The Center for Early Childhood Education is pleased to announce that three research briefs on the importance of physical and outdoor play are now available on the Head Start Body Start website. The Center received a contract from Head Start Body Start in 2010 to conduct research on the developmental benefits of outdoor and physical play for children from birth to age five. The Center reviewed over 100 studies in an annotated bibliography, and summarized the findings in a comprehensive literature review. Using these findings, the Center created five video clips and developed five research-into-practice briefs to help early childhood providers implement practices that research indicates promote physical and outdoor play. The following three briefs are now available from Head Start Body Start:
- Learning to Move and Moving to Learn: Integrating Movement Into the Everyday Curriculum to Promote Learning
- Moving with Feeling: Nurturing Preschool Children's Emotional Health Through Active Play
- Lullabies, Leaping, and Learning: Supporting Thinking in Infants and Toddlers Through Active Music and Play Experiences
To read the briefs, watch the videos, or learn more about the project, visit http://www.easternct.edu/cece/physical_play_abstract.html
An article written by Jeffrey Trawick-Smith, Phyllis Waite Endowed Chair in early childhood education, and one of his students, Tracy Dziurgot, has been selected as Outstanding Research Article in Early Childhood Teacher Education for 2011, awarded by the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators and Taylor and Francis Publishers. The article, "Untangling Teacher-Child Play Interactions: Do Teacher Education and Experience Influence Good-Fit Responses to Children's Play?," reports research findings that indicate that higher levels of education predict preschool teachers' sensitivity to and understanding of children's play in classrooms. Trawick-Smith and Dzuirgot will be honored in an award ceremony in Orlando, FL, in November.
