Papers by Caroline Cohrssen
Frontiers Media SA eBooks, 2021
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 2017
The Effective Early Educational Experiences (E4Kids) study was conceived almost a decade ago, aft... more The Effective Early Educational Experiences (E4Kids) study was conceived almost a decade ago, after the release of Starting Strong II: the OECD Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) provision (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006). Since then, governments across Australia expanded investments in early childhood provision, both to promote the development of young children and to address women’s labour market participation. Since 2007, Australia also transformed its policy approach through the implementation of a National Quality Framework (NQF). The NQF aims to improve educational and developmental outcomes for children through their participation in ECEC programs. Longitudinal evidence on the transformative power of high-quality programs to raise the outcomes of young children, especially of children living in disadvantaged circumstances, was a key driver.
Zeitschrift Fur Padagogische Psychologie, 2016
Learning and Teaching in the Early Years
International Journal of Educational Research, 2018
The opinions of early years educators and primary school teachers regarding the school readiness ... more The opinions of early years educators and primary school teachers regarding the school readiness characteristics (SRC) that best support a child's positive transition to school differ. The aims of our study were to determine key elements of perceived SRC and to identify the priorities of preservice and in-service early years professionals in six countries: Australia, Austria, Colombia, Germany, Nicaragua, and Slovenia. In total, 1198 early years professionals responded to a survey that investigated perceptions of child school readiness characteristics. Independence, social skills and concentration were reported to be very important. Academic precursors and physical development were reported to be the least important SRC. Findings for the total sample and specific subgroups are presented and discussed. However, which child characteristics are most important for a positive transition to school remains unclear (Niklas, 2011; Scott-Little, Kagan, & Frelow, 2006). Two recent studies that investigated the perceptions of Australian and German educators identified 17
Contemporary Educational Psychology, 2018
Children's cognitive development is facilitated by interactions with more knowledgeable others. S... more Children's cognitive development is facilitated by interactions with more knowledgeable others. Such interactions occur in children's families in the context of the home learning environment (HLE). Consequently, quality enhancements of the HLE may also improve children's cognitive abilities. A non-intensive intervention was developed to improve both the HLE and children's cognitive abilities in a sample of 116 four-year-old Australian children and their parents. The intervention consisted of parents or caregivers attending a parents' evening at which the importance of the HLE was discussed, and an additional individual session that introduced the principles of counting and dialogic reading. The HLE and children's fluid reasoning were assessed before and twice after the intervention. Families and their children in the intervention group showed significantly greater gains in both the quality of the HLE and children's fluid reasoning than members of the control group and these differences were sustained over time. Consequently, non-intensive family interventions may positively impact on the HLE and children's cognitive abilities and thus influence children's learning trajectories. 1.1. Children's cognitive abilities and academic achievement Numerous studies have demonstrated the impact of individual differences in psychometric intelligence on academic achievement in school and later life (e.g.
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2019
In Australia, early childhood education takes a play-based approach to supporting children's enga... more In Australia, early childhood education takes a play-based approach to supporting children's engagement with mathematical ideas and numeracy development. To assist preschool teachers' implementation of the outcomes in the national Early Years Learning Framework for Australia, the Northern Territory (NT, Australia) has introduced the NT Preschool Curriculum. The NT Preschool Maths Games, a suite of play-based games underpinned by mathematical concepts, was developed to support the enactment of this curriculum. Here, we explore the impact of attending a preschool classroom in which the NT Preschool Maths Games is being implemented, on child learning outcomes in a pre-post intervention design. Children were assessed in regard to their number naming, counting, and Applied Problems skills. After the baseline assessments, the teachers in the intervention rooms were equipped with the NT Preschool Maths Games and attended a one-day workshop on how to use them. Compared with children in the delayed intervention group, children in the intervention group showed statistically greater gains in their mathematical competencies in a post intervention assessment. This suggests that the NT Preschool Maths Games may support the enhancement of child learning outcomes.
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 2016
STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT academic self-concept and academic achievement are closely related and th... more STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THAT academic self-concept and academic achievement are closely related and that academic self-concept is multidimensional. Most studies on academic self-concept have been conducted with school age children and little is known about developing academic self-concept in younger children. In this study, we investigated the evolving academic self-concept of a sample of 97 four-year-old children attending four different early childhood settings across Melbourne, Australia, during the year prior to school commencement. Analysis indicated that at this age, academic self-concept remains a global construct rather than distinguishable into literacy and numeracy self-concepts, and has little connection with children's actual performance on a range of assessment measures. In addition, children overestimated their academic self-concept to a lesser degree at the end of the year than at the start of the year. Implications for early childhood education pedagogy are discussed.
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 2015
IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, formative assessment should be ongoing and include multiple sources... more IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION, formative assessment should be ongoing and include multiple sources of evidence of children's existing knowledge. Children's understanding of mathematical concepts is highly diverse from a very early age, yet practical strategies to assess children's individual understanding are not always child centred and strengths based. This study explores the diverse ways in which 47 four-year-old children at three different early learning centres in metropolitan Melbourne demonstrated their number knowledge while they traced around wooden numerals, drawing and discussing values of quantity. Examples of children's representations of quantity are illustrated, accompanied by extracts of transcribed conversations. Findings demonstrate that this formative assessment strategy, through attuned prompts and skilled inquiry from the teacher, elicits children's complex understanding of number, located in the everyday experiences of their lives. Embedded i...
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 2014
THE IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIVE engagement in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is well esta... more THE IMPORTANCE OF RESPONSIVE engagement in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is well established and is a fundamental tenet of framework documents that guide early childhood practice in Australia. How to achieve this responsivity in practice is less established and often not detailed in professional resources available to early childhood educators. This paper presents detailed transcripts of interactions between children and teachers during play-based mathematics activities in different early childhood education settings in Melbourne, Australia. Extracts from transcriptions of interactions during the activities demonstrate that, when educators paused prior to responding to children, or after children had responded, their contingent responses were more sensitively attuned to the children's contributions. Attuned responses following a pause facilitated higher quality emotional support. This evidence demonstrates the importance of pausing to promote relationships that are r...
Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 2013
Research Papers in Education, 2017
Abstract Early language ability is a strong predictor of later language and reading outcomes. Whi... more Abstract Early language ability is a strong predictor of later language and reading outcomes. Whilst young children with home languages that differ from the dominant language spoken in their country of residence may lag behind their peers in literacy and academic achievement, effective supports for young dual-language users may be overlooked in mainstream learning contexts. We used data from the Australian E4Kids longitudinal study to test how N = 343 bilingual children’s development of verbal abilities was associated with the overall attendance of early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings with varying quality (kindergarten/preschool and other formal ECEC programmes) and with environmental room quality (ECERS-R) and quality of teacher–child interactions (CLASS). Bilinguals’ English language development was followed during the two years prior to school entry and during their first year of school. A comparison of formal ECEC settings revealed programmes of significantly higher quality in kindergarten settings and the development of bilingual children’s verbal abilities in the three-year period was significantly predicted by the total hours spent in kindergarten programmes, but not by total hours spent in all types of ECEC setting. No additional effect on the children’s verbal ability was found for ECEC programme quality.
International Journal of Early Years Education, 2016
ABSTRACT In Australia, emphasis in early childhood education policy is placed on the importance o... more ABSTRACT In Australia, emphasis in early childhood education policy is placed on the importance of the role of the family as a child's first educator, and finding effective ways to raise the effectiveness of parents in supporting children's learning, development and well-being. International studies demonstrate that the home learning environment (HLE) provided by parents is closely associated with children's cognitive outcomes: literacy activities at home are likely to predict children's literacy abilities and numeracy activities at home are likely to predict children's numeracy abilities. However, studies focusing on building the capacity of primary caregivers to increase informal learning opportunities, such as enhancing children's literacy and numeracy learning in the HLE, have rarely been the focus of research. This study uses a sample of 113 four-year-old children to explore the association of specific aspects of the HLE with different child outcomes while controlling for child and family characteristics. In addition, a non-intensive, yet purposeful and systematic intervention to draw parents’ attention to the principles of dialogic reading and the principles of counting was introduced. Study findings suggest that parents responded positively to this approach, and that literacy and numeracy aspects of the HLE were specific predictors for children's numeracy and literacy competencies.
SAGE Open, 2016
As reading to children plays an important role in language development, primary caregivers are of... more As reading to children plays an important role in language development, primary caregivers are often encouraged to read to their children from a very young age. However, little is known about the age at which such reading should start. The linguistic skills of 104 children were assessed shortly before school entry. Their parents were asked how old their children were when they first read to them and how often they had read to their children. Almost half of the study children were read to before they were 6 months old. The age at which children were first read to was closely associated with family characteristics such as socioeconomic status, the frequency with which children were read to as preschoolers, and with children’s linguistic and cognitive competencies. The findings imply that reading books to very young children indeed contributes meaningfully to a favorable home literacy environment and supports children’s language development.
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2016
In Australia, much emphasis in early childhood education is placed on the importance of supportin... more In Australia, much emphasis in early childhood education is placed on the importance of supporting young children’s literacy development, and book-reading occurs frequently during typical early-childhood education and care programmes. Reading a story to a child presents an opportunity for rich language-learning through reciprocal and extended conversations that link the story to the child’s world, introduce new vocabulary and encourage extended thinking and articulation of this thinking. Dialogic reading is a particular approach to book-reading that encourages the child to engage actively with the story. This paper presents data in the form of excerpts from transcripts of two book-reading sessions with young children. A conversation-analytic approach was applied to reveal and deconstruct dialogic reading prompts that occur within the data, thus revealing the interactional phenomena underpinning the dialogic reading strategies observed in two different book-reading episodes. The impl...
Children’s Knowledge-in-Interaction, 2016
Research that focuses on the quality of interactions in early childhood settings has shown the im... more Research that focuses on the quality of interactions in early childhood settings has shown the importance of attuned responses to facilitate children’s learning. This chapter details the practices of teachers designed to provide opportunities for children to demonstrate, explore and extend their mathematics knowledge. In other words, what intentional teaching looks like, and how it can be achieved in practice. Video-recorded observations of play-based numeracy activities across six early childhood education settings illustrate opportunities for learning and the importance of teacher talk, which is both evaluative and productive in facilitating participation of children with varying competencies.
Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 2016
Zusammenfassung. Da Vorlesen die Vorläuferfertigkeiten des Schriftspracherwerbs von Kindern stärk... more Zusammenfassung. Da Vorlesen die Vorläuferfertigkeiten des Schriftspracherwerbs von Kindern stärkt, wird ein früher Beginn des Vorlesens als wichtig angesehen. Allerdings fehlen bislang Studien, die sich damit auseinandersetzen, ob der Vorlesebeginn ein spezifischer Prädiktor für sprachliche Fähigkeiten unter Kontrolle von Hintergrundvariablen ist. Wir untersuchten diese Fragestellung anhand einer deutschen Vorschulstichprobe (N = 746) kurz vor der Einschulung und verglichen die Ergebnisse mit Befunden einer aktuellen australischen Studie. Neben Vorlesebeginn und aktuellem Vorleseverhalten, erfasst im Elternbericht, wurden Alter und Geschlecht der Kinder, Migrationshintergrund und sozioökonomischer Status sowie sprachliche und andere kognitive Fähigkeiten berücksichtigt. Wie schon in der australischen Stichprobe zeigte sich auch für die deutsche Stichprobe, dass ein früher Vorlesebeginn die spätere Vorlesehäufigkeit sowie sprachliche Fähigkeiten im Vorschulalter unter Berücksichtigu...
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Papers by Caroline Cohrssen