Ready-to-reproduce practice pages-written in a variety of genres, including articles, biographies, e-mail announcements, and how-to guides-help struggling readers build comprehension skills. Companion questions for each passage focus on skills such as inferencing, sequencing, predicting, understanding story elements, and more. All of the highly engaging passages are written at slightly below grade level.

Mobile learning is a primary learning format in the education of young children from birth through 6th grade. This format has been found to have a positive impact on the academic achievement, self-efficacy, motivation, and learning attitudes of students, including those with special needs (Ciampa, 2014; Hwang, 2014; Nikou & Economides, 2018; Xie, Basham, Marino & Rice, 2018). In both formal and informal learning contexts, mobile learning affords opportunities to innovate and explore new forms of authentic experiences, meaning-making, and creativity with untethered technology (Choi, Land, & Zimmerman, 2018; Schuck, Kearney & Burden, 2017). This edited book acts as a springboard to expand discussions surrounding how mobiles might best be situated in contexts relating to young children. With a focus on early childhood and elementary settings, this book both expands the definition of mobiles to encompass digital-physical tools (e.g. Osmo, probeware) and wearables. It also provides insight into how intentional integration of mobiles supports the development and practice of both in-service and preservice teachers working with students in early childhood and elementary settings.

Early childhood education (ECE) has always been intertwined with the use of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP). To support excellence in ECE, it is critical how the knowledge about individual children and child development principles combined with the knowledge of effective early learning practices. Effective early childhood education involves an interdisciplinary collaborative process that is influenced by many factors. We present these aforementioned realities in Educating Young Children With and Without Exceptionalities: New Perspectives. In addition, we argue that general and special educators need to focus on applying new knowledge to better address critical issues that advance the field of educator preparation and improve educational outcomes for young children. Early childhood research confirms the need for intensive intervention and remedial education-we need to avoid approaches that are "too little" or "too late." Also proven to yield positive results for children are practices familiar to early childhood educators. These practices include relationship-based teaching and learning; partnering with families; adapting teaching for children from different backgrounds and for individual children; active, meaningful, and connected learning; and smaller class sizes. Evidence of the benefits of these practices suggests that they should be extended more widely into the elementary grades.

Researchers from different disciplines (e.g., physiological, psychological, philosophical) have investigated motivation using multiple approaches. For example, in physiology (the scientific study of the normal function in living systems such as biology), researchers may use "electrical and chemical stimulation of the brain, the recording of electrical brain-wave activity with the electroencephalograph, and lesion techniques, where a portion of the brain (usually of a laboratory animal) is destroyed and subsequent changes in motivation are noted" (Petri & Cofer, 2017). Physiological studies mainly conducted with animals, other than humans, have revealed the significance of particular brain structures in the control of fundamental motives such as hunger, thirst, sex, aggression, and fear. In psychology, researchers may study the individuals' behaviors to understand their actions. In sociology, researchers may examine how individuals' interactions influence their behavior. For instance, in the classroom students and teachers behave in expected ways, which may differ when they are outside the classroom. Saracho (2003) examined the students' academic achievement when they matched or mismatched their teachers' way of thinking. She identified both the teachers and students individual differences and defined consistencies in their cognitive processes. In philosophy, researchers can study the individuals' theoretical position such as supporting Maslow's (1943) concept that motivation can create behaviors that augments motivation in the future. Abraham H. Maslow's theory of self-actualization supports this theoretical position (Petri & Cofer, 2017). These areas and others are represented in this volume. This volume is devoted to understanding mutual and contemporary themes in the individuals' motivation and its relationship to cognition. The current literature covers several methods to the multifaceted relationships between motivational and cognitive processes. Comprehensive reviews of the literature focus on prominent cognitive perspectives on motivation with young children, which includes ages from birth to eight years of age. The chapters in this special volume review and critically analyze the literature on several aspects of the relationships between motivational and cognitive processes and demonstrates the breadth and theoretical effectiveness of this domain. This brief introduction acknowledges the valuable contributions of these chapters to the study of human motivation. This volume can be a valuable tool to researchers who are conducting studies in the motivation field. It focuses on important contemporary issues on motivation in early childhood education (ages 0 to 8) to provide the information necessary to make judgments about these issues. It also motivates and guides researchers to explore gaps in the motivation literature.

Educational inequalities between students begin early, as children enter kindergarten with vastly different sets of background knowledge and experiences that do (or in many cases do not) prepare them to learn successfully in school. Many children enter school with skills and prior knowledge so low that they are unable to overcome this lack during the kindergarten year, leaving them unprepared for first grade. Predictably, these deficits only widen as the children progress on to subsequent grades. Conversely, children who enter kindergarten prepared to learn, and leave kindergarten having mastered key competencies in literacy and numeracy, are more likely to succeed throughout their schooling and later in life. The recent pandemic has only exacerbated this problem of learner variability. Differences in school approaches to remote or hybrid learning and variability in family and home environments have all impacted the performance of children, many of whom are now nearly a year behind. The pandemic has forced us all to consider the ways in which traditional models of schooling have fallen short, and how we might better design programs that leverage all the inputs in a young child's life (the home, parents, school, community, technology, and more) to ensure that their learning needs are met. If we hope to solve this problem at scale, we must re-examine what we know about these formative early years and develop new ways to ensure that children enter kindergarten ready to learn and leave kindergarten with all the competencies they need succeed in later schooling and beyond. We must consider of all the factors that contribute to a child's school readiness, as well as the critical learning must take place during the kindergarten year. It requires the examination of factors that most influence children's development during the first five years, and their lasting effects on the rest of children's lives. More importantly, we must examine the ways that we, as stakeholders, can influence outcomes for young children by creating synergies between and among these various factors. With all this in mind, this book proposes to assemble the most current research and thought-leadership on the ways in which innovative education stakeholders are working together to impact what are perhaps the most critical years in a child's education - the years leading up to and including kindergarten. Ensuring that children enter kindergarten ready to learn and leave kindergarten with all the key competencies required for later success must be pursued with intensity, creativity, and purpose if we truly wish to address learner variability and its impact on achievement at scale. This book will Illuminate the problem of learner variability in early childhood education, its short and long-term effects on K-12 education and life beyond school, and the potential of technological innovations to address this problem at scale.

With the recent uptick of violence in schools, it is essential to strategize new concepts for promoting nonviolent tendencies in children and creating safe environments. Through nonviolent teaching techniques, it is possible to effectively demonstrate mutual respect, tolerance, and compassion in order to have a lasting peace. Cultivating a Culture of Nonviolence in Early Childhood Development Centers and Schools aims to expand and deepen multicultural nonviolent teaching techniques and concepts to achieve desired outcomes for early childhood development centers, schools, institutions of higher learning, and centers of teacher development and training. While highlighting topics including child development, conflict resolution, and classroom leadership, this book is ideally designed for teachers, directors, principals, teacher organizations, school counselors, psychologists, social workers, government officials, policymakers, researchers, and students.