current issues in early years education

5 Current Issues in the Field of Early Childhood Education

Learning Objectives

Objective 1: Identify current issues that impact stakeholders in early childhood care and education.

Objective 2: Describe strategies for understanding current issues as a professional in early childhood care and education.

Objective 3: Create an informed response to a current issue as a professional in early childhood care and education.

Current Issues in the Field—Part 1

There’s one thing you can be sure of in the field of early childhood: the fact that the field is always changing. We make plans for our classrooms based on the reality we and the children in our care are living in, and then, something happens in that external world, the place where “life happens,” and our reality changes. Or sometimes it’s a slow shift: you go to a training and hear about new research, you think it over, read a few articles, and over time you realize the activities you carefully planned are no longer truly relevant to the lives children are living today, or that you know new things that make you rethink whether your practice is really meeting the needs of every child.

This is guaranteed to happen at some point. Natural events might occur that affect your community, like forest fires or tornadoes, or like COVID-19, which closed far too many child care programs and left many other early educators struggling to figure out how to work with children online. Cultural and political changes happen, which affect your children’s lives, or perhaps your understanding of their lives, like the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that brought to light how much disparity and tension exist and persist in the United States. New information may come to light through research that allows us to understand human development very differently, like the advancements in neuroscience that help us understand how trauma affects children’s brains, and how we as early educators can counteract those affects and build resilience.

And guess what—all this change is a good thing! Read this paragraph slowly—it’s important!  Change is good because we as providers of early childhood care and education are working with much more than a set of academic skills that need to be imparted to children; we are working with the whole child, and preparing the child to live successfully in the world. So when history sticks its foot into our nice calm stream of practice, the waters get muddied. But the good news is that mud acts as a fertilizer so that we as educators and leaders in the field have the chance to learn and grow, to bloom into better educators for every child, and, let’s face it, to become better human beings!

The work of early childhood care and education is so full, so complex, so packed with details to track and respond to, from where Caiden left his socks, to whether Amelia’s parents are going to be receptive to considering evaluation for speech supports, and how to adapt the curriculum for the child who has never yet come to circle time. It might make you feel a little uneasy—or, let’s face it, even overwhelmed—to also consider how the course of history may cause you to deeply rethink what you do over time.

That’s normal. Thinking about the complexity of human history while pushing Keisha on the swings makes you completely normal! As leaders in the field, we must learn to expect that we will be called upon to change, maybe even dramatically, over time. 

Let me share a personal story with you: I had just become director of an established small center, and was working to sort out all the details that directing encompassed: scheduling, billing policies, and most of all, staffing frustrations about who got planning time, etc. But I was also called upon to substitute teach on an almost daily basis, so there was a lot of disruption to my carefully made daily plans to address the business end, or to work with teachers to seek collaborative solutions to long-standing conflict. I was frustrated by not having time to do the work I felt I needed to do, and felt there were new small crises each day. I couldn’t get comfortable with my new position, nor with the way my days were constantly shifting away from my plans. It was then that a co-worker shared a quote with me from Thomas F. Crum, who writes about how to thrive in difficult working conditions: “Instead of seeing the rug being pulled from under us, we can learn to dance on a shifting carpet”.

Wow! That gave me a new vision, one where I wasn’t failing and flailing, but could become graceful in learning to be responsive to change big and small. I felt relieved to have a different way of looking at my progress through my days: I wasn’t flailing at all—I was dancing! Okay, it might be a clumsy dance, and I might bruise my knees, but that idea helped me respond to each day’s needs with courage and hope.

I especially like this image for those of us who work with young children. I imagine a child hopping around in the middle of a parachute, while the other children joyfully whip their corners up and down. The child in the center feels disoriented, exhilarated, surrounded by shifting color, sensation, and laughter. When I feel like there’s too much change happening, I try to see the world through that child’s eyes. It’s possible to find joy and possibility in the disorientation, and the swirl of thoughts and feelings, and new ways of seeing and being that come from change.

Key Takeaways

Our practices in the classroom and as leaders must constantly adapt to changes in our communities and our understanding of the world around us, which gives us the opportunity to continue to grow and develop.

You are a leader, and change is happening, and you are making decisions about how to move forward, and how to adapt thoughtfully. The good news is that when this change happens, our field has really amazing tools for adapting. We can develop a toolkit of trusted sources that we can turn to to provide us with information and strategies for ethical decision making.

If You’re Afraid of Falling…

One of the most important of these is the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct, which expresses a commitment to core values for the field, and a set of principles for determining ethical behavior and decision-making. As we commit to the code, we commit to:

• Appreciate childhood as a unique and valuable stage of the human life cycle
• Base our work on knowledge of how children develop and learn
• Appreciate and support the bond between the child and family
• Recognize that children are best understood and supported in the context of family, culture,* community, and society
• Respect the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of each individual (child, family member, and colleague)
• Respect diversity in children, families, and colleagues
• Recognize that children and adults achieve their full potential in the context of relationships that are based on trust and respect.

If someone asked us to make a list of beliefs we have about children and families, we might not have been able to come up with a list that looked just like this, but, most of us in the field are here because we share these values and show up every day with them in our hearts.

The Code of Ethical Conduct can help bring what’s in your heart into your head. It’s a complete tool to help you think carefully about a dilemma, a decision, or a plan, based on these values. Sometimes we don’t make the “right” decision and need to change our minds, but as long as we make a decision based on values about the importance of the well-being of all children and families, we won’t be making a decision that we will regret.

An Awfully Big Current Issue—Let’s Not Dance Around It

In the field of early childhood, issues of prejudice have long been important to research, and in this country, Head Start was developed more than 50 years ago with an eye toward dismantling disparity based on ethnicity or skin color (among other things). However, research shows that this gap has not closed. Particularly striking, in recent years, is research addressing perceptions of the behavior of children of color and the numbers of children who are asked to leave programs.

In fact, studies of expulsion from preschool showed that black children were twice as likely to be expelled as white preschoolers, and 3.6 times as likely to receive one or more suspensions. This is deeply concerning in and of itself, but the fact that preschool expulsion is predictive of later difficulties is even more so:

Starting as young as infancy and toddlerhood, children of color are at highest risk for being expelled from early childhood care and education programs. Early expulsions and suspensions lead to greater gaps in access to resources for young children and thus create increasing gaps in later achievement and well-being… Research indicates that early expulsions and suspensions predict later expulsions and suspensions, academic failure, school dropout, and an increased likelihood of later incarceration.

Why does this happen? It’s complicated. Studies on the K-12 system show that some of the reasons include:

• uneven or biased implementation of disciplinary policies
• discriminatory discipline practices
• school racial climate
• under resourced programs
• inadequate education and training for teachers on bias

In other words, educators need more support and help in reflecting on their own practices, but there are also policies and systems in place that contribute to unfair treatment of some groups of children.

Key Takeaway

So…we have a lot of research that continues to be eye opening and cause us to rethink our practices over time, plus a cultural event—in the form of the Black Lives Matter movement—that push the issue of disparity based on skin color directly in front of us. We are called to respond. You are called to respond.

How Will I Ever Learn the Steps?

Woah—how do I respond to something so big and so complex and so sensitive to so many different groups of people?

As someone drawn to early childhood care and education, you probably bring certain gifts and abilities to this work.

• You probably already feel compassion for every child and want every child to have opportunities to grow into happy, responsible adults who achieve their goals. Remember the statement above about respecting the dignity and worth of every individual? That in itself is a huge start to becoming a leader working as an advocate for social justice.
• You may have been to trainings that focus on anti-bias and being culturally responsive.
• You may have some great activities to promote respect for diversity, and be actively looking for more.
• You may be very intentional about including materials that reflect people with different racial identities, genders, family structures.
• You may make sure that each family is supported in their home language and that multilingualism is valued in your program.
• You may even have spent some time diving into your own internalized biases.

This list could become very long! These are extremely important aspects of addressing injustice in early education which you can do to alter your individual practice with children.

As a leader in the field, you are called to think beyond your own practice.  As a leader you have the opportunity—the responsibility!—to look beyond your own practices and become an advocate for change. Two important recommendations (of many) from the NAEYC Advancing Equity in Early Childhood Education Position Statement, another important tool:

Speak out against unfair policies or practices and challenge biased perspectives.  Work to embed fair and equitable approaches in all aspects of early childhood program delivery, including standards, assessments, curriculum, and personnel practices.

Look for ways to work collectively with others who are committed to equity.  Consider it a professional responsibility to help challenge and change policies, laws, systems, and institutional practices that keep social inequities in place.

One take away I want you to grab from those last sentences: You are not alone. This work can be, and must be, collective.

As a leader, your sphere of influence is bigger than just you. You can influence the practices of others in your program and outside of it. You can influence policies, rules, choices about the tools you use, and ultimately, you can even challenge laws that are not fair to every child.

Who’s on your team? I want you to think for a moment about the people who help you in times where you are facing change. These are the people you can turn to for an honest conversation, where you can show your confusion and fear, and they will be supportive and think alongside you. This might include your friends, your partner, some or all of your coworkers, a former teacher of your own, a counselor, a pastor. Make a quick list of people you can turn to when you need to do some deep digging and ground yourself in your values.

And now, your workplace team: who are your fellow advocates in your workplace? Who can you reach out to when you realize something might need to change within your program? 

Wonderful. You’ve got other people to lean on in times of change. More can be accomplished together than alone. Let’s consider what you can do:

What is your sphere of influence? What are some small ways you can create room for growth within your sphere of influence? What about that workplace team? Do their spheres of influence add to your own?

Try drawing your sphere of influence: Draw yourself in the middle of the page, and put another circle around yourself, another circle around that, and another around that. Fill your circles in:

• Consider the first circle your personal sphere. Brainstorm family and friends who you can talk to about issues that are part of your professional life. You can put down their names, draw them, or otherwise indicate who they might be!
• Next, those you influence in your daily work, such as the children in your care, their families, maybe your co-workers land here.
• Next, those who make decisions about the system you are in—maybe this is your director or board, or even a PTA. 
• Next, think about the early childhood care and education community you work within. What kind of influence could you have on this community? Do you have friends who work at other programs you can have important conversations with to spread ideas? Are you part of a local Association for the Education of Young Children (AEYC)? Could you speak to the organizers of a local conference about including certain topics for sessions?
• And finally, how about state (and even national) policies? Check out The Children’s Institute to learn about state bills that impact childcare. Do you know your local representatives? Could you write a letter to your senator? Maybe you have been frustrated with the slow reimbursement and low rates for Employment Related Day Care subsidies and can find a place to share your story. You can call your local Child Care Resource and Referral, your local or state AEYC chapter, or visit childinst.org to find out how you can increase your reach! It’s probably a lot farther than you think!

Break It Down: Systemic Racism

When you think about injustice and the kind of change you want to make, there’s an important distinction to understand in the ways injustice happens in education (or anywhere else). First, there’s personal bias and racism, and of course it’s crucial as an educator to examine ourselves and our practices and responses. We all have bias and addressing it is an act of courage that you can model for your colleagues.

In addition, there’s another kind of bias and racism, and it doesn’t live inside of individual people, but inside of the systems we have built. Systemic racism exists in the structures and processes that have come into place over time, which allow one group of people a greater chance of succeeding than other specific groups of people.

Key Takeaways (Sidebar)

Systemic racism is also called institutional racism, because it exists – sometimes unquestioned – within institutions themselves.

In early childhood care and education, there are many elements that were built with middle class white children in mind. Many of our standardized tests were made with middle class white children in mind. The curriculum we use, the assessments we use, the standards of behavior we have been taught; they may have all been developed with middle class white children in mind.

Therefore it is important to consider whether they adequately and fairly work for all of the children in your program community. Do they have relevance to all children’s lived experience, development, and abilities? Who is being left out?

Imagine a vocabulary assessment in which children are shown common household items including a lawn mower…common if you live in a house; they might well be unfamiliar to a three-year-old who lives in an apartment building, however. The child may end up receiving a lower score, though their vocabulary could be rich, full of words that do reflect the objects in their lived experience.

The test is at fault, not the child’s experience. Yet the results of that test can impact the way educators, parents, and the child see their ability and likelihood to succeed.

You Don’t Have to Invent the Steps: Using an Equity Lens

In addition to the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct and Equity Statement, another tool for addressing decision-making is an equity lens. To explain what an equity lens is, we first need to talk about equity. It’s a term you may have heard before, but sometimes people confuse it with equality. It’s a little different – equity is having the resources needed to be successful.

There’s a wonderful graphic of children looking over a fence at a baseball game. In one frame, each child stands at the fence; one is tall enough to see over the top; another stands tip-toe, straining to see; and another is simply too short. This is equality—everyone has the same chance, but not everyone is equally prepared. In the frame titled equity, each child stands on a stool just high enough so that they may all see over the fence. The stools are the supports they need to have an equitable outcome—being able to experience the same thing as their friend.

Seeking equity means considering who might not be able to see over the fence and figuring out how to build them a stool so that they have the same opportunity.

An equity lens, then, is a tool to help you look at decisions through a framework of equity. It’s a series of questions to ask yourself when making decisions. An equity lens is a process of asking a series of questions to better help you understand if something (a project, a curriculum, a parent meeting, a set of behavioral guidelines) is unfair to specific individuals or groups whose needs have been overlooked in the past. This lens might help you to identify the impact of your decisions on students of color, and you can also use the lens to consider the impact on students experiencing poverty, students in nontraditional families, students with differing abilities, students who are geographically isolated, students whose home language is other than English, etc.) The lens then helps you determine how to move past this unfairness by overcoming barriers and providing equitable opportunities to all children.

Some states have adopted a version of the equity lens for use in their early learning systems. Questions that are part of an equity lens might include:

• What decision is being made, and what kind of values or assumptions are affecting how we make the decision?
• Who is helping make the decision? Are there representatives of the affected group who get to have a voice in the process?
• Does the new activity, rule, etc. have the potential to make disparities worse? For instance, could it mean that families who don’t have a car miss out on a family night? Or will it make those disparities better?
• Who might be left out? How can we make sure they are included?
• Are there any potential unforeseen consequences of the decision that will impact specific groups? How can we try to make sure the impact will be positive?

You can use this lens for all kinds of decisions, in formal settings, like staff meetings, and you can also work to make them part of your everyday thinking. I have a sticky note on my desk that asks “Who am I leaving out”? This is an especially important question if the answer points to children who are people of color, or another group that is historically disadvantaged. If that’s the answer, you don’t have to scrap your idea entirely. Celebrate your awareness, and brainstorm about how you can do better for everyone—and then do it!

Embracing our Bruised Knees: Accepting Discomfort as We Grow

Inspirational author Brene Brown, who writes books, among other things, about being an ethical leader, said something that really walloped me: if we avoid the hard work of addressing unfairness (like talking about skin color at a time when our country is divided over it) we are prioritizing our discomfort over the pain of others. 

Imagine a parent who doesn’t think it’s appropriate to talk about skin color with young children, who tells you so with some anger in their voice. That’s uncomfortable, maybe even a little scary. But as you prioritize upholding the dignity, worth, and uniqueness of every individual, you can see that this is more important than trying to avoid discomfort. Changing your practice to avoid conflict with this parent means prioritizing your own momentary discomfort over the pain children of color in your program may experience over time.

We might feel vulnerable when we think about skin color, and we don’t want to have to have the difficult conversation. But if keeping ourselves safe from discomfort means that we might not be keeping children safe from very real and life-impacting racial disparity, we’re not making a choice that is based in our values.

Change is uncomfortable. It leaves us feeling vulnerable as we reexamine the ideas, strategies, even the deeply held beliefs that have served us so far. But as a leader, and with the call to support every child as they deserve, we can develop a sort of super power vision, where we can look unflinchingly around us and understand the hidden impacts of the structures we work within.

A Few Recent Dance Steps of My Own

You’re definitely not alone—researchers and thinkers in the field are doing this work alongside you, examining even our most cherished and important ideas about childhood and early education. For instance, a key phrase that we often use to underpin our decisions is developmentally appropriate practice, which NAEYC defines as “methods that promote each child’s optimal development and learning through a strengths-based, play-based approach to joyful, engaged learning.” The phrase is sometimes used to contrast against practices that might not be developmentally appropriate, like expecting three-year-olds to write their names or sit quietly in a 30 minute story time.

Let me tell you a story about how professional development is still causing me to stare change in the face! At the NAEYC conference in 2020, during a session in which Dr. Jie-Qi Chen presented on different perspectives on developmentally appropriate practice among early educators in China and the United States. She showed a video from a classroom in China to educators in both the US and in China. The video was of a circle time in which a child was retelling a story that the class knew well, and then the children were encouraged to offer feedback and rate how well the child had done. The children listened attentively, and then told the storytelling child how they had felt about his retelling, including identifying parts that had been left out, inaccuracies in the telling, and advice for speaking more clearly and loudly.

The educators were asked what the impact of the activity would be on the children and whether it was developmentally appropriate. The educators in the United States had deep concerns that the activity would be damaging to a child’s self esteem, and was therefore not developmentally appropriate. They also expressed concerns about the children being asked to sit for this amount of time. The educators in the classroom in China felt that it was developmentally appropriate and the children were learning not only storytelling skills but how to give and receive constructive criticism.

As I watched the video, I had the same thoughts as the educators from the US—I’m not used to children being encouraged to offer criticism rather than praise. But I also saw that the child in question had self-confidence and received the feedback positively. The children were very engaged and seemed to feel their feedback mattered.

What was most interesting to me here was the idea of self-esteem, and how important it is to us here in the United States, or rather, how much protecting we feel it needs. I realized that what educators were responding to weren’t questions of whether retelling a story was developmentally appropriate, or whether the critical thinking skills the children were being asked to display were developmentally appropriate, but rather whether the social scenario in which one child receives potentially negative feedback in front of their peers was developmentally appropriate, and that the responses were based in the different cultural ideas of self-esteem and individual vision versus collective success.

My point here is that even our big ideas, like developmentally appropriate practice, have an element of vulnerability to them. As courageous leaders, we need to turn our eyes even there to make sure that our cultural assumptions and biases aren’t affecting our ability to see clearly, that the reality of every child is honored within them, and that no one is being left out.  And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean we should scrap them. It’s not wrong to advocate for and use developmentally appropriate practice as a framework for our work—not at all! It just means we need to remember that it’s built from values that may be specific to our culture—and not everyone may have equal access to that culture. It means we should return to our big ideas with respect and bravery and sit with them and make sure they are still the ones that serve us best in the world we are living in right now, with the best knowledge we have right now.

You, Dancing With Courage

So…As a leader is early childhood, you will be called upon to be nimble, to make new decisions and reframe your practice when current events or new understanding disrupt your plans. When this happens, professional tools are available to you to help you make choices based on your ethical commitment to children.

Change makes us feel uncomfortable but we can embrace it to do the best by the children and families we work with. We can learn to develop our critical thinking skills so that we can examine our own beliefs and assumptions, both as individuals and as a leader.

Remember that person dancing on the shifting carpet? That child in the middle of the parachute? They might be a little dizzy, but with possibility. They might lose their footing, but in that uncertainty, in the middle of the billowing parachute, there is the sensation that the very instability provides the possibility of rising up like the fabric. And besides—there are hands to hold if they lose their balance—or if you do! And so can you rise when you allow yourself to accept change and adapt to all the new possibility of growth that it opens up!

Current Issues in the Field Part 2—Dance Lessons

Okay, sure—things are gonna change, and this change is going to affect the lives of the children and families you work with, and affect you, professionally and personally. So—you’re sold, in theory, that to do the best by each one of those children, you’re just going to have to do some fancy footwork, embrace the change, and think through how to best adapt to it.

But…how? Before we talk about the kind of change that’s about rethinking your program on a broad level, let’s talk about those times we face when change happens in the spur of the moment, and impacts the lives of the children in your program—those times when your job becomes helping children process their feelings and adapt to change. Sometimes this is a really big deal, like a natural disaster. Sometimes it’s something smaller like the personal story I share below…something small, cuddly, and very important to the children.

Learning the Steps: How do I help children respond to change?

I have a sad story to share. For many years, I was the lead teacher in a classroom in which we had a pet rabbit named Flopsy. Flopsy was litter-trained and so our licensing specialist allowed us to let him hop freely around the classroom. Flopsy was very social, and liked to interact with children. He liked to be held and petted and was also playful, suddenly zooming around the classroom, hopping over toys and nudging children. Flopsy was a big part of our community and of children’s experience in our classroom.

One day, I arrived at school to be told by my distraught director that Flopsy had died in the night and she had removed his body. I had about 15 minutes before children would be arriving, and I had to figure out how to address Flopsy’s loss.

I took a few minutes to collect myself, and considered the following questions:

Yes, absolutely. The children would notice immediately that Flopsy was missing and would comment on it. It was important that I not evade their questions.

Flopsy had died. His body had stopped working. His brain had stopped working. He would not ever come back to life. We would never see Flopsy again. I wrote these sentences on a sticky note. They were short but utterly important.

I would give children the opportunity to share their feelings, and talk about my own feelings. I would read children’s books that would express feelings they might not have words for yet. I would pay extra attention to children reaching out to me and offer opportunities to affirm children’s responses by writing them down.

Human beings encounter death. Children lose pets, grandparents, and sometimes parents or siblings. I wanted these children to experience death in a way that would give them a template when they experienced more intense loss. I wanted them to know it’s okay to be sad, and that the sadness grows less acute over time. That it’s okay to feel angry or scared, and that these feelings, too, though they might be really big, will become less immediate. And that it’s okay to feel happy as you remember the one you lost.

I knew it was important not to give children mistaken impressions about death. I was careful not to compare it to sleep, because I didn’t want them to think that maybe Flopsy would wake up again. I also didn’t want them to fear that when mama fell asleep it was the same thing as death. I also wanted to be factual but leave room for families to share their religious beliefs with their children.

I didn’t have time to do research. But I mentally gathered up some wisdom from a training I’d been to, where the trainer talked about how important it is that we don’t shy away from addressing death with children. Her words gave me courage. I also gathered up some children’s books about pet death from our library.

The first thing I did was text my husband. I was really sad. I had cared for this bunny for years and I loved him too. I didn’t have time for a phone call, but that text was an important way for me to acknowledge my own feelings of grief.

Then I talked to the other teachers. I asked for their quick advice, and shared my plan, since the news would travel to other classrooms as well.

During my prep time that day, I wrote a letter to families, letting them know Flopsy had died and some basic information about how we had spoken to children about it, some resources about talking to children about death, and some titles of books about the death of pets. I knew that news of Flopsy’s death would be carried home to many families, and that parents might want to share their own belief systems about death. I also knew many parents were uncomfortable discussing death with young children and that it might be helpful to see the way we had done so.

I had curriculum planned for that day which I partially scrapped. At our first gathering time I shared the news with the whole group: I shared my sticky note of information about death. I told the children I was sad. I asked if they had questions and I answered them honestly. I listened when they shared their own feelings. I also told them I had happy memories of FLopsy and we talked about our memories.

During the course of the day, and the next few days, I gave the children invitations (but not assignments) to reflect on Flopsy and their feelings. I sat on the floor with a notebook and the invitation for children to write a “story” about Flopsy. Almost every child wanted their words recorded. Responses ranged from “Goodbye bunny” to imagined stories about Flopsy’s adventures, to a description of feelings of sadness and loss. Writing down these words helped acknowledge the children’s feelings. Some of them hung their stories on the wall, and some asked them to be read aloud, or shared them themselves, at circle time.

I also made sure there were plenty of other opportunities in the classroom for children who didn’t want to engage in these ways, or who didn’t need to.

We read “Saying Goodbye to Lulu” and “The Tenth Good Thing About Barney” in small groups; and while these books were a little bit above the developmental level of some children in the class, many children wanted to hear and discuss the books. When I became teary reading them, I didn’t try to hide it, but just said “I’m feeling sad, and it makes me cry a little bit. Everyone cries sometimes.”

This would be a good set of steps to address an event like a hurricane, wildfires, or an earthquake as well. First and foremost of course, make sure your children are safe and have their physical needs met! Remember your role as educator and caretaker; address their emotional needs, consider what you hope they will learn, gather the resources and your team, and make decisions that affirm the dignity of each child in your care.

• Does the issue affect children’s lived experiences? 
• How much and what kind of information is appropriate for their age?
• How can I best affirm their emotions?
• What do I hope they will learn?
• Could I accidentally be doing harm through my response?
• Which resources do I need and can I gather in a timely manner?
• How do I gather my team?
• How can I involve families?
• Now, I create and enact my plan…

Did your plan look any different for having used these questions? And did the process of making decisions as a leader look or feel different? How so?

You might not always walk yourself through a set of questions–but using an intentional tool is like counting out dance steps—there’s a lot of thinking it through at first, and maybe forgetting a step, and stumbling, and so forth. And then…somehow, you just know how to dance. And then you can learn to improvise. In other words, it is through practice that you will become adept at and confident in responding to change, and learn to move with grace on the shifting carpet of life.

Feeling the Rhythm: How do I help myself respond to change

—and grow through it.

Now, let’s address what it might look like to respond to a different kind of change, the kind in which you learn something new and realize you need to make some changes in who you are as an educator. This is hard, but there are steps you can take to make sure you keep moving forward:

• Work to understand your own feelings. Write about them. Talk them through with your teams—personal and/or professional.
• Take a look in the mirror, strive to see where you are at, and then be kind to yourself!
• Gather your tools! Get out that dog eared copy of the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct, and look for other tools that are relevant to your situation. Root yourself in the values of early childhood care and education.
• Examine your own practices in light of this change.
• Examine the policies, structures, or systems that affect your program in light of this change.
• Ask yourself, where could change happen? Remember your spheres of influence.
• Who can you collaborate with? Who is on your team?
• How can you make sure the people being affected by this change help inform your response? Sometimes people use the phrase “Nothing for us without us” to help remember that we don’t want to make decisions that affect a group of people (even if we think we’re helping) without learning more from individuals in that group about what real support looks like).
• Make a plan, including a big vision and small steps, and start taking those small steps. Remember that when you are ready to bring others in, they will need to go through some of this process too, and you may need to be on their team as they look for a safe sounding board to explore their discomfort or fear.
• Realize that you are a courageous advocate for children. Give yourself a hug!

• Work to understand your own feelings. Write about them. Talk them through with your teams—personal and/or professional. 

This might be a good time to freewrite about your feelings—just put your pencil to paper and start writing. Maybe you feel guilty because you’re afraid that too many children of color have been asked to leave your program. Maybe you feel angry about the injustice. Maybe you feel scared that this topic is politicized and people aren’t going to want to hear about it. Maybe you feel scared to even face the idea that bias could have affected children while in your care. All these feelings are okay! Maybe you talk to your partner or your friends about your fears before you’re ready to get started even thinking about taking action.

• Take a look in the mirror, strive to see where you are at, and then be kind to yourself! Tell that person looking back at you: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”

Yep. You love children and you did what you believed was best for the children in your program. Maybe now you can do even better by them! You are being really really brave by investigating!

• Gather your tools! Get out that dog-eared copy of the NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct, and look for other tools that are relevant to your situation.

Okay! This would be an excellent time to bring out the equity lens and your other tools. Read them over. Use them.

Do your practices affirm the dignity of every child and family? Ask yourself these hard questions while focusing on, in this case, how you look at behavior of children of color. Do the choices you make affirm the dignity of each unique child? Use your tools—you can pull out the equity lens here! Are you acknowledging the home realities of each child when you are having conversations that are meant to build social-emotional skills? Are you considering the needs of each child during difficult transitions? Do you provide alternative ways for children to engage if they have difficulty sitting in circle times?

And…Do your policies and structures affirm the dignity of every child and family? Use those tools! Look at your behavioral guidance policies—are you expecting children to come into your program with certain skills that may not be valued by certain cultures? What about your policies on sending children home or asking a family to leave your program? Could these policies be unfair to certain groups? In fact—given that you now know how extremely impactful expulsion is for preschoolers, could you take it off the table entirely?

Let’s say you’re a teacher, and you can look back and see that over the years you’ve been at your center, a disproportionately high number of children of color have been excluded from the program. Your director makes policy decisions—can you bring this information to him or her? Could you talk to your coworkers about how to bring it up? Maybe your sphere of influence could get even wider—could you share this information with other early educators in your community? Maybe even write a letter to your local representatives!

• Who can you collaborate with? Who is on your team? 

Maybe other educators? Maybe parents? Maybe your director? Maybe an old teacher of your own? Can you bring this up at a staff meeting? Or in informal conversations?

• How can you make sure the people being affected by this change help inform your response?

Let’s say your director is convinced that your policies need to change in light of this new information. You want to make sure that parent voice—and especially that of parents of color—is heard! You could suggest a parent meeting on the topic; or maybe do “listening sessions” with parents of color, where you ask them open-ended questions and listen and record their responses—without adding much of your own response; maybe you could invite parents to be part of a group who looks over and works on the policies. This can feel a little scary to people in charge (see decentered leadership?)

Maybe this plan is made along with your director and includes those parent meetings, and a timeline for having revised policies, and some training for the staff. Or—let’s back it up—maybe you’re not quite to that point yet, and your plan is how you are going to approach your director, especially since they might feel criticized. Then your plan might be sharing information, communicating enthusiasm about moving forward and making positive change, and clearly stating your thoughts on where change is needed! (Also some chocolate to reward yourself for being a courageous advocate for every child.)

And, as I may have mentioned, some chocolate. You are a leader and an advocate, and a person whose action mirrors their values. You are worth admiring!

Maybe you haven’t had your mind blown with new information lately, but I’ll bet there’s something you’ve thought about that you haven’t quite acted on yet…maybe it’s about individualizing lesson plans for children with differing abilities. Maybe it’s about addressing diversity of gender in the classroom. Maybe it’s about celebrating linguistic diversity, inviting children and parents to share their home languages in the classroom, and finding authentic ways to include print in these languages.

Whatever it is—we all have room to grow.

Make a Plan!

Dancing Your Dance: Rocking Leadership in Times of Change

There will never be a time when we as educators are not having to examine and respond to “Current Issues in the Field.” Working with children means working with children in a dynamic and ever-evolving landscape of community, knowledge, and personal experience. It’s really cool that we get to do this, walk beside small human beings as they learn to traverse the big wacky world with all its potholes…and it means we get to keep getting better and better at circling around, leaping over, and, yep, dancing around or even through those very potholes.

In conclusion, all dancers feel unsteady sometimes. All dancers bruise their knees along the way. All educators make mistakes and experience discomfort.  All dancers wonder if this dance just isn’t for them.  All dancers think that maybe this one is just too hard and want to quit sometimes. All educators second guess their career choices. But all dancers also discover their own innate grace and their inborn ability to both learn and to change; our very muscles are made to stretch, our cells replace themselves, and we quite simply cannot stand still. All educators have the capacity to grow into compassionate, courageous leaders!

Your heart, your brain, and your antsy feet have led you to become a professional in early childhood care and education, and they will all demand that you jump into the uncertainty of leadership in times of change, and learn to dance for the sake of the children in your care. This, truly, is your call to action, and your pressing invitation to join the dance!

Brown, B. (2018).  Dare to lead . Vermilion.

Broughton, A., Castro, D. and Chen, J.  (2020).  Three International Perspectives on Culturally Embraced Pedagogical Approaches to Early Teaching and Learning.  [Conference presentation].  NAEYC Annual Conference.

Crum, T.  (1987).  The Magic of Conflict: Turning a Life of Work into a Work of Art.  Touchstone.

Meek, S. and Gilliam, W. (2016).  Expulsion and Suspension in Early Education as Matters of Social Justice and Health Equity.  Perspectives: Expert Voices in Health & Health Care.

Scott, K., Looby, A., Hipp, J. and Frost, N. (2017).  “Applying an Equity Lens to the Child Care Setting.”  The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 45 (S1), 77-81.

Online Resources for Current Issues in the Field

Resources for opening yourself to personal growth, change, and courageous leadership:

• Brown, Brenee. Daring Classrooms. https://brenebrown.com/daringclassrooms
• Chang, R. (March 25, 2019).  What Growth Mindset Means for Kids [Video] .  TED Conferences.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66yaYmUNOx4

Resources for Thinking About Responding to Current Issues in Education

• Flanagan, N. (July 31, 2020).  How School Should Respond to Covid-19 [Video] .  TED Conferences.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSkUHHH4nb8
• Harris, N.B.. (February 217, 015). How Childhood Trauma Affects Health Across a Lifetime [Video] .  TED Conferences.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk
• Simmons, D. (August 28, 2020). 6 Ways to be an Anti Racist Educator [Video] . Edutopia.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM3Lfk751cg&t=3s

Leadership in Early Care and Education Copyright © 2022 by Dr. Tammy Marino; Dr. Maidie Rosengarden; Dr. Sally Gunyon; and Taya Noland is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

A top researcher says it's time to rethink our entire approach to preschool

Anya Kamenetz

Dale Farran has been studying early childhood education for half a century. Yet her most recent scientific publication has made her question everything she thought she knew.

"It really has required a lot of soul-searching, a lot of reading of the literature to try to think of what were plausible reasons that might account for this."

And by "this," she means the outcome of a study that lasted more than a decade. It included 2,990 low-income children in Tennessee who applied to free, public prekindergarten programs. Some were admitted by lottery, and the others were rejected, creating the closest thing you can get in the real world to a randomized, controlled trial — the gold standard in showing causality in science.

The Tennessee Pre-K Debate: Spinach Vs. Easter Grass

Farran and her co-authors at Vanderbilt University followed both groups of children all the way through sixth grade. At the end of their first year, the kids who went to pre-K scored higher on school readiness — as expected.

But after third grade, they were doing worse than the control group. And at the end of sixth grade, they were doing even worse. They had lower test scores, were more likely to be in special education, and were more likely to get into trouble in school, including serious trouble like suspensions.

"Whereas in third grade we saw negative effects on one of the three state achievement tests, in sixth grade we saw it on all three — math, science and reading," says Farran. "In third grade, where we had seen effects on one type of suspension, which is minor violations, by sixth grade we're seeing it on both types of suspensions, both major and minor."

That's right. A statewide public pre-K program, taught by licensed teachers, housed in public schools, had a measurable and statistically significant negative effect on the children in this study.

Farran hadn't expected it. She didn't like it. But her study design was unusually strong, so she couldn't easily explain it away.

"This is still the only randomized controlled trial of a statewide pre-K, and I know that people get upset about this and don't want it to be true."

Why it's a bad time for bad news

It's a bad time for early childhood advocates to get bad news about public pre-K. Federally funded universal prekindergarten for 3- and 4-year-olds has been a cornerstone of President Biden's social agenda, and there are talks about resurrecting it from the stalled-out "Build Back Better" plan. Preschool has been expanding in recent years and is currently publicly funded to some extent in 46 states. About 7 in 10 4-year-olds now attend some kind of academic program.

This enthusiasm has rested in part on research going back to the 1970s. Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman, among others, showed substantial long-term returns on investment for specially designed and carefully implemented programs.

To put it crudely, policymakers and experts have touted for decades now that if you give a 4-year-old who is growing up in poverty a good dose of story time and block play, they'll be more likely to grow up to become a high-earning, productive citizen.

What went wrong in Tennessee

No study is the last word. The research on pre-K continues to be mixed. In May 2021, a working paper (not yet peer reviewed) came out that looked at Boston's pre-K program. The study was a similar size to Farran's, used a similar quasi-experimental design based on random assignment, and also followed up with students for years. This study found that the preschool kids had better disciplinary records and were much more likely to graduate from high school, take the SATs and go to college, though their test scores didn't show a difference.

Farran believes that, with a citywide program, there's more opportunity for quality control than in her statewide study. Boston's program spent more per student, and it also was mixed-income, whereas Tennessee's program is for low-income kids only.

So what went wrong in Tennessee? Farran has some ideas — and they challenge almost everything about how we do school. How teachers are prepared, how programs are funded and where they are located. Even something as simple as where the bathrooms are.

In short, Farran is rethinking her own preconceptions, which are an entire field's preconceptions, about what constitutes quality pre-K.

Do kids in poverty deserve the same teaching as rich kids?

"One of the biases that I hadn't examined in myself is the idea that poor children need a different sort of preparation from children of higher-income families."

She's talking about drilling kids on basic skills. Worksheets for tracing letters and numbers. A teacher giving 10-minute lectures to a whole class of 25 kids who are expected to sit on their hands and listen, only five of whom may be paying any attention.

A Harsh Critique Of Federally Funded Pre-K

"Higher-income families are not choosing this kind of preparation," she explains. "And why would we assume that we need to train children of lower-income families earlier?"

Farran points out that families of means tend to choose play-based preschool programs with art, movement, music and nature. Children are asked open-ended questions, and they are listened to.

5 Proven Benefits Of Play

This is not what Farran is seeing in classrooms full of kids in poverty, where "teachers talk a lot, but they seldom listen to children." She thinks that part of the problem is that teachers in many states are certified for teaching students in prekindergarten through grade 5, or sometimes even pre-K-8. Very little of their training focuses on the youngest learners.

So another major bias that she's challenging is the idea that teacher certification equals quality. "There have been three very large studies, the latest one in 2018, which are not showing any relationship between quality and licensure."

Putting a bubble in your mouth

In 2016, Farran published a study based on her observations of publicly funded Tennessee pre-K classrooms similar to those included in this paper. She found then that the largest chunk of the day was spent in transition time. This means simply moving kids around the building.

Partly this is an architectural problem. Private preschools, even home-based day cares, tend to be laid out with little bodies in mind. There are bathrooms just off the classrooms. Children eat in, or very near, the classroom, too. And there is outdoor play space nearby with equipment suitable for short people.

Putting these same programs in public schools can make the whole day more inconvenient.

"So if you're in an older elementary school, the bathroom is going to be down the hall. You've got to take your children out, line them up and then they wait," Farran says. "And then, if you have to use the cafeteria, it's the same thing. You have to walk through the halls, you know: 'Don't touch your neighbor, don't touch the wall, put a bubble in your mouth because you have to be quiet.' "

One of Farran's most intriguing conjectures is that this need for control could explain the extra discipline problems seen later on in her most recent study.

"I think children are not learning internal control. And if anything, they're learning sort of an almost allergic reaction to the amount of external control that they're having, that they're having to experience in school."

In other words, regularly reprimanding kids for doing normal kid stuff at 4 years old, even suspending them, could backfire down the road as children experience school as a place of unreasonable expectations.

We know from other research that the control of children's bodies at school can have disparate racial impact. Other studies have suggested that Black children are disciplined more often in preschool, as they are in later grades. Farran's study, where 70% of the kids were white, found interactions between race, gender, and discipline problems, but no extra effect of attending preschool was detected.

Preschool Suspensions Really Happen And That's Not OK With Connecticut

Where to go from here.

The United States has a child care crisis that COVID-19 both intensified and highlighted. Progressive policymakers and advocates have tried for years to expand public support for child care by "pushing it down" from the existing public school system, using the teachers and the buildings.

Farran praises the direction that New York City, for one, has taken instead: a "mixed-delivery" program with slots for 3- and 4-year-olds. Some kids attend free public preschool in existing nonprofit day care centers, some in Head Start programs and some in traditional schools.

But the biggest lesson Farran has drawn from her research is that we've simply asked too much of pre-K, based on early results from what were essentially showcase pilot programs. "We tend to want a magic bullet," she says.

"Whoever thought that you could provide a 4-year-old from an impoverished family with 5 1/2 hours a day, nine months a year of preschool, and close the achievement gap, and send them to college at a higher rate?" she asks. "I mean, why? Why do we put so much pressure on our pre-K programs?"

We might actually get better results, she says, from simply letting little children play.

Early Childhood

Sign Up for EdWeek Update

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Springer Nature - PMC COVID-19 Collection

The Effects of COVID-19 on Early Childhood Education and Care: Research and Resources for Children, Families, Teachers, and Teacher Educators

Mary renck jalongo.

Emerita, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 654 College Lodge Road, Indiana, PA 15701 USA

The COVID-19 world health crisis has profound implications for the care and education of young children in homes and schools, the lives of preservice and inservice teachers, and the work of college/university faculty. This article begins by discussing the implications of a world health pandemic for education and the challenges of conducting a literature review on such a rapidly evolving topic. The next four sections categorize the COVID-19 literature into themes: (1) threats to quality of life (QoL) and wellness, (2) pressure on families and intensification of inequities, (3) changes in teaching methods and reliance on technology, and (4) restructuring of higher education and scholarship interrupted. Each of the four themes is introduced with a narrative that highlights the current context, followed by the literature review. Next is a compilation of high-quality, online resources developed by leading professional organizations to support children, families, and educators dealing with the COVID crisis. The article concludes with changes that hold the greatest potential to advance the field of early childhood education and care.

Implications of a World Health Pandemic for Education

As of April 6, 2020, officials in all 50 states of the United States issued orders for school closures through the month in response to COVID-19. As I passed by our university campus on an errand to pick up essential items, I noticed a parking lot that ordinarily would have been jammed with faculty, staff, and students frantically searching for an empty space. With the exodus of the college students and the governor’s stay-at-home order in effect, our college town’s population had dropped by almost half. The situation was very different from what we were seeing in the media coverage of China, Italy, or New York City. Here in our small town, a group of volunteers with masks and gloves unloaded bag after bag of nonperishable groceries and other essential items from the back of three large trucks. The bags would be distributed to people in need, no questions asked. The town was quiet, yet underneath that illusion of calm, educational programs were in turmoil. All in-person class gatherings at all levels of education had ceased. Early childhood programs were in suspended animation and the Head Start building stood dark and empty. Parents with children in public schools were suddenly expected to home school. University faculty quickly converted courses to online formats, puzzled over how to provide practicum experiences, and worried about how future caregivers and teachers would meet professional standards and licensure criteria.

Education plays a particularly significant role in children and adolescents’ health and well-being and has a lasting impact on their lives as adults (Hamad et al., 2018 ). There is little question that the global health pandemic has caused unprecedented disruption to all spheres of human life and to education worldwide (d’ Orville, 2020 ; Zhu & Liu, 2020 ). UNESCO, ( 2020a ) estimates that 1.2 billion school children had their education put on hold due to COVID-related school closures and, between late March through April of 2020, more than 90% of the total enrolled learners worldwide experienced nationwide school closures and were confined at home. In many ways, adapting to COVID-19 has become a huge, international social experiment that not only has caused loss of learning throughout lockdown but also can be expected to diminish educational opportunities in the long term (Jandric`, 2020 ).

Between March 12 and 27, 2020 a survey of educators from 89 countries identified the following priorities: ensuring academic learning for students, supporting students who lack skills for independent study, providing support for teachers (medical, mental health, professional development), revising graduation policies, ensuring integrity of the assessment process, defining new curricular priorities, and providing social services and food to students (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020 ). Among the concerns identified by this same international group of educators were:

• reduced opportunities for social interaction with extended family, peers, and community members
• threats to the health and safety of students, families, and educators
• financial decisions about education and program viability
• disruptions to the continuity of learning
• limited access to social services and other forms of support for families
• negative effects on students’ perception of the value of study
• drastic reductions in face-to-face teaching and instructional time
• implementation of measures to continue students’ learning during school closure
• teachers’ preparedness to support digital learning
• when and how to reopen schools
• reductions in class size
• mobility of students and legal status of international students
• ways to provide practica, field experiences, and apprenticeships for professionals in training (Reimers & Schleicher, 2020 )

Challenges with Conducting a Literature Review on COVID-19

Reviewing the literature on COVID-19 is, in many ways, atypical. Unlike most other topics, practically every source has been published in 2020 or 2021. Many publications about coronavirus are posted online first; that is why some quotations in this article are designated as “unpaged”—they have been edited, but not yet assigned to a print version of a publication. A second distinguishing feature of the literature about the current pandemic is that it is exceptionally multidisciplinary.

Preparation for this article required searching the COVID-19 literature more expansively to include quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research; policy documents from respected global and national organizations; literature reviews conducted by professionals representing diverse fields, and resources prepared by prominent professional associations. New and valuable information has increased exponentially. To illustrate, in early 2020, a search using “COVID-19” plus “early childhood education” yielded very little, but, by mid-February of 2021, nearly 20,000 hits were produced by those search terms on Google Scholar alone. The World Organization for Early Childhood, for example, introduced their position paper with the following caveat: “COVID-19 is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation” (OMEP Executive Committee, 2020 ).

What follows are four themes synthesized from the literature review. Each begins with a personal narrative that puts a face on the statistics and highlights important issues in the published scholarly literature. These themes are: (1) threats to quality of life and wellness; (2) intensification of pressure on families and inequities, (3) modifications to teaching and reliance on technology, and (4) restructuring of higher education and scholarship interrupted.

Theme One: Threats to Quality of Life and Human Wellness

In late spring of 2020, the mother and father of two young children tested positive for the virus. Both parents work in the health care field; the mother is a nurse’s aide at a hospital, the father works in a nursing home. Although the couple became very ill, they managed to remain at home and used telehealth video calls to their family physician to get treatment. One of their young children got cold-like symptoms, but they decided not to get her tested because she recovered quickly. Throughout this time, troubling questions surfaced for the parents. How and when did they contract the virus? Would COVID-19 compromise the health of any family members over the long term? Is it inevitable that their son will succumb to the virus, given that they are living in the same house? Did the staff members at the parents’ places of employment quarantine quickly enough to avert an uptick of cases in the community? What will the parents do about home schooling expectations when they are so still so fatigued? How long can the family manage without income from either parent?

This family’s situation highlights two key concepts from positive psychology that are foundational to this discussion of the short- and long-term effects of a world health pandemic: quality of life (QoL) and wellness. Quality of life (QoL) has been the focus of study in psychology since the 1980s. It attempts to answer the question, “What makes it possible, not just to survive and exist, but to thrive and flourish in life?” QoL includes physical and mental health, cognitive functioning, social support, competence in work, and positive emotions such as optimism, wisdom, resilience, and so forth (Efklides & Moraitou, 2013 )—all things that are important to coping with COVID-19 (Burke & Arslan, 2020 ).

Likewise, contemporary concepts of wellness have broadened beyond physical health (i.e., absence of disease or injury). Wellness may be defined as “a way of life oriented toward optimal health and well-being in which mind, body, and spirit are integrated by the individual to live more fully within the human and natural community” (Myers et al., 2000 , p. 252). Anderson’s ( 2016 ) model, for example, categorizes wellness into five broad areas: (1) emotional, (2) social, (3) intellectual, (4) physical, and (5) spiritual. Without a doubt, QoL and wellness worldwide have been impacted by the sweeping changes that children, families, and educators were forced to make within the context of the COVID-19 crisis.

Xafis, 2020 identifies six major influences on the physical and mental health and wellbeing of individuals and groups across time and generations: (1) income and wealth, (2) employment and access to health services, (3) housing, (4) food environment, (5) education, and (6) safety. Clearly, all these things have been affected dramatically by a world pandemic and coping with it on a daily basis over an extended period of time can compromise physical and mental health. As the World Health Organization ( 2020 ) notes, “Fear, worry, and stress are normal responses to perceived or real threats, and at times when we are faced with uncertainty or the unknown. So, it is normal and understandable that people are experiencing fear in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic” (unpaged). Four types of fear that characterize experiences with COVID-19 are: (1) ravages to the body, (2) worries about significant others, (3) intolerance of uncertainty, and (4) agonizing over action/inaction (Schimmenti et al., 2020 ). It is important to understand that anxiety and fear are associated with grief, which is normal and expected following any significant loss or change (Fegert et al., 2020 ). Worldwide, human beings are not only mourning the loss of life as they knew it but also are experiencing anticipatory loss, defined as the expectation that additional, future losses will occur.

Although the COVID-19 global health crisis is unique in some ways, research on the effects of previous quarantines and pandemics—such as the 1918 influenza epidemic–suggest a lasting, negative effect on QoL and wellness (Almond & Mazumder, 2005 ). Another way to glimpse the effects of COVID-19 on early childhood education is to examine scholarly literature, particularly studies that have been completed in countries with more prior experience in managing the disease. A compilation from several reviews of the research literature in different fields (e.g., psychiatry, nursing, forensics) and the documents published by global organizations identified the following problems associated with pandemics, both historical and current:

• Stigmatization of infected children/families and bias against residents in areas of high infection
• Illness, hospitalization, separation, loss of loved ones and caregivers, and bereavement
• Massive re-organization of family life
• Disconnection of children from their peers at school, informal play activities, organized sports, and visits to one another’s homes
• Grief and mourning that may go unrecognized and remain unresolved
• Widespread loss of employment and economic hardship leading to lost housing, further migration, increased displacement, and more family separations
• Escalation of the number of children living in extreme poverty and in food insecure households
• Inability of families to provide consistent care, safe environments, and support education at home
• Increases in the incidence of domestic violence, intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation, and online predatory behavior
• Disruptions to child protective services and delayed recognition of/intervention in rising cases of abuse and neglect
• Higher rates of fear, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide
• Higher pregnancy rates, poorer prenatal care, and increases in maternal and child mortality and morbidity
• Postponement of health care visits, disruptions to medical treatment, suspension of vaccination programs, and medical supply shortages
• Overconsumption of food and/or unhealthy eating, infrequent vigorous physical activity, excessive screen time, and escalating obesity
• Higher rate of school dropouts resulting in lower educational attainment and possible negative effects on lifelong earnings
• Prolonged periods of isolation that can lead to feelings of loneliness or depression
• Continued avoidance of crowds, enclosed spaces, and physical contact long after quarantine is lifted (Araújo et al., 2020 ; Campbell, 2020 ; Fegert et al. 2020 ; Fisher & Wilder-Smith, 2020 ; Out et al., 2020 ; Peters et al., 2020 ; Rundle et al., 2020 ; United Nations, 2020 ; Usher et al., 2020 ; Van Lancker & Parolin, 2020 ; Witt et al., 2020 ; Yoshikawa et al., 2020 ).

Theme Two: Pressure on Families and Intensification of Inequities

A young family emigrated to the United States from Myanmar several years ago. Both parents work at a Thai restaurant that was closed for months and, even after it reopened, indoor dining was discontinued. As a result, the mother lost her job as a waitress and the father’s work as a cook was limited to weekends only. The couple was proud of the business they had started–a sushi bar on campus—but it failed when the university converted most courses to online delivery. The parents were immediately thrust into home schooling and did not always understand the elementary school teachers’ instructions. Given their tenuous financial situation, the couple started working outdoors—cleaning, pulling weeds, cutting grass, and raking leaves—throughout the summer and fall. Although their children needed supervision to complete school assignments, the parents had to work to meet the family’s most basic needs. They had to rely on neighbors and friends for help and lived in constant fear that they would contract the disease and transmit it to their children.

Contrast them with a young mother whose job consists of providing supplies for events and social gatherings such as weddings, banquets, and so forth. She was unemployed, but her husband’s income was sufficient to sustain the household, his job remained secure, and he was working from home. Everyone in this family had access to their own technological devices, indoor spaces where they could complete their work relatively undisturbed, and a large outdoor area where the family could convene for rest and relaxation. Neither parent had to be exposed to the virus because they could order whatever they needed and pick it up or have it delivered. Although there were some supply chain disruptions, the second family did not experience any food insecurity. They also had family members who were teachers to help. For the first family, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a disaster, made manageable only by the major efforts of their friends and church; for the financially secure family, it was an inconvenience.

The COVID-19 crisis challenges the popular notion of, “We’re all in the same boat.” First of all, the “boats” available to weather that adversity differ dramatically. Some families are cruising in luxury yachts, others are safely harbored in well-equipped houseboats, and still others are in danger of sinking at any moment on makeshift rafts. Secondly, the nature of the “storm” itself is quite different, depending upon the family’s circumstances. Where workers are concerned, first responders and health care workers are living in a tsunami, other essential workers are being buffeted about by stormy seas, and many who can continue fulfil their work duties at a distance from their places of employment have comparatively smooth sailing.

Responsibilities for keeping households disinfected, doing laundry, preparing food, and doing other household chores escalated during lockdown, particularly for women (Action Aid, 2020 ). A study conducted in Italy found that mothers with children in the 0–5 age group found it especially difficult to balance the demands of home and work (Del Boca et al., 2020 ). Parents and families have been thrust into the role of teacher under some of the worst conditions. If the family is home to more than one child, home schooling responsibilities multiply quickly because every day, Monday through Friday, new assignments related to each subject area from various teachers representing different programs keep coming in. Family members often have little or no training in supporting young children’s learning and few resources, but even these limitations are not the hardest part. The most daunting task, according to a study conducted in Italy with parents whose children were on the autism spectrum, is motivating children to learn and to complete assigned tasks (Degli Espinosa et al., 2020 ). Even the things that could be used as rewards for children were suddenly off limits, such as playing with friends or going on an outing. Thus, parents during lockdown described having difficulties with balancing responsibilities, motivating their children, accessing online materials, and producing satisfactory learning outcomes (Garbe et al., 2020 ; Waddoups et al., 2019 ). To further compound learning losses, many young children have been deprived of a year or more of regular interactions with groups of peers that promote social and emotional development.

All the COVID-related challenges are exacerbated among the vulnerable (Ambrose, 2020 ), defined as “those individuals and groups routinely disadvantaged by the social injustice created by the misdistribution of power, money, and resources” (Xafis, 2020 , p. 224). They include, but are not limited to indigenous peoples, those living in poverty, residents of rural/remote communities; those experiencing job and housing insecurity; people experiencing chronic mental illness, disabilities, or dependence on substances; prisoners; newly arrived migrants; refugees as well as displaced populations, stateless people, and migrant workers (Xafis et al., 2020 ). The suspension of childcare services due to isolation measures exacted the highest toll on families who were already struggling, and these families are most likely to experience severe, long-term deleterious effects.

Even the steps taken to protect the family–such as frequent hand washing, maintaining physical distance, and wearing personal protective equipment–were out of reach for some. Such issues were not limited to countries that lack an infrastructure for water, energy, finances, and health and education services. Wealthy countries, such as the United States, are home to young children living in extreme vulnerability, including those who are hungry, neglected, and abused. Many of the services that these children depended upon, such as healthful meals, social services, and educational interventions came to a halt with quarantine, lockdown, and physical distancing measures. Sadly, for children living in extreme adversity, early childhood programs frequently were their only respite and children lost their safe havens. Even among children whose basic needs are routinely met, educational vulnerability persists: “Preschool and children in early primary grades are most vulnerable as they often do not respond to online learning and are at a critical time of social, cognitive, and intellectual development” (Silverman et al., 2020 , p. 463). Not all parents accepted the switch to online learning; a study in China found that parents resisted or even rejected it because they felt it was ineffective, that their young children were not sufficiently independent as learners to benefit from it, and that the parents themselves had neither the time nor expertise to accept a teaching role (Dong et al., 2020 ). Social-emotional vulnerability is another concern for young children. Early childhood is a critical period for learning how to deal with powerful emotions and to build skills that support positive interactions with others.

Vulnerable too are the childcare workers, who are underpaid, without health insurance, have no paid leave, became unemployed during the shutdown, and may see the programs that they worked for close, particularly if those programs depended on tuition support from families for their existence (Ali et al., 2020 ).

Theme 3: Modifications to Teaching and Reliance on Technology

A graduate level course was converted to online Zoom meetings during the lockdown. After several class meetings, one student asked another gently, “Could I ask you a question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Why are you in the garage with your phone when we meet online for class?” The student smiled and replied, “No problem—that is easy to answer. Our internet service in this rural area is not that great. The garage gets the best reception. Besides, I have younger siblings who are doing home schooling and they are using the desktop computer. They are a big distraction!

Online learning experiences generally are defined as those that rely on the internet and different digital devices (e.g., laptops, smartphones) conducted in either a synchronous or asynchronous fashion. When people blithely suggest that “everything is online now”, this does not acknowledge those without such resources. The fundamental requirement of online teaching—reliable internet access and hardware—may not be within reach for many families, even in a wealthy country such as the United States (Devine et al., 2020 ; Fishbane & Tomer, 2020 ). A Pew Research Center report estimated that five million children and nearly one-third (31.4%) of families with children ages 6–17 with family incomes below $50,000 do not have a high-speed internet; this group represents about 40% of all families with school-age children in the United States (Horrigan, 2015 ). Further challenges to online learning include poor internet access, home environments unconducive to online learning, student difficulties with self-discipline and self-directed learning, lack of professional development for faculty, absence of holistic quality assurance systems, and means of supporting not only students’ academic learning outcomes, but also their social and emotional development (Zhu & Liu, 2020 ). Thrust into emergency remote teaching, a survey of K-12 educators indicated that they struggled to find high-quality tools, locate curated content aligned with standards and curriculum, use digital tools effectively, communicate with students at a distance, support student engagement/persistence, and adapt teaching material to the conditions and needs of particular students (Rasmitadila et al., 2020 ; Trust & Whalen, 2020 ). Unprecedented long-term closure of schools and suspension of face-to-face teaching during the COVID-19 crisis surely has reduced opportunities to learn for students, particularly those of young children. In terms of social-emotional development, most children have lost the equivalent of a year or more of interaction with peers in group settings.

The young child’s particular need to be actively involved and the fact that many of them are not yet reading, writing, or adept at computer keyboards makes them the least well-suited for online approaches. Interestingly, when articles were submitted for this Special Issue, some authors denied that they were in a philosophy/reality conflict. Instead, they argued that they had managed to keep developmentally appropriate practices, principles of social learning theory, and the Reggio Emilia approach intact. Such assertions ring hollow when one considers that everything on that list is rooted in child-initiated/child-directed activity, play-based/hands-on learning, and dynamic interpersonal interactions with peers and teachers. In a case study of young children in the South Pacific region during COVID-19, one young child poignantly captured the difference between online and in-person teaching by asking, “When are we going to have the real school?” (Dayal & Tiko, 2020 ). COVID-19 has changed early childhood education at every level, from infant care to post-doctoral study.

Theme 4: Restructuring of Higher Education and Scholarship Interrupted

A new assistant professor of early childhood education is waiting to find out if she has lost her job at the university. She is a single mother whose daughter has special needs and they relocated to the area the previous year. If she is unemployed, she also has no health insurance—in the middle of a global health crisis. Prior to COVID-19, her employer’s financial situation was precarious due to declining undergraduate enrollment. Now that the institution was forced to make prorated refunds of tuition, room, and board to residential students, things have spun out of control. All of the faculty members in the Department feel threatened because programs are being discontinued and departments are being merged or even eliminated. The administration suggests that one way to “save” a new colleague from unemployment is for the most senior professors to submit their retirement letters. Within the Department, there have been many stressful online meetings about how to schedule and staff the courses that students need to graduate, provide practicum experiences, and meet certification/licensure requirements. Throughout this upheaval, the instructor is contacted frequently by her students. They are understandably worried that they will not be adequately prepared to teach and that jobs will not be waiting for them upon graduation.

There is little doubt that COVID-19 has resulted in drastic changes to Academia. Lockdowns forced higher education to implement distance education almost overnight (Carillo & Flores, 2020 ), a situation commonly referred to as “flying the airplane while we are building it”. The switch to digital communication also made faculty available to students across time zones, blurring the lines between work and family. It was assumed that all faculty members could broadcast from their residence and maintain a professional presence, including parents who now had responsibility for home schooling. In a study of 1148 academics in the United Kingdom, the researchers noted that college/university faculty have been “thrust headlong into providing for their students exclusively via a digital interface” and, for many, “this has been an unusual, disorienting, and even unwelcome experience” (Watermeyer et al., 2020 , unpaged). A new instructor and doctoral student, Benjamin Green, observed: “So I am now confronted with the task of undoing all of my prejudices and biases against the digital pedagogical revolution, hoping, praying that I can evolve quickly enough to provide my students with an educational experience that overcomes the obstacles present within an education system grappling against a semi-apocalyptic viral pandemic” (Peters et al., 2020 , unpaged). College-level instructors also had to form partnerships with instructional technology colleagues during a time when everyone was scrambling to salvage the semester and figure out ways to engage their students from a distance (Bloom et al., 2020 ). Instructors without training in online course design resorted to whatever was available and familiar, such as TED Talks, YouTube videos, and massive online open courses (MOOCs). Some wrote and published about their efforts, such as Grissom ( 2020 ) who described using the professionally produced Colorin` Colorado videos of teachers of English to simulate a classroom observation and model reflective practice.

Yet digital solutions were not without their drawbacks, and some of them related to security issues (Szente, 2020 ). Some hackers crashed online class meetings, awkward images were broadcast, and confidential materials became public. To avoid panic, faculty downplayed the disruptions and pressed on. Methods of assessment were shaken to their core as professors struggled to maintain the integrity of the evaluation process on tests, projects, and papers. Institutions with better infrastructures for online learning had an obvious advantage, as did the tech-savvy faculty members, who navigated the transition more easily; however, neither covering content nor evaluating written work was the hardest part.

The most formidable problem was providing practical work experience and internships (Kidd & Murray, 2020 ; Marinoni, et al., 2020 ). Simulations had various limitations, field placements were unavailable, and opportunities to observe early childhood educators teaching, limited. Some instructors encouraged their students to make their own local arrangements to observe or interview young children. In instances where a student was struggling, the situation was even more acute. The numerous, direct observations gathered during student teaching that were necessary to justify the hard decision not to recommend certification were not available.

Internationally, mental health problems account for about one-third of the world’s disability among adults and these issues escalate during deadly disease outbreaks (Otu et al., 2020 ). Even before the pandemic, there was a mental health crisis in college students (American College Health Association, 2018 ; Shackle, 2019 ). Forced isolation compounded students’ problems because, “The university experience would fundamentally alter for many students, especially undergraduates who would no longer experience a unique life-stage of social learning and development and lead to the abandonment of higher education as a socially immersive and participatory learning experience” (Watermeyer et al., 2020 ). For many students, worries about health and safety made it difficult to concentrate on studies, academic enthusiasm waned, and faint hopes of future employment undermined persistence at program completion.

During COVID-19 lockdowns and quarantines throughout the world, the mental health issues of adolescents and college students surfaced or were exacerbated (Aristovnik et al., 2020 ; Gritsenk et al., 2020 ). Among international students, the circumstances frequently were even worse (Stewart et al., 2021 ). Travel bans were instituted, campus housing faced shutdowns, finances depleted, and visa restrictions became problematic. International students had traveled great distances expecting to be immersed in a new culture and hoping to develop greater proficiency in another language, only to find themselves isolated and working from a computer. In a qualitative study of faculty and students involved in international university programs, they used the words “painful”, “heartbroken”, and “crestfallen” to describe their experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown (Peters et al., 2020 ).

As student support services were curtailed or even discontinued, faculty members were available 24/7 through digital means and were contacted frequently by needy, stressed, anxious, fearful, and panic-stricken students. Professors had concerns about “assuming levels of responsibility for students’ welfare that often exceeded their expertise and training, what might be reasonably asked of them, and moreover their contractual and thus legal obligations” (Watermeyer et al., 2020 ). Nevertheless, respondents in a study of 30,383 students from 62 countries during the first wave of COVID-19 crisis in early 2020 rated faculty members as the most satisfactory source of support (Aristovnik et al., 2020 ).

The need to provide more support to family members, restructure course delivery, revise policies/programs/planning, attend to students' needs, and support distressed colleagues. “Zoom fatigue” was such a pervasive phenomenon that National Geographic published an article explaining why the online meetings were so dissatisfying (Sklar, 2020 ). They failed to provide what only face-to-face events can offer: “the electricity of real-time idea exchange, the expansion of possibilities that come with open debate, the connectivity of human warmth and emotion” (Bloom et al., 2020 ).

Scholarly work has suffered too—so much so that some institutions gave faculty another year to work toward tenure. Researchers saw their plans for data collection and analysis postponed or even abandoned, and some of their support personnel, such as graduate assistants, were unavailable. Finding the time and place to complete scholarly work was another hurdle (Cutri et al., 2020 ) as home offices were repurposed into online college classrooms or became places to home school children. Professional organizations with annual conferences as a major source of revenue were forced to cancel these important events in the lives of scholars. The networking and collaborative projects that often are initiated at these gatherings were greatly diminished and some scholarly publishers, already operating on slim profit margins, faltered and failed.

Human beings have been battered and beaten in so many ways by this highly transmittable and health-jeopardizing virus. Think about the terminology that is in use throughout the world to describe our current situation: disaster, pandemic, global health crisis, national emergency, lockdown, quarantine, stay-at-home order, and Draconian measures. There is little question that the steps taken internationally to halt the spread of COVID-19 have exacted a heavy toll on our lives. Despite the overwhelming negativity, hope remains because “times of crisis and disruption offer opportunities for resilience, growth and extraordinary development” (Witt et al., 2020 , p. 3).

On the Other Side of the Pandemic

Indian novelist/activist Arundhati Roy ( 2020 ) suggests a more positive metaphor for the COVID-19 crisis; that of a portal. It is a pathway that leads to a reconfigured future and we stand on a threshold leading to that journey. What possible good might come from managing to prevail in the time of coronavirus?

Promotion of Ethical Practices/Policies, Global Perspectives, and Collaborative Scholarship

The COVID-19 situation is the consummate unstructured problem that confounds efforts to solve it in a linear, stepwise fashion. Effective responses thus far have highlighted the survival skill set of the future, namely: global perspectives, multidisciplinary collaboration, innovative thinking, and principled practice. If only the global community will heed it, there are important lessons to take away from the COVID-19 experience. “The pandemic has exposed how reliant we all are on each other, how the health of the disadvantaged impacts on the advantaged, how events in one country impact on lives in others, how economies are impacted by the health of the people whose labor they rely on and on the health of those excluded from the labor market, and how we can only fight some battles united” (Xafis, 2020 , p. 225). In many ways, the situation of COVID-19 has created a “perfect moral storm” (Xafis et al., 2020 ) that will rely on an “ethos of community” to move forward (Green, 2020 ). Worldwide, people and organizations collaborated to create helpful resources. Table ​ Table1 1 includes many prime examples of international, interagency collaborations and data-informed recommendations that educators can put to use in helping families, students, co-workers, and themselves.

Recommended Online Resources about COVID-19 for Children, Families, and Educators

Re-examination of the Concept of Childhood

Sara Lawrence Lightfoot ( 1978 ) coined the word childism to refer to the mistaken assumption that children’s emotions do not run as deep as those of adults and that children can be expected to recover more readily from adversity than mature individuals. This adult-centric view tends to minimize the effects of change and crisis on young children, assumes that they are oblivious to bad situations, and expects them to be exceptionally resilient. For some families, COVID-19 quarantine resulted in parents spending significantly more time in the company of their children and witnessing, first-hand, worrisome changes in behavior (Evans et al. 2020 ; Waddoups et al., 2019 ). Families could see for themselves that young children are at the epicenter of the disaster as support networks fell away. Perhaps the COVID crisis will help the general population to abandon childism, recognize that children’s social and emotional development are just as important as their schoolwork, and acknowledge that inherent vulnerability of the youngest human beings.

Renewed Resolve to Address the Global Child Care Crisis

In a working paper written for The United Nations, the authors argued that the world was already in a global childcare crisis prior to the pandemic because high-quality childcare was out-of-reach for many families around the globe (Gromada et al., 2020 ). Early childhood education and care is essential work. Dealing with home schooling made it evident that teachers and caregivers of young children have to do more than meet basic needs, provide structure and routine, and offer learning activities. Families soon realized that those things are easy compared to motivating children to learn and to complete assigned tasks. A mother from a wealthy community said, airily, “Oh, we are doing learning pods here—are you doing pods where you live?” She was referring to the practice of designating a small group of children who have tested COVID-19 negative to gather together for homeschooling while continuing to practice the measures to control the spread of the disease (Herzog & Eastman, 2020 ). Parents, usually mothers, take turns leading the group. The presumed advantages are shared responsibility for childcare and provision of opportunities for children to interact with peers. A key point here is that a trustworthy adult has to be available to supervise, so pods are far from a solution for many families. Responsibility for advancing the learning of young children is not for amateurs; it requires professional knowledge, skill, and patience. Learning pods pale in comparison to the huge investments that are necessary, such as the following long-term structural reforms to early childhood education recommended in a report published in Australia:

• Develop a resilient, secure, and sustainable early childhood education and care system
• Build schools’ and teachers’ capacity to continue teaching and learning online and via other flexible modes of delivery to better manage future disruptions
• Focus more on student-centered learning and development of general capabilities, including resilience, creativity and problem-solving. These capabilities should be treated with the same importance as foundational skills such as literacy and numeracy.
• Address persistent inequality in schools and address disparities in relation to funding, instructional resources and physical infrastructures (Noble et al., 2020 )

Ideally, adapting to the world health crisis would encourage more educators at all levels to shift from “traditional, teacher-centered, and lecture-based activities toward more student-centered activities including group activities, discussions, hands-on learning activities, and limited use of traditional lectures”, leading to “a more sustainable, inclusive, and equitable education after the pandemic is gone” (Zhu & Liu, 2020 ).

One reason that COVID-19 has riveted global attention is that, this time, those with more social capital have had their lives disrupted. For example, the Ebola virus had horrific symptoms, very young children were the most vulnerable group, and the disease was more likely to be fatal than COVID, but it was concentrated in West Africa and a vaccine was developed comparatively quickly (National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, 2019 ). Appalling as Ebola was, it did not affect huge numbers of people worldwide as COVID has. The current pandemic has exposed the inadequacy of our systems and responses. “The pandemic’s disproportionate, tragic consequences for health and livelihoods—for individuals, their communities, and even whole societies—underscore institutionalized forms of discrimination rooted in race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and abilities” (Arnove, 2020 , unpaged). Even as vaccinations are being rolled out, it is obvious that there are “haves” and “have nots” and practices/policies that that serve to perpetuate bias and exclusion. Grappling with COVID-19 has made it clear that mental and physical health are indivisible. Ideally, in the aftermath of the pandemic, societies worldwide will begin working toward linking mental and physical health support services, particularly for marginalized and vulnerable groups.

It is encouraging to witness leading experts from various disciplines—such as The WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commissioners, 2020 –joining forces to argue more cogently for high-quality educational experiences that commence at the very beginning of children’s lives. Three powerful ideas that bind the field of early childhood education and care together need to become part of the international educational landscape. They are: (1) early childhood represents an irreplaceable opportunity for growth, development and learning; (2) the experiences of young children are formative and exert an influence across the lifespan; and (3) taking positive action during the early years can prevent more serious issues later on. The fervent hope is that COVID-19 provides a rare opportunity to create a stronger, more equitable and humanitarian society (Davidai et al., 2020 ). The world needs to move beyond vague assertions that about young children’s rights and political rhetoric about children representing our future. Instead, the global community needs to demonstrate–through major financial commitments and enlightened policies and practices—that the care and education of the very young is an international priority.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

• ActionAid. (2020). Five ways the-COVID-19 pandemic impacts women worldwide . https://actionaid.org.au/5-ways-the-COVID-19-pandemic-impacts-women-worldwide-2/
• Ali U, Herbst CM, Makridis CA. The impact of COVID-19 on the U. S. child care market: Evidence from stayat-home orders. Economics of Education Review. 2021; 82 :102094. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.3600532. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aliyyah RR, Rachmadtullah R, Samsudin A, Syaodih E, Nurtanto M, Tambunan ARS. The perceptions of primary school teachers of online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic period: A case study in Indonesia. Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Studies. 2020; 7 (2):90–109. doi: 10.29333/ejecs/388. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Almond D, Mazumder B. The 1918 influenza pandemic and subsequent health outcomes: An analysis of SIPP data. American Economic Review. 2005; 95 (2):258–262. doi: 10.1257/000282805774669943. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ambrose AJH. Inequities during COVID-19. Pediatrics. 2020; 146 (2):e20201501. doi: 10.1542/peds.2020-1501. [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• American College Health Association. (2018). American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment II: Reference Group Executive Summary Spring 2018 . https://www.acha.org/documents/ncha/NCHAII_Spring_2018_Reference_Group_Executive_Summary.pdf
• Anderson, D. S. (Ed.). (2016). Wellness issues for higher education: A guide for student affairs and higher education professionals . Routledge.
• Araújo LA, Veloso CF, Souza MC, Azevedo JM, Tarro G. The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child growth and development: A systematic review. Jornal De Pediatria. 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.jped.2020.08.008. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Aristovnik A, Keržič D, Ravšelj D, Tomaževič N, Umek L. Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on life of higher education students: A global perspective. Sustainability. 2020; 12 (2):8438. doi: 10.3390/su12208438. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Arnove RF. Imagining what education can be post-COVID-19. Prospects. 2020; 49 :43–46. doi: 10.1007/s11125-020-09474-1.pdf. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Bloom DA, Reid JR, Cassady CI. Education in the time of COVID-19. Pediatric Radiology. 2020; 12 (20):8438. doi: 10.1007/s00247-020-04728-8. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Burke J, Arslan G. Positive education and school psychology during COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Positive School Psychology. 2020; 4 (2):137–139. doi: 10.47602/jpsp.v4i2.243. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Campbell AM. An increasing risk of family violence during the COVID-19 pandemic: Strengthening community collaborations to save lives. Forensic Science International Reports. 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.fsir.2020.100089. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Carrillo C, Flores MA. COVID-19 and teacher education: A literature review of online teaching and learning practices. European Journal of Teacher Education. 2020; 43 (4):466–487. doi: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1821184. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cutri RM, Mena J, Whiting EF. Faculty readiness for online crisis teaching: transitioning to online teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. European Journal of Teacher Education. 2020; 43 (4):523–541. doi: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1815702. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• d’Orville, H. (2020). COVID-19 causes unprecedented educational disruption: Is there a road towards a new normal? Prospects, 49 , 11–15. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
• Davidai, S., Day, M. V., Goya-Tocchetto, D., Hauser, O. P., Jachimowicz, J., Mirza, M., & Tepper, S. J. (2020, April 27). COVID-19 Provides a rare opportunity to create a stronger, more equitable society. 10.31234/osf.io/hz4c7
• Dayal HC, Tiko L. When are we going to have the real school? A case study of early childhood education and care teachers’ experiences surrounding education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. 2020; 45 (4):336–347. doi: 10.1177/1836939120966085. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Degli Espinosa F, Metko A, Raimondi M, Impenna M, Scognamiglio E. A model of support for families of children with autism living in the Covid-19 lockdown: lessons from Italy. Behavioral Analysis and Practice. 2020; 13 (3):1–9. doi: 10.1007/s40617-020-00438-7. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Del Boca D, Oggero N, Profeta P, Rossi M. Women’s and men’s work, housework and childcare, before and during COVID-19. Review of Economics of the Household. 2020; 18 :1001–1017. doi: 10.1007/s11150-020-09502-1. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Devine N, Stewart G, Benade L. Access denied: Academic life under lockdown. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies. 2020 doi: 10.1007/s40841-020-00170-4. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Dong C, Cao S, Li H. Young children’s online learning during COVID-19 pandemic: Chinese parents’ beliefs and attitudes. Children and Youth Services Review. 2020 doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105440. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Efklides, A., & Moraitou, D. (Eds.). (2013). A positive psychology perspective on quality of life . Springer.
• Evans S, Mikocka-Walus A, Klas A, Olive L, Sciberras E, Karantzas G, Westrupp EM. From “it has stopped our lives” to “spending more time together has strengthened bonds”: The varied experiences of Australian families during COVID-19. Frontiers in Psychology. 2020; 11 :588667. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.58866. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fegert JM, Vitiello B, Plener PL, Clemens V. Challenges and burden of the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for child and adolescent mental health: A narrative review to highlight clinical and research needs in the acute phase and the long return to normality. Child Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. 2020 doi: 10.1186/s13034-020-00329-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fishbane, L., & Tomer A. (2020). As classes move online during COVID-19, what are disconnected students to do? www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/03/20/as-classes-move-online-during-covid-19-what-are-disconnected-students-to-do/
• Fisher D, Wilder-Smith A. The global community needs to swiftly ramp up the response to contain COVID-19. Lancet. 2020 doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30679-6. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Garbe A, Ogurlu U, Logan N, Cook P. Parents’ experiences with remote education during COVID-19 school closures. American Journal of Qualitative Research. 2020; 4 (3):45–65. doi: 10.29333/ajqr/8471. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Green, B. (2020). In pursuit of an ‘ethos of community’: Postdigital education in the age of COVID-19. Postdigital Science and Education, 2 , 681–689. 10.1007/s42438-020-00123-6
• Grissom, D. (2020). Experiential learning through video observations. In R. E. Ferdig, E. Baumgartner, R. Hartshorne, R. Kaplan-Rakowski & C. Mouza (Eds). Teaching, technology, and teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic: Stories from the field . (pp. 97–112). Waynesville, NC: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). https://www.learntechlib.org/p/216903/
• Gritsenko V, Skugarevsky O, Konstantinov V, Khamenka N, Marinova T, Reznik A, Isralowitz R. COVID 19 fear, stress, anxiety, and substance use among Russian and Belarusian university students. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. 2020 doi: 10.1007/s11469-020-00330-z. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gromada A, Richardson D, Rees G. Childcare in a global crisis: The impact of COVID-19 on work and family life. United Nations. 2020 doi: 10.18356/16d757a1-en. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hamad R, Elser H, Tran DC, Rehkopf DH, Goodman SN. How and why studies disagree about the effects of education on health: A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies of compulsory schooling laws. Social Science & Medicine. 2018; 212 :168–178. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.07.016. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Herzog, N., & Eastman, K. (2020, September 6). Are learning pods safe for your children? https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/covid-19-are-learning-pods-safe-for-your-children/
• Horrigan, J. B. (2015, April 20). The numbers behind the broadband “homework gap.” Pew Research Center: Fact tank news in the numbers. http://pewrsr.ch/1IxSAJ2
• Jandrić P. Editorial: Post-digital research in the time of COVID-19. Postdigital Science and Education. 2020; 2 :233–238. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00113-8. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kidd W, Murray J. The Covid-19 pandemic and its effects on teacher education in England: How teacher educators moved practicum learning online. European Journal of Teacher Education. 2020; 43 (4):542–558. doi: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1820480. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lightfoot, S. L. (1978). Worlds apart: Relationships between families and schools . Basic Books.
• Marinoni, G., Van’t Land, H., & Jensen, T. (2020). The impact of Covid-19 on higher education around the world: IAU global survey report. Paris: International Association of Universities. https://www.iau-aiu.net/IMG/pdf/iau_covid19_and_he_survey_report_final_may_2020.pdf
• Myers JE, Sweeney TJ, Witmer JM. The wheel of wellness counseling for wellness: A holistic model for treatment planning. Journal of Counseling and Development. 2000; 78 :251–266. doi: 10.1002/j.1556-6676.2000.tb01906.x. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (2019, September 23). Researching Ebola in Africa . https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/researching-ebola-africa
• UN News (2020, May 12). Covid-19 pandemic “quickly becoming a child rights crisis ”. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063822
• Noble, K., Hurley, P. & Macklin, S. (2020). COVID-19, employment stress and student vulnerability in Australia . Victoria: Victoria University/Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy, Victoria University. http://vuir.vu.edu.au/40603/1/COVID-19%20employment%20stress%20and%20child%20vulnerability.pdf
• OMEP Executive Committee OMEP Position Paper: Early Childhood Education and Care in the Time of COVID-19. International Journal of Early Childhood. 2020 doi: 10.1007/s13158-020-00273-5. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Otu, A., Charles, C. H., & Yaya, S. (2020). Mental health and psychosocial well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic: The invisible elephant in the room. International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 14 , 1–5. 10.1186/s13033-020-00371-w [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ]
• Peters MA, Wang H, Ogunniran MO, Huang Y, Green B, Chunga JO, Quainoo EA, Ren Z, Hollings S, Mou C, Khomera SW. China’s internationalized higher education during COVID-19: Collective student autoethnography. Postdigital Science and Education. 2020; 2 :968–988. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00128-1. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Reimers, F. M., & Schleicher, A. (2020). A framework to guide an education response to the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Retrieved from https://globaled.gse.harvard.edu/files/geii/files/framework_guide_v1_002.pdf
• Roy, A. (2020, 3 April). The pandemic is a portal. Financial Times . Retrieved from https://www.ft.com/content/10d8f5e8-74eb-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca
• Rundle AG, Park Y, Herbstman JB, Kinsey EW, Wang YC. COVID-19–related school closings and risk of weight gain among children. Obesity. 2020; 28 (6):1008–1009. doi: 10.1002/oby.22813. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schimmenti A, Billieux J, Starcevic V. The four horsemen of fear: An integrated model of understanding fear experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Clinical Neuropsychiatry. 2020; 17 (2):41–45. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shackle, S. (2019, September 27). “The way universities are run is making us ill”: Inside the student mental health crisis. The Guardian. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/27/anxiety-mental-breakdowns-depression-uk-students?utm_source=pocket-newtab
• Silverman M, Sibbald R, Stranges S. Ethics of COVID-19-related school closures. Canadian Journal of Public Health. 2020; 111 :462–465. doi: 10.17269/s41997-020-00396-1. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sklar, J. (2020). ‘Zoom fatigue’ is taxing the brain. Here’s why that happens. National Geographic . https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/coronavirus-zoom-fatigue-is-taxing-the-brain-here-is-why-that-happens/
• Stewart, D. W., Davoren, A. K., Neumeister, J. R., Knepler, E., Grigorian, K., & Greene, A. (2021). Graduate schools respond to COVID-19: Promising pathways to innovation and sustainability in stem education (executive summary) . Chicago: NORC/University of Chicago. NORC COVID Executive Summary 2021ss.
• Szente J. Live virtual sessions with toddlers and preschoolers amid COVID-19: Implications for early childhood teacher education. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education. 2020; 28 (2):373–380. [ Google Scholar ]
• The WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commissioners After COVID-19, a future for the world's children? The Lancet. 2020; 396 (10247):298–300. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)31481-1. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• UNESCO. (2020a). COVID-19 educational disruption and response . UNESCO. https://en.unesco.org/news/COVID-19-educational-disruption-and-response
• UNESCO. (2020b) Amidst global school closures UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative receives strong support . https://en.unesco.org/news/amidst-global-school-closures-unescosfutures-education-initiative-receives-strong-support .
• United Nations. (2020). Policy brief: The impact of COVID-19 on children . https://unsdg.un.org/resources/policy-brief-impact-covid-19-children
• Usher K, Bhullar N, Durkin J, Gyamfi N, Jackson D. Family violence and COVID-19: Increased vulnerability and reduced options for support. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 2020; 29 (4):549–552. doi: 10.1111/inm.12735. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Lancker W, Parolin Z. COVID-19, school closures, and child poverty: A social crisis in the making. The Lancet. 2020; 5 (5):E243–E244. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30084-0. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Waddoups AB, Yoshikawa H, Strouf K. Developmental effects of parent–child separation. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology. 2019; 1 :387–410. doi: 10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-085142. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Watermeyer R, Crick T, Knight C, Goodall J. COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: Afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration. Higher Education. 2020 doi: 10.1007/s10734-020-00561-y. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Whalen J. Should teachers be trained in emergency remote teaching? Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education. 2020; 28 (2):189–199. [ Google Scholar ]
• Witt A, Ordóñez A, Martin A, Vitiello B, Fegert JM. Child and adolescent mental health service provision and research during the COVID-19 pandemic: Challenges, opportunities, and a call for submissions. Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. 2020 doi: 10.1186/s13034-020-00324-8. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• World Health Organization. (2020). Mental health and COVID-19 . https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/COVID-19
• Xafis V. ‘What is inconvenient for you is life-saving for me’: How health inequities are playing out during the COVID-19 pandemic. Asian Bioethics Review. 2020; 12 :223–234. doi: 10.1007/s41649-020-00119-1. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Xafis V, Schaefer GO, Labude MK, Zhu Y, Hsu LY. The perfect moral storm: Diverse ethical considerations in the COVID-19 pandemic. Asian Bioethics Review. 2020; 12 :65–83. doi: 10.1007/s41649-020-00125-3. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Yoshikawa H, Wuermli AJ, Britto PR, Dreyer B, Leckman JF, Lye SJ, Ponguta LA, Richter LM, Stein A. Effects of the global coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic on early childhood development: short-and long-term risks and mitigating program and policy actions. The Journal of Pediatrics. 2020; 223 :188–193.. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.05.020. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhu X, Liu J. Education in and after COVID-19: Immediate responses and long-term visions. Postdigital Science and Education. 2020; 2 (3):695–699. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00126-3. [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Early Childhood Education Journal

Early Childhood Education Journal is a professional publication of original peer-reviewed articles that reflect exemplary practices in the field of contemporary early childhood education. Articles cover the social, physical, emotional, and intellectual development of children age birth through 8, analyzing issues, trends, and practices from an educational perspective. The journal publishes feature-length articles that skillfully blend theory, research, and practice; descriptions of outstanding early childhood programs worldwide; as well as quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. Early Childhood Education Journal is of interest not only to classroom teachers, child care providers, college and university faculty, and administrators, but also to other professionals in psychology, health care, family relations, and social services dedicated to the care of young children. Detailed instructions for authors and a link to the online submission portal may be found online at https://www.springer.com/journal/10643.

• Patricia A. Crawford

Latest issue

Volume 52, Issue 6

Latest articles

Investigating informational text read-alouds in greek kindergarten classrooms: differences according to text structures.

• Elissavet Chlapana
• Emmanouil Ntagkinis

Fostering Play in the COVID Crisis: Insights from Infant-Toddler Teachers

• Minsun Shin

Reporting and Analyzing Demographics in U.S.-American Early STEM Intervention Literature: A Systematic Review

• Hsiu-Wen Yang
• Christine Harradine
• Julie Sarama

Developing Early Childhood Teacher Confidence to Implement Classroom Music and Movement Activities: Key Professional Learning Features

• Sally Savage
• Laura. A. Bentley
• Rebecca Eager

Dictating and Acting Out Stories: A Pathway to Writing for Preschoolers

• Diane Pesco
• Andrea A. N. MacLeod

Journal updates

Supporting the sustainable developmental goals.

Journal information

• Current Contents/Social & Behavioral Sciences
• Google Scholar
• Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals and Series
• OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service
• Social Science Citation Index
• TD Net Discovery Service
• UGC-CARE List (India)

Rights and permissions

Editorial policies

© Springer Nature B.V.

• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Issues in Early Childhood Education in 2022

• December 20, 2022

Since the beginning of organized childcare, providers have faced a number of issues in early childhood education. Not to mention the onslaught of additional challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At ChildCare Education Institute, we’ve spent the last 15+ years helping teachers navigate life in and out of the classroom. As a result, we’ve seen first-hand the problems facing early childhood education — and we’ve learned that the first step to addressing these problems is a better awareness of them.

That’s why we’re breaking down the most prominent issues in early childhood education and how you can best tackle them.

Workplace burnout.

One of the leading problems facing early childhood education is an escalating rate of teacher burnout. According to a 2022 poll, nearly half of all preschool teachers admitted to experiencing high levels of stress and burnout over the past few years.

While some of that stress is inherent to the job, most of the additional burnout has come from a severe staffing shortage affecting centers and programs across the country. Since early 2020, 8.4% of the childcare workforce has left for other professions — which is especially worrying considering many centers were experiencing staffing problems before the pandemic.

As a result, the teachers that stayed are dealing with longer hours, larger classrooms, and in some cases, new, mixed-age teaching environments.

For those educators lucky enough to find themselves at fully staffed centers, there are still a number of new stressors brought about by COVID-19, including new safety measures, check-in protocols, and more.

What can you do?: If you’re an educator experiencing workplace burnout, our course Stress Management for Child Care Providers is a great first step toward learning how to cope with your professional stress. We also recommend scheduling a regular time to reflect on the positives of each day and remember what drew you to early childhood education in the first place.

Mental health concerns.

  Though mental health has always been one of the prominent issues in early childhood education, COVID-19 has truly brought it to the forefront. In Virginia alone, depression among preschool teachers has risen by 15% since the start of the pandemic. While this would be troubling for any profession, it’s especially hard for teachers as their mood can directly impact their student’s ability to learn and comprehend the material. Funding issues in early childhood education can also lead to a lack of resources for teachers who want to seek help.

What can you do?: If you’re experiencing any symptoms of declining mental health, the most important thing to do is seek help. We recommend starting with this list of 50 resources from Teach.com.

Lack of resources.

Funding issues in early childhood education are another hurdle many teachers face. According to a recent study conducted by The Century Fund, the United States is underfunding public schools by nearly $150 billion annually. As a result, many childcare providers have to dip into their own pockets to make up for the small classroom budgets they’re given — something that’s especially challenging given most teachers are already underpaid.

What can you do?: While there’s nothing you can do to solve funding issues in early childhood education overnight, there are a number of scholarship and grant programs available to help teachers with classroom and professional development expenses. For more information on the latter, click here.

Low levels of compensation.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, early childhood educators earn an average annual wage of $30,210 in the United States (with the lowest 10% making just $21,900 per year). When compared to the average public school teacher’s salary of $65,090, it’s no surprise that compensation is among the top problems facing early childhood education.

Because the average salary for the profession is so low, most educators are forced to take on a second job or rely on public income support programs to make ends meet. These can significantly add to a teacher’s burnout and can cause stress that spills over into their personal life.

What can you do?: If you’re looking to advocate for higher wages and other funding issues in early childhood education, there are a number of groups you can join, including NAEYC. You can also help set yourself apart — and potentially raise your earning potential — by earning a well-respected certification, such as your Child Development Associate (CDA) Credential.

Heightened safety concerns.

Another one of the top issues in early childhood education is safety. Since the start of 2022, there have been more than 300 mass shootings — equating to roughly four per week. While not all of these shootings have taken place at schools, enough have left teachers worried about their workplace safety.

In addition to worrying about their own safety while at work, early childhood educators also often have to worry about the safety of their students. Because children attending childcare programs can range anywhere from just a few months to six years of age, there are a number of physical and environmental dangers present at any given time. Therefore, teachers have to constantly be on guard, something that can lead to increased levels of stress and fatigue.

What can you do?: One of the best ways to address safety concerns in the workplace is to feel confident in your abilities to avoid and — in the worst case — deal with any issues that may arise. Some of our top-rated safety courses include:

• Emergency Preparedness and Response Planning for Natural and Man-Made Events
• Fire Safety in the Early Care and Education Environment
• Indoor Safety in the Early Childhood Setting
• Outdoor Safety in the Early Childhood Setting

Ever-evolving technologies.

When COVID-19 hit, schools across the country raced to adopt virtual learning environments that allowed their students to connect and engage without having to attend in-person sessions. While it proved to be an effective way to limit the spread of coronavirus, it didn’t come without its own share of challenges.

For some families, a lack of access to technology meant they were no longer able to receive the instruction they needed. For others, not being able to have one-on-one time with educators led to a decline in learning. Finally, despite the best attempts from schools and video conferencing providers, teachers and students still fell victim to technology issues, including lack of connectivity, dropped calls, and more.

As the pandemic waned and in-person learning resumed, many schools opted to keep hybrid learning as an option for their students. Despite the added convenience this affords some families, it has also greatly contributed to one of the top issues in early childhood education: technology.

As technology changes in the classroom, teachers must race to keep up with it.

The same goes for the technology students interact with.

Teachers today have to decide how to incorporate technology into their classrooms, what screen time limits to set for their students and how to navigate a digital landscape that’s different every year.

What can you do?: The best way to combat the ever-changing technology landscape in early childhood education is to make sure you’re staying up-to-date on industry recommendations and research. Our The Child’s Digital Universe: Technology and Digital Media in Early Childhood course is the perfect place to start.

Lack of parent engagement and communication.

As any teacher can attest to, trying to build an engaged and communicative parent base is another one of the prominent issues in early childhood education. Unlike other professions, teachers have to deal with the 20+ personalities in their classroom, as well as the 40+ personalities of those students’ guardians. Not to mention the frustration that can result from parents who are never present — or those who are overly present.

Plus, funding issues in early childhood education can often hamper parent-teacher communication. For example, some programs might not have the funds available to provide teachers with software that allows them to quickly send email blasts to all families. As a result, educators may find themselves having to send important updates via email one family at a time.

What can you do?: While parent-teacher communication will likely always be one of the problems facing early childhood education, there are things you can do as a teacher to lessen the effect it has on you and your classroom. One of those resources is our course Parent Communication: Building Partners in the Educational Process.

Want to learn more about the top issues in early childhood education and how to combat them? Our online courses can help!

Click here to explore our 150+ topics covering everything from child development to classroom management to addressing the problems facing early childhood education.

ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI) is the industry leader for online professional development . 

Professional Development Courses

Certificate Programs

Staff Training

Head Start Training

Director Training

Custom Course Hosting

CCEI Company

Trial Course

Trending Topics

StraighterLine Company

Terms of Use  |  Privacy Policy  |  Site Map  |  Code of Conduct  |  Student Handbook English | Student Handbook Spanish © 2024 ChildCare Education Institute 1155 Perimeter Center West, Atlanta, GA 30338 Phone: 1.800.499.9907

We use cookies on our website to support technical features that enhance your user experience, and to help us improve our website. By continuing to use this website, you accept our privacy policy .

• Student Login
• Call Us: 888-549-6755
• 888-559-6763
• Search site Search our site Search Now Close
• Request Info

Skip to Content (Press Enter)

4 Emerging Trends in Early Childhood Education

By Brianna Flavin on 03/23/2020

Issues in early childhood education (ECE) are issues you want to know about. Whether you parent, teach or just simply care about young learners, keeping an eye on the changes and trends in ECE is a great way to nurture the little ones in your life.

Even seeing what ECE experts are thinking about can be so inspiring. The one thing we know for sure about early childhood development is that there’s always more to discover. Many studies have concluded that, when done right, ECE provides lasting benefits to all students and has a major impact on our lives throughout adulthood.

But knowing ECE matters immensely doesn’t always mean we know how to best guide those brilliant young minds. This is why trends in early childhood education are so important. It’s how we find new ways forward. Explore the Pros and Cons of Universal Pre-K to gain insights into the potential benefits and drawbacks of implementing universal pre-K programs in early childhood education.

4 Trends in early childhood education to watch for

You don't have to spend hours watching education documentaries or scouring the internet to keep up with trends in the field. We asked ECE experts to weigh in on some of the trends they are noticing in early childhood education today—as well as what might be on the horizon.

1. A new focus on phonics in literacy instruction

“A trend I’m observing—and cheering for—in the field of early childhood education is the focus upon explicit, systematic phonics in literacy instruction,” says Dr. Christina Williams, owner of Book Bums . “In the past two years, more experts and more literacy-focused community groups are acknowledging that big publishing companies have been promoting inadequate curriculum.”

Williams explains that research findings have long shown a gap in how ECE materials and educators teach our code-based language to young learners. “One of the reasons for the trend toward phonics instruction is the reporting of Emily Hanford,” she explains.

Much of Hanford’s research centers on the unquestioned assumptions educators and educational materials have about teaching reading . With ECE experts re-examining phonics instruction, Williams sees changes coming not only for young learners—but also for educators.

How does it affect early childhood education?

“ I have seen far too many teachers who haven’t the slightest idea how to teach kids to read and spell well,” Williams says. She explains that the trouble begins in universities not teaching teachers to understand phonics instruction. “Often, student teachers do not adequately understand how words work, themselves. When they secure their jobs, these young teachers rely on district-purchased curriculum to guide them, but far too often those materials use debunked methods that leave far too many readers behind.”

For ECE teachers, this gap leaves lots of room to stand out. Chris Drew , a university instructor in early childhood education, has also noticed many ECE professionals working without strong skill or knowledge in phonics methods. “I’m always impressed by a new staff member who really has a good grasp on teaching literacy. If you want to stand out for future employers, read up on how to teach phonics and demonstrate your competency with phonics in your job interview.”

Since learning to read is connected to success in school and in most of life thereafter—changing this paradigm is a high priority for ECE experts. “Far too many of our students struggle to learn to read, and far too many of them end up in our criminal justice systems,” Williams says. “I am observing that the trend is changing, and I’m so grateful.”

2. Educating with nature

“Scandinavian approaches like the ‘ Forest Schools ’ movement are starting to have an impact in North American ECE settings,” Drew says. It’s no wonder. Who wouldn’t be interested in trying to bring some of that light, greenery and fresh air into a school day?

But Drew points out that the trend is more than a surface appreciation of nature. “These sorts of spaces are great sandpits for development—children learn about natural environments, develop fine and gross motor skills, and build a connection to their local ecosystem.”

While Forest Schools themselves are becoming more popular—the natural space they require is out of reach for many schools. But the trend of teaching through nature could also show up in other ways, such as teachers making a conscious effort in incorporate natural elements into the classroom or dedicating time for outdoor exploration and play.

3. Closing the achievement gap under ESSA

The achievement gap refers to the differences in academic achievement of different social and economic groups. This is measured through a variety of metrics, including grade point averages, standardized test scores, dropout rates, college enrollment and college graduation metrics. The gap is measured between low-income and high-income households, white and minority students, males and females, students whose first language is English and students for whom English is a second (or third) language, among other factors.

The achievement gap is often used to determine funding for ECE. When the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015, states gained the opportunity to evaluate their ECE needs and request grants from the federal government. These grants are then used to fund targeted programs designed to help improve literacy and other important academic skills for those involved.

Assessment of student learning is a crucial element of a successful education, as it can help educators identify learning needs early on. But it is also one of the primary metrics schools have to determine if they are succeeding with their young learners.

Early education centers with disadvantaged students—such as children from low-income families, foster children or children who are learning English as a second language—may gain more funding from the state when they can prove academic progress with these students is closing the achievement gap.

For those working in early education, this might mean more ongoing education, formal assessments and new state-wide initiatives. Check out Understanding ESSA to read about the impacts in your state.

4. Technology in child development

Technology is an ongoing trend in ECE—as it is in pretty much every industry. It’s a constant balance for ECE experts to decide how to teach with technology, while also teaching digital resilience as they know children are likely to interact with devices at home.

Like it or not, technology and device usage by young children is a fact of life for large number of children. Children are owning devices and using the internet at a young age—and are spending much more time in front of small screens .

Discovering resources that meet the needs of students can greatly enrich the current material they are learning. Even with the proven effectiveness of technology in the classroom , educators are left with a few questions: What role should technology play in our classrooms? What should we teach our students about using technology?

One of the most important elements to consider is how children are interacting with the technology, ensuring that new tools are developing positive behavior. Technology—or screen time—also comes in many forms. According to the Common Sense Census , these are the four main forms:

• Passive consumption: Watching TV, reading and listening to music
• Interactive consumption: Playing games and browsing the Internet
• Communication: Video-chatting and using social media
• Content creation: Using devices to make digital art or music

When it comes to the question of how much technology to incorporate into lesson plans, Common Sense Media recommends no more than one hour per day.

A trend of society recognizing the importance of ECE

“There is an increasing awareness that the early years are the most vital years of life,” Drew says. While early childhood educators and psychologists have been talking about this for a long time—public awareness, as well as laws and the funding around early education has been lagging.

“Expect to see increasing investment in ECE in the coming decade as states and nations realize early support for children delivers big rewards down the track.”

An important characteristic of the most effective ECE professionals is the commitment to always continue educating themselves regarding the trends, changes, studies and conversations in the industry. Armed with these three trends in early childhood education, you may find yourself better prepared to help your students succeed.

You can even help the people around you understand why early childhood education matters so very much. See our article, “ 5 Reasons Why the Importance of ECE Is Impossible to Ignore ,” for an inspiring breakdown on why we care so much about our little learners!

The Early Childhood Education programs at Rasmussen College are not accredited by the NAEYC Commission on Early Childhood Associate Degree Accreditation. Rasmussen College is not a partner of NAEYC and our programs are not sponsored or endorsed by NAEYC. Graduates of Early Childhood Education programs at Rasmussen College are not eligible for licensure as a teacher in an elementary or secondary school. A Bachelor’s degree and a state teaching license are typically required to work as a teacher in a public school and some private school settings. States, municipalities, districts or individual schools may have more stringent licensing requirements. Students must determine the licensure requirements in the state and school in which they intend to work. Childcare facilities and the states in which they are located establish qualifications for staff who work with children, and often implement guidelines regarding age, education, experience and professional development. Students must determine the licensure requirements for the state and facilities in which they work. This program has not been approved by any state professional licensing body, and this program is not intended to lead to any state-issued professional license. For further information on professional licensing requirements, please contact the appropriate board or agency in your state of residence.

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on LinkedIn

Request More Information

Talk with an admissions advisor today.

Fill out the form to receive information about:

• Program Details and Applying for Classes
• Financial Aid (for those who qualify)
• Customized Support Services
• Detailed Program Plans

There are some errors in the form. Please correct the errors and submit again.

Please enter your first name.

Please enter your last name.

There is an error in email. Make sure your answer has:

• An "@" symbol
• A suffix such as ".com", ".edu", etc.

There is an error in phone number. Make sure your answer has:

• 10 digits with no dashes or spaces
• No country code (e.g. "1" for USA)

There is an error in ZIP code. Make sure your answer has only 5 digits.

We offer tuition savings for many employers—see if yours is one of them.

Please enter Corporate Employer.

Can’t find your employer? Select "Other Employer Not In List" or "Not Employed".

Please choose a School of study.

Please choose a program.

Please choose a degree.

The program you have selected is not available in your ZIP code. Please select another program or contact an Admissions Advisor (877.530.9600) for help.

The program you have selected requires a nursing license. Please select another program or contact an Admissions Advisor (877.530.9600) for help.

Rasmussen University is not enrolling students in your state at this time.

By selecting "Submit," I authorize Rasmussen University to contact me by email, phone or text message at the number provided. There is no obligation to enroll. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

About the author

Brianna Flavin

Brianna is a senior content manager who writes student-focused articles for Rasmussen University. She holds an MFA in poetry and worked as an English Professor before diving into the world of online content. 

Posted in Early Childhood Education

• education news
• education trends
• early childhood education

Related Content

Robbie Gould | 08.01.2024

Noelle Hartt | 02.08.2024

Hope Rothenberg | 01.04.2024

Brianna Flavin | 12.14.2023

This piece of ad content was created by Rasmussen University to support its educational programs. Rasmussen University may not prepare students for all positions featured within this content. Please visit www.rasmussen.edu/degrees for a list of programs offered. External links provided on rasmussen.edu are for reference only. Rasmussen University does not guarantee, approve, control, or specifically endorse the information or products available on websites linked to, and is not endorsed by website owners, authors and/or organizations referenced. Rasmussen University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, an institutional accreditation agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

Blog Ofsted: early years

https://earlyyears.blog.gov.uk/2023/02/02/ofsteds-2023-priorities-for-early-years/

Ofsted's 2023 priorities for early years

Before looking ahead to what 2023 will hold for the early years sector, it's worth reflecting on the year that has just passed.

Ofsted ended the year with the publication of our Annual Report, which provides an overview of what our inspections found, our research, and identifies important themes and potential challenges. You can read the full report here and the early years section here .

What we saw in 2022

We are particularly aware of the long-term difficulties nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are facing at the moment.

We know that many nurseries and preschools are having problems in recruiting and retaining high-quality staff, alongside more childminders leaving the sector. This may be caused, and is certainly compounded, by changes in parental preference, working patterns, and childcare requirements as well as cost of living pressures. A part of the solution to the recruitment difficulties might be through apprentices but unfortunately fewer young people are even beginning these programmes. The number of people them fell from just over 27,000 six years ago, to just over 16,000 last year.

Alongside this difficult working situation, helping young children catch up after the pandemic is an unprecedented challenge.

The report identified the longer-term impacts of the pandemic. It is now clearer where children have fallen behind, and the difficulties the sector faces in helping them to catch up. But we did see some great examples of providers doing just that.

These included:

• creating more opportunities for interaction and to develop social skills
• refocusing curriculums towards language and communication
• creating more opportunities for staff to read to children.

Fortunately, these problems have not affected the profile of inspection judgements so far, but they are something we're very aware of as we move in to 2023. However, for now, 97% of childminders and 96% of nurseries and pre-schools are rated good or outstanding – a very impressive feat considering the circumstances.

The report, along with our research review Best Start in Life , emphasised the importance of curriculum in the early years.

We’ve committed to a strategic priority of giving children ‘the best start in life’, and high-quality early years education is vital to that. Children attend nurseries, pre-schools and childminders at a crucial developmental point in their lives. What they learn during this time forms the foundation for their future educational attainment, as well as their future health and happiness.

Making sure children achieve their potential at this stage is therefore of the upmost importance.

Of course, preparing children for future study is not the only purpose of early years education, but it is an important one. Our research review identified some of the features that high-quality early years curriculum and pedagogy may have, and we would encourage all providers to consider this in their work this year.

The work we are doing in this area is guided by another of our strategic priorities, our commitment to ‘right touch regulation.’ We want to help practitioners to make sure children get all they can from their early years. We’re working where we can to streamline what we require from providers to allow them to spend more time with the children in their care.

What will 2023 hold?

In 2023, we will be publishing further parts of our research review for the early years. Subsequent reviews will explore the 7 areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage, taking into account that the areas of learning are all interconnected.

We will continue our focus on communication and language. As we reported in the first part of our early years research review, if children do not develop and learn these abilities in their early years, it has a lasting impact on their educational progress. It underpins all future learning, and we will continue to emphasise its importance.

As we have said above, high-quality apprenticeships can be part of the solution to recruitment difficulties. We’re awaiting the results of the consultation on updating and improving the Level 3 criteria for Early Years Educators. These criteria need to capture the right things and be brought up to date. We hope this update process can be completed quickly.

We are also working to improve the efficiency of our registration process. We’ve already published a blog on our efforts to streamline the process here and will always seek to make things easier where we can, in line with our ‘right touch regulation’ strategic priority.

Sharing and comments

Share this page, leave a comment.

Cancel reply

By submitting a comment you understand it may be published on this public website. Please read our privacy notice to see how the GOV.UK blogging platform handles your information.

Related content and links

About 'ofsted blog: early years'.

This blog is about education and care in children’s early years. It will update you on developments in the early years sector and will feature current issues. Find out more.

Sign up and manage updates

Recent posts.

• Celebrating childminders and welcoming change
• Maintaining quality early years provision in the face of workforce challenges
• Why we might suspend a childcare provider’s registration and what happens next
• The Holiday Activities and Food programme – when you need to register with Ofsted
• My priorities for the early years sector
• February 2024
• November 2023
• October 2023
• September 2023
• August 2023
• February 2023
• January 2023
• November 2022
• September 2022

Recent posts

• Celebrating childminders and welcoming change May 16, 2024
• Maintaining quality early years provision in the face of workforce challenges May 13, 2024
• Why we might suspend a childcare provider’s registration and what happens next April 26, 2024

Comments and moderation

Read our guidelines.

• NAEYC Login
• Member Profile
• Hello Community
• Accreditation Portal
• Online Learning
• Online Store

Popular Searches:   DAP ;  Coping with COVID-19 ;  E-books ;  Anti-Bias Education ;  Online Store

The Power of Playful Learning in the Early Childhood Setting

You are here

Play versus learning represents a false dichotomy in education (e.g., Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff 2008). In part, the persistent belief that learning must be rigid and teacher directed—the opposite of play—is motivated by the lack of a clear definition of what constitutes playful learning (Zosh et al. 2018). And, in part, it is motivated by older perceptions of play and learning. Newer research, however, allows us to reframe the debate as learning via play—as playful learning.

This piece, which is an excerpt from Chapter 5 in  Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8, Fourth Edition (NAEYC 2022), suggests that defining play on a spectrum (Zosh et al. 2018, an idea first introduced by Bergen 1988) helps to resolve old divisions and provides a powerful framework that puts  playful learning —rich curriculum coupled with a playful pedagogy—front and center as a model for all early childhood educators. ( See below for a discussion of play on a spectrum.)

This excerpt also illustrates the ways in which play and learning mutually support one another and how teachers connect learning goals to children’s play. Whether solitary, dramatic, parallel, social, cooperative, onlooker, object, fantasy, physical, constructive, or games with rules, play, in all of its forms, is a teaching practice that optimally facilitates young children’s development and learning. By maximizing children’s choice, promoting wonder and enthusiasm for learning, and leveraging joy, playful learning pedagogies support development across domains and content areas and increase learning relative to more didactic methods (Alfieri et al. 2011; Bonawitz et al. 2011; Sim & Xu 2015).

Playful Learning: A Powerful Teaching Tool

This narrowing of the curriculum and high-stakes assessment practices (such as paper-and-pencil tests for kindergartners) increased stress on educators, children, and families but failed to deliver on the promise of narrowing—let alone closing—the gap.  All  children need well-thought-out curricula, including reading and STEM experiences and an emphasis on executive function skills such as attention, impulse control, and memory (Duncan et al. 2007). But to promote happy, successful, lifelong learners, children must be immersed in developmentally appropriate practice and rich curricular learning that is culturally relevant (NAEYC 2020). Playful learning is a vehicle for achieving this. Schools must also address the inequitable access to play afforded to children (see “Both/And: Early Childhood Education Needs Both Play and Equity,” by Ijumaa Jordan.) All children should be afforded opportunities to play, regardless of their racial group, socioeconomic class, and disability if they have been diagnosed with one. We second the call of Maria Souto-Manning (2017): “Although play has traditionally been positioned as a privilege, it must be (re)positioned as a right, as outlined by the  United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 31” (785).

What Is Playful Learning?

Playful learning describes a learning context in which children learn content while playing freely (free play or self-directed play), with teacher guidance (guided play), or in a structured game. By harnessing children’s natural curiosity and their proclivities to experiment, explore, problem solve, and stay engaged in meaningful activities—especially when doing so with others—teachers maximize learning while individualizing learning goals. Central to this concept is the idea that teachers act more as the Socratic “guide at the side” than a “sage on the stage” (e.g., King 1993, 30; Smith 1993, 35). Rather than view children as empty vessels receiving information, teachers see children as active explorers and discoverers who bring their prior knowledge into the learning experience and construct an understanding of, for example, words such as  forecast  and  low pressure  as they explore weather patterns and the science behind them. In other words, teachers support children as active learners.

Importantly, playful learning pedagogies naturally align with the characteristics that research in the science of learning suggests help humans learn. Playful learning leverages the power of active (minds-on), engaging (not distracting), meaningful, socially interactive, and iterative thinking and learning (Zosh et al. 2018) in powerful ways that lead to increased learning.

Free play lets children explore and express themselves—to be the captains of their own ship. While free play is important, if a teacher has a learning goal, guided play and games are the road to successful outcomes for children (see Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff 2013 for a review). Playful learning in the form of guided play, in which the teacher builds in the learning as part of a fun context such as a weather report, keeps the child’s agency but adds an intentional component to the play that helps children learn more from the experience. In fact, when researchers compared children’s skill development during free play in comparison to guided play, they found that children learned more vocabulary (Toub et al. 2018) and spatial skills (Fisher et al. 2013) in guided play than in free play.

Self-Directed Play, Free Play

NAEYC’s 2020 position statement on developmentally appropriate practice uses the term  self-directed play  to refer to play that is initiated and directed by children. Such play is termed  free play  in the larger works of the authors of this excerpt; therefore, free play is the primary term used in this article, with occasional references to self-directed play, the term used in the rest of the DAP book.

Imagine an everyday block corner. The children are immersed in play with each other—some trying to build high towers and others creating a tunnel for the small toy cars on the nearby shelves. But what if there were a few model pictures on the wall of what children could strive to make as they collaborated in that block corner? Might they rotate certain pieces purposely? Might they communicate with one another that the rectangle needs to go on top of the square? Again, a simple insertion of a design that children can try to copy turns a play situation into one ripe with spatial learning. Play is a particularly effective way to engage children with specific content learning when there is a learning goal.

Why Playful Learning Is Critical

Teachers play a crucial role in creating places and spaces where they can introduce playful learning to help all children master not only content but also the skills they will need for future success. The science of learning literature (e.g., Fisher et al. 2013; Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff 2013; Zosh et al. 2018) suggests that playful learning can change the “old equation” for learning, which posited that direct, teacher-led instruction, such as lectures and worksheets, was the way to achieve rich content learning. This “new equation” moves beyond a sole focus on content and instead views playful learning as a way to support a breadth of skills while embracing developmentally appropriate practice guidelines (see Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2020).

Using a playful learning pedagogical approach leverages the skill sets of today’s educators and enhances their ability to help children attain curricular goals. It engages what has been termed active learning that is also developmentally appropriate and offers a more equitable way of engaging children by increasing access to participation. When topics are important and culturally relevant to children, they can better identify with the subject and the learning becomes more seamless.

While educators of younger children are already well versed in creating playful and joyful experiences to support social goals (e.g., taking turns and resolving conflicts), they can use this same skill set to support more content-focused curricular goals (e.g., mathematics and literacy). Similarly, while teachers of older children have plenty of experience determining concrete content-based learning goals (e.g., attaining Common Core Standards), they can build upon this set of skills and use playful learning as a pedagogy to meet those goals.

Learning Through Play: A Play Spectrum

As noted previously, play can be thought of as lying on a spectrum that includes free play (or self-directed play), guided play, games, playful instruction, and direct instruction (Bergen 1988; Zosh et al. 2018). For the purposes of this piece, we use a spectrum that includes the first three of these aspects of playful learning, as illustrated in “Play Spectrum Showing Three Types of Playful Learning Situations” below.

The following variables determine the degree to which an activity can be considered playful learning:

• level of adult involvement
• extent to which the child is directing the learning
• presence of a learning goal

Toward the left end of the spectrum are activities with more child agency, less adult involvement, and loosely defined or no particular learning goals. Further to the right, adults are more involved, but children still direct the activity or interaction.

Developmentally appropriate practice does not mean primarily that children play without a planned learning environment or learn mostly through direct instruction (NAEYC 2020). Educators in high-quality early childhood programs offer a range of learning experiences that fall all along this spectrum. By thinking of play as a spectrum, educators can more easily assess where their learning activities and lessons fall on this spectrum by considering the components and intentions of the lesson. Using their professional knowledge of how children develop and learn, their knowledge of individual children, and their understanding of social and cultural contexts, educators can then begin to think strategically about how to target playful learning (especially guided play and games) to leverage how children naturally learn. This more nuanced view of play and playful learning can be used to both meet age-appropriate learning objectives and support engaged, meaningful learning.   

In the kindergarten classroom in the following vignette, children have ample time for play and exploration in centers, where they decide what to play with and what they want to create. These play centers are the focus of the room and the main tool for developing social and emotional as well as academic skills; they reflect and support what the children are learning through whole-group discussions, lessons, and skills-focused stations. In the vignette, the teacher embeds guided play opportunities within the children’s free play.

Studying Bears: Self-Directed Play that Extends What Kindergartners Are Learning

While studying the habits of animals in winter, the class is taking a deeper dive into the lives of American black bears, animals that make their homes in their region. In the block center, one small group of children uses short lengths and cross-sections of real tree branches as blocks along with construction paper to create a forest habitat for black bear figurines. They enlist their friends in the art center to assist in making trees and bushes. Two children are in the writing center. Hearing that their friends are looking for help to create a habitat, they look around and decide a hole punch and blue paper are the perfect tools for making blueberries—a snack black bears love to eat! Now multiple centers and groups of children are involved in making the block center become a black bear habitat.

In the dramatic play center, some of the children pretend to be bear biologists, using stethoscopes, scales, and magnifying glasses to study the health of a couple of plush black bears. When these checkups are complete, the teacher suggests the children could describe the bears’ health in a written “report,” thus embedding guided play within their free play. A few children at the easels in the art center are painting pictures of black bears.

Contributed by Amy Blessing

Free play, or self-directed play, is often heralded as the gold standard of play. It encourages children’s initiative, independence, and problem solving and has been linked to benefits in social and emotional development (e.g., Singer & Singer 1990; Pagani et al. 2010; Romano et al. 2010; Gray 2013) and language and literacy (e.g., Neuman & Roskos 1992). Through play, children explore and make sense of their world, develop imaginative and symbolic thinking, and develop physical competence. The kindergarten children in the example above were developing their fine motor and collaboration skills, displaying their understanding of science concepts (such as the needs of animals and living things), and exercising their literacy and writing skills. Such benefits are precisely why free play has an important role in developmentally appropriate practice. To maximize learning, teachers also provide guided play experiences.

Guided Play

While free play has great value for children, empirical evidence suggests that it is not always sufficient  when there is a pedagogical goal at stake  (Smith & Pellegrini 2008; Alfieri et al. 2011; Fisher et al. 2013; Lillard 2013; Weisberg, Hirsh-Pasek, & Golinkoff 2013; Toub et al. 2018). This is where guided play comes in.

Guided play allows teachers to focus children’s play around specific learning goals (e.g., standards-based goals), which can be applied to a variety of topics, from learning place value in math to identifying rhyming words in literacy activities. Note, however, that the teacher does not take over the play activity or even direct it. Instead, she asks probing questions that guide the next level of child-directed exploration. This is a perfect example of how a teacher can initiate a context for learning while still leaving the child in charge. In the previous kindergarten vignette, the teacher guided the children in developing their literacy skills as she embedded writing activities within the free play at the centers.

Facilitating Guided Play

Skilled teachers set up environments and facilitate development and learning throughout the early childhood years, such as in the following:

• Ms. Taglieri notices what 4-month-old Anthony looks at and shows interest in. Following his interest and attention, she plays Peekaboo, adjusting her actions (where she places the blanket and peeks out at him) to maintain engagement.
• Ms. Eberhard notices that 22-month-old Abe knows the color yellow. She prepares her environment based on this observation, placing a few yellow objects along with a few red ones on a small table. Abe immediately goes to the table, picking up each yellow item and verbally labeling them (“Lellow!”).
• Mr. Gorga creates intrigue and participation by inviting his preschool class to “be shape detectives” and to “discover the secret of shapes.” As the children explore the shapes, Mr. Gorga offers questions and prompts to guide children to answer the question “What makes them the same kind of shapes?”

An analogy for facilitating guided play is bumper bowling. If bumpers are in place, most children are more likely than not to knock down some pins when they throw the ball down the lane. That is different than teaching children exactly how to throw it (although some children, such as those who have disabilities or who become frustrated if they feel a challenge is too great, may require that level of support or instruction). Guided play is not a one-size-fits-all prescriptive pedagogical technique. Instead, teachers match the level of support they give in guided play to the children in front of them.

Critically, many teachers already implement these kinds of playful activities. When the children are excited by the birds they have seen outside of their window for the past couple of days, the teachers may capitalize on this interest and provide children with materials for a set of playful activities about bird names, diets, habitats, and songs. Asking children to use their hands to mimic an elephant’s trunk when learning vocabulary can promote learning through playful instruction that involves movement. Similarly, embedding vocabulary in stories that are culturally relevant promotes language and early literacy development (García-Alvarado, Arreguín, & Ruiz-Escalante 2020). For example, a teacher who has several children in his class with Mexican heritage decides to read aloud  Too Many Tamales  (by Gary Soto, illus. Ed Martinez) and have the children reenact scenes from it, learning about different literary themes and concepts through play. The children learn more vocabulary, have a better comprehension of the text, and see themselves and their experiences reflected. The teacher also adds some of the ingredients and props for making tamales into the sociodramatic play center (Salinas-González, Arreguín-Anderson, & Alanís 2018) and invites families to share stories about family  tamaladas  (tamale-making parties).

Evidence Supporting Guided Play as a Powerful Pedagogical Tool

Evidence from the science of learning suggests that discovery-based guided play actually results in increased learning for all children relative to both free play and direct instruction (see Alferi et al. 2011). These effects hold across content areas including spatial learning (Fisher et al. 2013), literacy (Han et al. 2010; Nicolopoulou et al. 2015; Hassinger-Das et al. 2016; Cavanaugh et al. 2017; Toub et al. 2018; Moedt & Holmes 2020), and mathematics (Zosh et al. 2016).

There are several possible reasons for guided play’s effectiveness. First, it harnesses the joy that is critical to creativity and learning (e.g., Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki 1987; Resnick 2007). Second, during guided play, the adults help “set the stage for thought and action” by essentially limiting the number of possible outcomes for the children so that the learning goal is discoverable, but children still direct the activity (Weisberg et al. 2014, 276). Teachers work to provide high-quality materials, eliminate distractions, and prepare the space, but then, critically, they let the child play the active role of construction. Third, in guided play, the teacher points the way toward a positive outcome and hence lessens the ambiguity (the degrees of freedom) without directing children to an answer or limiting children to a single discovery (e.g., Bonawitz et al. 2011). And finally, guided play provides the opportunity for new information to be integrated with existing knowledge and updated as children explore.

Reinforcing Numeracy with a Game

The children in Mr. Cohen’s preschool class are at varying levels of understanding in early numeracy skills (e.g., cardinality, one-to-one correspondence, order irrelevance). He knows that his children need some practice with these skills but wants to make the experience joyful while also building these foundational skills. One day, he brings out a new game for them to play—The Great Race. Carla and Michael look up expectantly, and their faces light up when they realize they will be playing a game instead of completing a worksheet. The two quickly pull out the box, setting up the board and choosing their game pieces. Michael begins by flicking the spinner with his finger, landing on 2. “Nice!” Carla exclaims, as Michael moves his game piece, counting “One, two.” Carla takes a turn next, spinning a 1 and promptly counting “one” as she moves her piece one space ahead. “My turn!” Michael says, eager to win the race. As he spins a 2, he pauses. “One . . . two,” he says, hesitating, as he moves his piece to space 4 on the board. Carla corrects him, “I think you mean ‘three, four,’ right? You have to count up from where you are on the board.” Michael nods, remembering the rules Mr. Cohen taught him earlier that day. “Right,” he says, “three, four.”

Similar to guided play, games can be designed in ways that help support learning goals (Hassinger-Das et al. 2017). In this case, instead of adults playing the role of curating the activity, the games themselves provide this type of external scaffolding. The example with Michael and Carla shows how children can learn through games, which is supported by research. In one well-known study, playing a board game (i.e., The Great Race) in which children navigated through a linear, numerical-based game board (i.e., the game board had equally spaced game spaces that go from left to right) resulted in increased numerical development as compared to playing the same game where the numbers were replaced by colors (Siegler & Ramani 2008) or with numbers organized in a circular fashion (Siegler & Ramani 2009). Structuring experiences so that the learning goal is intertwined naturally with children’s play supports their learning. A critical point with both guided play and games is that children are provided with support but still lead their own learning.

Digital educational games have become enormously popular, with tens of thousands of apps marketed as “educational,” although there is no independent review of these apps. Apps and digital games may have educational value when they inspire active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive experiences (Hirsh-Pasek et al. 2015), but recent research suggests that many of the most downloaded educational apps do not actually align with these characteristics that lead to learning (Meyer et al. 2021). Teachers should exercise caution and evaluate any activity—digital or not—to see how well it harnesses the power of playful learning.

Next Steps for Educators

Educators are uniquely positioned to prepare today’s children for achievement today and success tomorrow. Further, the evidence is mounting that playful pedagogies appear to be an accessible, powerful tool that harnesses the pillars of learning. This approach can be used across ages and is effective in learning across domains.

By leveraging children’s own interests and mindfully creating activities that let children play their way to new understanding and skills, educators can start using this powerful approach today. By harnessing the children’s interests at different ages and engaging them in playful learning activities, educators can help children learn while having fun. And, importantly, educators will have more fun too when they see children happy and engaged.

As the tide begins to change in individual classrooms, educators need to acknowledge that vast inequalities (e.g., socioeconomic achievement gaps) continue to exist (Kearney & Levine 2016). The larger challenge remains in propelling a cultural shift so that administrators, families, and policymakers understand the way in which educators can support the success of all children through high-quality, playful learning experiences.

Consider the following reflection questions as you reflect how to support equitable playful learning experiences for each and every child:

• One of the best places to start is by thinking about your teaching strengths. Perhaps you are great at sparking joy and engagement. Or maybe you are able to frequently leverage children’s home lives in your lessons. How can you expand practices you already use as an educator or are learning about in your courses to incorporate the playful learning described in this article?
• How can you share the information in this chapter with families, administrators, and other educators? How can you help them understand how play can engage children in deep, joyful learning?

This piece is excerpted from NAEYC’s recently published book  Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8,  Fourth Edition. For more information about the book, visit  NAEYC.org/resources/pubs/books/dap-fourth-edition .

Teaching Play Skills

Pamela Brillante

While many young children with autism spectrum disorder enjoy playing, they can have difficulty engaging in traditional play activities. They may engage in activities that do not look like ordinary play, including playing with only a few specific toys or playing in a specific, repetitive way.

Even though most children learn play skills naturally, sometimes families and teachers have to teach children how to play. Learning how to play will help develop many other skills young children need for the future, including

• social skills:  taking turns, sharing, and working cooperatively
• cognitive skills:  problem-solving skills, early academic skills
• communication skills:  responding to others, asking questions
• physical skills:  body awareness, fine and gross motor coordination

Several evidence-based therapeutic approaches to teaching young children with autism focus on teaching play skills, including

• The Play Project:  https://playproject.org
• The Greenspan Floortime approach: https://stanleygreenspan.com
• Integrated Play Group (IPG) Model: www.wolfberg.com

While many children with autism have professionals and therapists working with them, teachers and families should work collaboratively and provide multiple opportunities for children to practice new skills and engage in play at their own level. For example, focus on simple activities that promote engagement between the adult and the child as well as the child and their peers without disabilities, including playing with things such as bubbles, cause-and-effect toys, and interactive books. You can also use the child’s preferred toy in the play, like having the Spider-Man figure be the one popping the bubbles.

Pamela Brillante , EdD, has spent 30 years working as a special education teacher, administrator, consultant, and professor. In addition to her full-time faculty position in the Department of Special Education, Professional Counseling and Disability Studies at William Paterson University of New Jersey, Dr. Brillante continues to consult with school districts and present to teachers and families on the topic of high-quality, inclusive early childhood practices.  

Photographs: © Getty Images Copyright © 2022 by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at  NAEYC.org/resources/permissions .

Alfieri, L., P.J. Brooks, N.J. Aldrich, & H.R. Tenenbaum. 2011. “Does Discovery-Based Instruction Enhance Learning?” Journal of Educational Psychology 103 (1): 1–18.  

Bassok, D., S. Latham, & A. Rorem. 2016. “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?” AERA Open 2 (1): 1–31. doi.10.1177/2332858415616358. 

Bergen, D., ed. 1988. Play as a Medium for Learning and Development: A Handbook of Theory and Practice . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Educational Books. 

Bonawitz, E.B., P. Shafto, H. Gweon, N.D. Goodman, E.S. Spelke, & L. Schulz. 2011. “The Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction Limits Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery.” Cognition 120 (3): 322–30. 

Cavanaugh, D.M., K.J. Clemence, M.M. Teale, A.C. Rule, & S.E. Montgomery. 2017. “Kindergarten Scores, Storytelling, Executive Function, and Motivation Improved Through Literacy-Rich Guided Play.” Journal of Early Childhood Education 45 (6): 1–13. 

Christakis, E. 2016. The Importance of Being Little: What Preschoolers Really Need from Grownups . New York: Penguin Books.  

Duncan, G. J., A. Claessens, A.C. Huston, L.S. Pagani, M. Engel, H. Sexton, C.J. Dowsett, K. Magnuson, P. Klebanov, L. Feinstein, J. Brooks-Gunn, K. Duckworth, & C. Japel. 2007. “School Readiness and Later Achievement.” Developmental Psychology 43 (6): 1428–46. https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1428 .  

Fisher, K.R., K. Hirsh-Pasek, N. Newcombe, & R.M. Golinkoff. 2013. “Taking Shape: Supporting Preschoolers’ Acquisition of Geometric Knowledge Through Guided Play.” Child Development 84 (6): 1872–78. 

García-Alvarado, S., M.G. Arreguín, & J.A. Ruiz-Escalante. 2020. “Mexican-American Preschoolers as Co-Creators of Zones of Proximal Development During Retellings of Culturally Relevant Stories: A Participatory Study.” Journal of Early Childhood Literacy : 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1468798420930339 . 

Gray, P. 2013. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life . New York: Basic Books.  

Han, M., N. Moore, C. Vukelich, & M. Buell. 2010. “Does Play Make a Difference? How Play Intervention Affects the Vocabulary Learning of At-Risk Preschoolers.” American Journal of Play 3 (1): 82–105. 

Hannaway, J., & L. Hamilton. 2008. Accountability Policies: Implications for School and Classroom Practices . Washington, DC: Urban Institute. http://webarchive.urban.org/publications/411779.html . 

Hassinger-Das, B., K. Ridge, A. Parker, R.M. Golinkoff, K. Hirsh-Pasek, & D.K. Dickinson. 2016. “Building Vocabulary Knowledge in Preschoolers Through Shared Book Reading and Gameplay.” Mind, Brain, and Education 10 (2): 71–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12103 . 

Hassinger-Das, B., T.S. Toub, J.M. Zosh, J. Michnick, R. Golinkoff, & K. Hirsh-Pasek. 2017. “More Than Just Fun: A Place for Games in Playful Learning.” Infancia y aprendizaje: Journal for the Study of Education and Development 40 (2): 191–218. https://doi.org/10.1080/02103702.2017.1292684 . 

Hirsh-Pasek, K., & R.M. Golinkoff. 2008. “Why Play = Learning.” In Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online], eds. R.E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, & R.D. Peters, topic ed. P.K. Smith, 1–6. Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development. www.child-encyclopedia.com/play/according-experts/why-play-learning . 

Hirsh-Pasek, K., H. S. Hadani, E. Blinkoff, & R. M. Golinkoff. 2020. A new path to education reform: Playful learning promotes 21st-century skills in schools and beyond . The Brookings Institution: Big Ideas Policy Report. www.brookings.edu/policy2020/bigideas/a-new-path-to-education-reform-playful-learning-promotes-21st-century-skills-in-schools-and-beyond . 

Hirsh-Pasek, K., J.M. Zosh, R.M. Golinkoff, J.H. Gray, M.B. Robb, & J. Kaufman. 2015. “Putting Education in ‘Educational’ Apps: Lessons from the Science of Learning.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 16 (1): 3–34. 

Isen, A.M., K.A. Daubman, & G.P. Nowicki. 1987. “Positive Affect Facilitates Creative Problem Solving.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 52 (6): 1122–31. 

Kearney, M.S., & P.B. Levine. (2016, Spring). Income, Inequality, Social Mobility, and the Decision to Drop Out of High School . Washington, DC: Brookings. www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/income-inequality-social-mobility-and-the-decision-to-drop-out-of-high-school . 

King, A. 1993. “From Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side.” College Teaching 41 (1): 30–35.  

Lillard, A.S. 2013. “Playful Learning and Montessori Education.” American Journal of Play 5 (2): 157–86. 

Meyer, M., J.M. Zosh, C. McLaren, M. Robb, R.M. Golinkoff, K. Hirsh-Pasek, & J. Radesky. 2021. “How Educational Are ‘Educational’ Apps for Young Children? App Store Content Analysis Using the Four Pillars of Learning Framework.” Journal of Children and Media . Published online February 23. 

Miller, E., & J. Almon. 2009. Crisis in the Kindergarten: Why Children Need to Play in School . College Park, MD: Alliance for Childhood. https:// files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED504839.pdf . 

Moedt, K., & R.M. Holmes. 2020. “The Effects of Purposeful Play After Shared Storybook Readings on Kindergarten Children’s Reading Comprehension, Creativity, and Language Skills and Abilities.” Early Child Development and Care 190 (6): 839–54. 

NAEYC. 2020. “Developmentally Appropriate Practice.” Position statement. Washington, DC: NAEYC. www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap .  

Neuman, S.B., & K. Roskos. 1992. “Literacy Objects as Cultural Tools: Effects on Children’s Literacy Behaviors in Play.” Reading Research Quarterly 27 (3): 202–25.  

Nicolopoulou, A., K.S. Cortina, H. Ilgaz, C.B. Cates, & A.B. de Sá. 2015. “Using a Narrative- and Play-Based Activity to Promote Low-Income Preschoolers’ Oral Language, Emergent Literacy, and Social Competence.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 31 (2): 147–62. 

Pagani, L.S., C. Fitzpatrick, I. Archambault, & M. Janosz. 2010. “School Readiness and Later Achievement: A French Canadian Replication and Extension.” Developmental Psychology 46 (5): 984–94.  

Pedulla, J.J., L.M. Abrams, G.F. Madaus, M.K. Russell, M.A. Ramos, & J. Miao. 2003. “Perceived Effect of State-Mandated Testing Programs on Teaching and Learning: Findings from a National Survey of Teachers” (ED481836). ERIC. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED481836 . 

Ravitch, D. 2010. “Why Public Schools Need Democratic Governance.” Phi Delta Kappan 91 (6): 24–27. 

Resnick, M. 2007. “All I Really Need to Know (About Creative Thinking) I Learned (by Studying How Children Learn) in Kindergarten.” In Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Creativity & Cognition , 1–6. New York: Association for Computing Machinery. 

Romano, E., L. Babchishin, L.S. Pagani, & D. Kohen. 2010. “School Readiness and Later Achievement: Replication and Extension Using a Nationwide Canadian Survey.” Developmental Psychology 46 (5): 995–1007.  

Salinas-González, I., M.G. Arreguín-Anderson, & I. Alanís. 2018. “Supporting Language: Culturally Rich Dramatic Play.” Teaching Young Children 11 (2): 4–6. 

Siegler, R.S., & G.B. Ramani. 2008. “Playing Linear Numerical Board Games Promotes Low-Income Children’s Numerical Development.” Developmental Science 11 (5): 655–61. 

Siegler, R.S., & G.B. Ramani. 2009. “Playing Linear Number Board Games—but Not Circular Ones—Improves Low-Income Preschoolers’ Numerical Understanding. Journal of Educational Psychology 101 (3): 545–60. 

Sim, Z., & F. Xu. 2015. “Toddlers Learn from Facilitated Play, Not Free Play.” In Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society , Berkeley, CA. https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/past-conferences . 

Singer, D.G., & J.L. Singer. 1990. The House of Make-Believe: Children’s Play and the Developing Imagination . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  

Smith, K. 1993. “Becoming the ‘Guide on the Side.’” Educational Leadership 51 (2): 35–37.  

Smith P.K., & A. Pellegrini. 2008. “Learning Through Play.” In Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online], eds. R.E. Tremblay, M. Boivin, & R.D. Peters, 1–6. Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development and Strategic Knowledge Cluster on Early Child Development. https://www.child-encyclopedia.com/pdf/expert/play/according-experts/learning-through-play . 

Souto-Manning, M. 2017. “Is Play a Privilege or a Right? And What’s Our Responsibility? On the Role of Play for Equity in Early Childhood Education.” Foreword. Early Child Development and Care 187 (5–6): 785–87. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2016.1266588 . 

Toub, T.S., B. Hassinger-Das, K.T. Nesbitt, H. Ilgaz, D.S. Weisberg, K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, A. Nicolopoulou, & D.K. Dickinson. 2018. “The Language of Play: Developing Preschool Vocabulary Through Play Following Shared Book-Reading.” Early Childhood Research Quarterly 45 (4): 1–17.  

Weisberg, D.S., K. Hirsh-Pasek, & R.M. Golinkoff. 2013. “Guided Play: Where Curricular Goals Meet a Playful Pedagogy.” Mind, Brain, and Education 7 (2): 104–12. 

Weisberg, D.S., K. Hirsh-Pasek, R.M. Golinkoff, & B.D. McCandliss. 2014. “Mise en place: Setting the Stage for Thought and Action.” Trends in Cognitive Science 18 (6): 276–78. 

Zosh, J.M., B. Hassinger-Das, T.S. Toub, K. Hirsh-Pasek, & R. Golinkoff. 2016. “Playing with Mathematics: How Play Supports Learning and the Common Core State Standards.” Journal of Mathematics Education at Teachers College 7 (1): 45–49. https://doi.org/10.7916/jmetc.v7i1.787 . 

Zosh, J.M., K. Hirsh-Pasek, E.J. Hopkins, H. Jensen, C. Liu, D. Neale, S.L. Solis, & D. Whitebread. 2018. “Accessing the Inaccessible: Redefining Play as a Spectrum.” Frontiers in Psychology 9: 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01124 . 

Jennifer M. Zosh, PhD, is professor of human development and family studies at Penn State Brandywine. Most recently, her work has focused on technology and its impact on children as well as playful learning as a powerful pedagogy. She publishes journal articles, book chapters, blogs, and white papers and focuses on the dissemination of developmental research.

Caroline Gaudreau, PhD, is a research professional at the TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health at the University of Chicago. She received her PhD from the University of Delaware, where she studied how children learn to ask questions and interact with screen media. She is passionate about disseminating research and interventions to families across the country.

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, PhD, conducts research on language development, the benefits of play, spatial learning, and the effects of media on children. A member of the National Academy of Education, she is a cofounder of Playful Learning Landscapes, Learning Science Exchange, and the Ultimate Playbook for Reimagining Education. Her last book, Becoming Brilliant: What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children (American Psychological Association, 2016), reached the New York Times bestseller list.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, PhD, is the Lefkowitz Faculty Fellow in the Psychology and Neuroscience department at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research examines the development of early language and literacy, the role of play in learning, and learning and technology. [email protected]

Vol. 77, No. 2

Print this article

• Early Years

3 ways to tackle the early years staffing crisis

To fulfil the expansion of free early education and childcare entitlements pledged under the previous Conservative government, the Department for Education has estimated that an extra 40,000 workers will be needed by September 2025 - an increase of 11.5 per cent on the number in the workforce in 2023.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that a 2024 report by the National Audit Office described this recruitment target as “ambitious”, noting that the sector only saw a 5 per cent growth in staff numbers between 2018 and 2023.

With responsibility for rolling out the policy now falling to the new Labour government, here we consider the recruitment and retention challenges and explore the impact on three Early Years Special Initiative (EYSI) programmes and their p otential to address the situation.

Recruitment and retention in the early years

In 2020 the Social Mobility Commission reviewed workforce stability in England’s early education and childcare sector , finding six key obstacles :

• Low income.
• High workload and responsibilities.
• Over-reliance on female practitioners.
• Insufficient training and opportunities for progression.
• Low status and reputation.
• A negative organisational culture and climate.

Working conditions in the early years are often demanding, with employees facing long hours - 11 per cent of them work more than 42 hours a week. Just 3 per cent of staff in retail work these hours and 6 per cent of women in employment.

Opportunities for career growth are also scarce, with only 17 per cent of staff receiving job-related training post-entry. Low wages were highlighted as a “major cause of instability” because many staff struggled financially and then left for better-paid roles in retail or hospitality.

This is perhaps why, before the Covid-19 crisis, around 45 per cent of early education and childcare workers claimed state benefits or tax credits - higher than the national average for the broader female workforce (34 per cent).

These factors combine to create a challenging work environment in the early childhood education and care sector.

Impact of the staffing crisis on care

There is a growing crisis in the retention of qualified staff. The proportion of unqualified staff in nurseries and pre-schools has risen from 17 per cent in 2020 to 22 per cent in 2024 .

This trend indicates a shift towards a less qualified workforce - a real concern when research shows that settings with highly qualified staff tend to achieve higher quality scores and their children typically make greater developmental progress.

With less well-qualified staff available, providers are forced to use agency staff and apprentices to maintain staff-child ratios, meaning that children may not have a consistent key person.

Parents acknowledge this issue. In a summary of evidence submitted to the Commons Education Select Committee, many emphasised that “children need consistency in their care”.

Three EYSI programmes

Efforts to address these issues are underway through the EYSI, whose programmes are equally subject to the impact of the pandemic on staffing levels, as we noted in our interim report in 2023 .

The programmes’ efforts demonstrate how education providers are developing strategies to address current challenges.

1. Enhanced investment in recruitment

Ark Start is delivering an integrated early years education programme to help close the disadvantage-related attainment gap. It designed bespoke training to integrate new staff quickly. Training is ongoing, with regular CPD opportunities focusing on age-specific planning meetings, weekly supervisions and coaching.

These methods have produced impressive retention metrics, with no staff turnover this year (compared with a 28 per cent industry benchmark). A staff survey shows that 80 per cent of the team of 17 expect to stay for at least two years. While the EYSI funding has ended for Ark Start, it is continuing this work and assessing its impact.

2. Additional training sessions

The National Children’s Bureau’s (NCB) literacy-based home-learning environment programme, Making it REAL (Raising Early Attainment in Literacy), trains early years practitioners and teachers to support parents in developing their children’s communication and early literacy skills.

For the EYSI programme, the NCB tracks when trained practitioners leave a setting so that additional training sessions can be offered. Approximately 10 per cent of trained practitioners have left, but this approach effectively dedicated resources and ongoing support to settings, ensuring that the impact of staff turnover on programme delivery was minimised.

3. Streamlining flexible training

Peeple aims to nurture science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) skills in young children through its Exploring Together programme . Peeple’s training uses a modularised approach that combines pre-recorded and live online sessions, increasing retention by improving accessibility for busy staff.

Peeple’s scalable design shows the potential for improving participation in training. The seven practitioners recruited have maintained full participation with no dropouts during training or delivery.

Hope of improvement

Recruiting and retaining qualified staff is a challenge with far-reaching consequences for the quality and consistency of early education and childcare.

Yet with numerous EYSI programmes looking at ways to manage this impact, there is hope that things can improve.

However, only by stabilising and professionalising the workforce can we hope to provide the quality of education necessary for children’s optimal development and to meet the ambitious early education and childcare expansion goals.

Joni Kelly is a research assistant in the early years, inequalities and wellbeing team at the Education Policy Institute

The EYSI projects are funded by the Charity of Sir Richard Whittington, of which the Mercers’ Company is corporate trustee. The EPI is supporting it as a learning partner

For the latest education news and analysis delivered every weekday morning, sign up for the Tes Daily newsletter

Want to keep reading for free?

Register with Tes and you can read two free articles every month plus you'll have access to our range of award-winning newsletters.

Keep reading for just £1 per month

You've reached your limit of free articles this month. Subscribe for £1 per month for three months and get:

• Unlimited access to all Tes magazine content
• Exclusive subscriber-only stories
• Award-winning email newsletters

topics in this article