A Preliminary Evaluation of REACH: Training Early Childhood Teachers to Support Children’s Social and Emotional Development

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Nicola A. Conners-Burrow ; Terese Patrick ; Angela Kyzer…
• 关键词：Professional development ; Social–emotional development ; Teacher training ; Toddler ; Preschool
• 刊名：Early Childhood Education Journal
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：March 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：45
• 期：2
• 页码：187-199
• 全文大小：
• 刊物类别：Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
• 刊物主题：Learning and Instruction; Education, general; Sociology of Education; Sociology, general;
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-1707
• 卷排序：45

文摘

This paper describes the development, implementation and preliminary evaluation of the Reaching Educators and Children (REACH) program, a training and coaching intervention designed to increase the capacity of early childhood teachers to support children’s social and emotional development. We evaluated REACH with 139 teachers of toddler and preschool classrooms. Teacher attendance and survey results suggest that teachers were highly satisfied with the training and materials. Data from classroom observation scales conducted pre- and post-REACH implementation suggest significant improvements in the sensitivity of teachers’ interactions with children in the classroom, and increased teacher use of targeted social and emotional supports (such as teaching children to resolve conflicts). Further, data from observations of children’s classroom behavior suggest increases in children’s prosocial behaviors and small but significant decreases in verbal aggression. These findings provide preliminary evidence that the REACH program may be effective in building teachers’ capacity to support social–emotional development of young children, and point to the need for additional research.