facilitated by self-compassion, reflecting seemingly a transformative journey from a place of self-judgment to self-kindness, psychological isolation to psychological connectedness, and emotional rumination to emotional mindfulness. This journey was mobilized seemingly by self-introspection and social support.