基于整合设计思想的北京地区幼儿园绿地规划

绿地规划设计在幼儿园室外环境营造中起着重要作用。以北京总后幼儿园为例,探讨北京地区幼儿园绿地规划设计的现状及问题。从景观专业出发,侧重儿童感受,提出"幼儿园绿地与活动区域整合设计"理念。结合北京地区特点,从绿地空间分类、种植方式、植物品种选择等方面总结幼儿园绿地规划设计方法与手法,将整合设计理念及设计手法运用到北京地区幼儿园室外环境设计中。     

High school students as therapeutic agents with young children experiencing school adjustment difficulties: The effectiveness of a filial therapy training model.

Filial therapy has been used since the early 1960s to train parents as therapeutic agents for children experiencing a broad range of social, emotional and behavioral difficulties. Using a pretest-posttest control group design, this study examined the efficacy of a filial therapy model in training high school students to be effective helpers with young children experiencing school adjustment difficulties. 32 high school students enrolled in a Peer Assistance and Leadership course titled PALs were trained to become therapeutic change agents for identified prekindergarten and kindergarten students. The PALs students received training and supervision in child-centered play therapy skills that they practiced in weekly play sessions with their assigned child. Results from the statistical analyses reveal that the experimental group of high school students receiving filial therapy training demonstrated a significant increase in their empathic interactions with children and that the experimental group of children receiving the play therapy intervention experienced a significant reduction in problem behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting reading and mathematics achievement in fourth-grade children from kindergarten readiness scores.

This study examined age and gender differences in verbal skills and visuomotor skills at kindergarten, in achievement in reading and mathematics at Grade 4, and in the link between skills at kindergarten and later achievement (n?=?281). Older children had higher verbal skills and visuomotor skills than younger children, and girls had higher visuomotor skills and reading achievement than boys. With controls for age, verbal skills uniquely predicted later reading achievement, whereas both verbal skills and visuomotor skills uniquely predicted later mathematics achievement. Readiness in the specific areas of auditory memory and verbal associations predicted later reading achievement, whereas readiness in the specific areas of auditory memory, number skills, and visual discrimination predicted later mathematics achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Effect of School-Based Kindergarten Transition Policies and Practices on Child Academic Outcomes.

This study examined the effect of school-based kindergarten transition policies and practices on child outcomes. The authors followed 17,212 children from 992 schools in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten sample (ECLS-K) across the kindergarten school year. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that the number of school-based transition practices in the fall of kindergarten was associated with more positive academic achievement scores at the end of kindergarten, even controlling for family socioeconomic status (SES) and other demographic factors. This effect was stronger for low- and middle-SES children than high-SES children. For low-SES children, 7 transition practices were associated with a .21 standard deviation increase in predicted achievement scores beyond 0 practices. The effect of transition practices was partially mediated by an intervening effect on parent-initiated involvement in school during the kindergarten year. The findings support education policies to target kindergarten transition efforts to increase parent involvement in low-SES families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy-based phonological awareness tasks: Are they reliable, efficient, and sensitive to growth?

This two-experiment study examined the efficiency and sensitivity of five accuracy-based phonological awareness tasks for monitoring the development of these skills in kindergarten and Grade 1 students. The first experiment examined responses to different numbers and types of items included in each phonological awareness task for their correspondence to responses obtained from a larger, more inclusive item pool. Results suggested that an internally consistent and valid measure of each skill included 10 items per task, each representing a different linguistic combination. The second experiment examined the interscorer reliability and concurrent validity of the 5 measures, and compared their sensitivity to growth. Sensitivity was examined by administering 12 alternate forms of the tasks once per week to 32 kindergarten and 35 Grade 1 students. Mean slopes computed for each task suggested positive growth across all tasks and grades. Mean kindergarten slopes were significantly steeper than mean Grade 1 slopes for each of the 5 tasks, whereas the most sensitive task for both kindergarten and grade I students was Segmentation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Morphological Awareness Uniquely Predicts Young Children's Chinese Character Recognition.

Two unique measures of morphological awareness, along with other reading-related tasks, were orally administered to 100 kindergarten and 100 2nd-grade Hong Kong Chinese children. These morphological awareness tasks were developed on the basis of 2 special properties of Chinese: (a) the relatively large number of homophones requires speakers to distinguish unique meanings in syllables with identical sounds, and (b) complex vocabulary words are often built from 2 or more previously learned morphemes. Both tasks of morphological awareness predicted unique variance in Chinese character recognition in these children, after controlling for age, phonological awareness, speeded naming, speed of processing, and vocabulary. Developmentally, both tasks of morphological awareness improved with age. Results demonstrate that morphological awareness is uniquely important for early Chinese character recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Neighborhood safety and social involvement: Associations with parenting behaviors and depressive symptoms among African-American and Euro-American mothers.

The relation between neighborhood characteristics and parenting and the mediating role of maternal depressive symptoms was examined among African American and Euro-American mothers of kindergarten children. Mothers' ratings of neighborhood safety were related to disciplinary strategies for both African American and Euro-American mothers but not to expressions of affection. Interviewers' ratings of safety were related to mothers' use of hostile socialization strategies. Both mothers' and interviewers' reports of safety were linked with maternal depressive symptoms. Depressive symptoms mediated the relation between neighborhood safety and inconsistent discipline, suggesting that the influence of safety on inconsistent discipline was due to its impact on maternal depression. Although there were similarities across ethnic groups, the relation between social involvement and mothers' withdrawal of interactions with their children differed across groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bilingual phonological awareness: Multilevel construct validation among Spanish-speaking kindergarteners in transitional bilingual education classrooms.

The construct validity of English and Spanish phonological awareness (PA) tasks was examined with a sample of 812 kindergarten children from 71 transitional bilingual education program classrooms located in 3 different types of geographic regions in California and Texas. Tasks of PA, including blending nonwords, segmenting words, and phoneme elision, were measured in Spanish and in English and analyzed via multilevel confirmatory factor analysis at the task level. Results showed that the PA tasks defined a unitary construct at both the student and classroom levels in each language. English and Spanish PA factors were related to each other (.93 and .83 at the student and classroom levels, respectively) as well as to word reading, both within languages (correlations estimated between .74 and .93) and across languages (correlations estimated between .47 and .79). Although the PA constructs were statistically separable in each language, the high correlation between Spanish and English PA indicates considerable overlap in these abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kindergarten Prediction of Reading Skills: A Longitudinal Comparative Analysis.

There is considerable focus in public policy on screening children for reading difficulties. Sixty years of research have not resolved questions of what constructs assessed in kindergarten best predict subsequent reading outcomes. This study assessed the relative importance of multiple measures obtained in a kindergarten sample for the prediction of reading outcomes at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. Analyses revealed that measures of phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and naming speed consistently accounted for the unique variance across reading outcomes whereas measures of perceptual skills and oral language and vocabulary did not. These results show that measures of letter name and letter sound knowledge, naming speed, and phonological awareness are good predictors of multiple reading outcomes in Grades 1 and 2. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fathers' and Mothers' Parenting Behavior and Beliefs as Predictors of Children's Social Adjustment in the Transition to School.

The current study focuses on the association between children's social adjustment in the transition to school and the early elementary school years and their fathers' and mothers' parenting behaviors and beliefs and quality of marital relationship. The authors found that the most competent and least problematic children from the teachers' perspectives are those whose fathers are sensitive and supportive of their children's autonomy, whose mothers' parenting beliefs support self-directed child behavior, and whose parents maintain an emotionally intimate relationship. These findings have implications for efforts to prevent early school problems in children and support the children's transitions into formal schooling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)