Best Practices Archives - Early Learning Nation

Baby pulling stethoscope. Photo courtesy Mount Sinai Parenting Center

A Work in Progress: How Mount Sinai Parenting Center Is Bringing the Science of Child Development into Pediatric Education

Mark Swartz·Mar 27, 2019·4 min read

New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital is one of the nation’s oldest and largest teaching hospitals. They're upping their early childhoold development game with an online curriculum that demonstrates how pediatric residents can promote brain development and help strengthen parent-child relationships within the confines of routine well-child visits

Mindfulness and Young Children: Six Resources for Beginners and Skeptics

Mark Swartz·Nov 19, 2020·3 min read

Sometimes a term gets repeated so often that the meaning becomes obscure. While it might seem like we’re all talking...

Learning Early to ‘Taste the Stillness’ Can Set a Child Up for Lifelong Well-being

K.C. Compton·Aug 11, 2020·6 min read

When some of us think about meditation, our thoughts lean toward the sound of a softly gurgling fountain, a gentle...

A group of three children smiling broadly

When Teaching Sex Education and Consent, How Young is Too Young?

Tom Kertscher·May 14, 2019·6 min read

Some experts say that when it comes specifically to teaching consent, sex education for young children can be done without being explicit, and it can help kids learn about boundaries and empathy when it comes to their own bodies and the bodies of other people.

Behind the Mask: Alicia Lieberman Reflects on Trauma and Toddlers

Mark Swartz·May 7, 2020·3 min read

Dr. Alicia Lieberman was on a telemedicine call with a mother and her four-year-old son. The boy was continually and...

This Book Is Cool! Program Fights the Summer Slide and the COVID-19 Slump

K.C. Compton·Sep 3, 2020·8 min read

Most of us have heard of the “summer slide” in which children lose some of the lessons they’ve learned during...

5 Ways Colleges Can Assist Students Who Are Parents of Young Children

Mikah Jorgensen·Oct 6, 2022·5 min read

Across the U.S., colleges and universities have pledged to enhance diversity and to prioritize inclusiveness. In the wake of the...

7 Reasons to Be Encouraged about the Planet Our Children Are Inheriting

Finding Hope in the U.S. Early Years Climate Action Plan

Mark Swartz·Dec 26, 2023·6 min read

While climate change is all around us, and the projections are uniformly grim, there have never been so many local,...

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff & Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Part 2): Say What? Helping Teachers Measure Children’s Language Skills

The Editors·Apr 24, 2019·4 min read

According to Roberta Michnick Golinkoff & Kathy Hirsh-Pasek – researchers and co-authors of “Becoming Brilliant, What Science Tells Us About Raising Successful Children” – language is the single best predictor of how young children will do in school. That’s why they’ve created an innovative, easy way for practitioners to measure students’ verbal progress. Filmed for Early Learning Nation’s Mobile Studio at the Society for Research in Child Development’s biennial meeting in Baltimore, MD, on March 22, 2019. #SRCD19

In the morning, as children dash into their preschools and home-based care sites, hanging coats and finding favorite toys or...

Best Practices

A Work in Progress: How Mount Sinai Parenting Center Is Bringing the Science of Child Development into Pediatric Education

Mindfulness and Young Children: Six Resources for Beginners and Skeptics

Learning Early to ‘Taste the Stillness’ Can Set a Child Up for Lifelong Well-being

When Teaching Sex Education and Consent, How Young is Too Young?

Behind the Mask: Alicia Lieberman Reflects on Trauma and Toddlers

This Book Is Cool! Program Fights the Summer Slide and the COVID-19 Slump

5 Ways Colleges Can Assist Students Who Are Parents of Young Children

7 Reasons to Be Encouraged about the Planet Our Children Are Inheriting

Roberta Michnick Golinkoff & Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Part 2): Say What? Helping Teachers Measure Children’s Language Skills

Research Says It’s Better to Follow a Baby’s Lead: Attempts to Teach a Baby Can Backfire

Good Learning Needs Good Nutrition: A Fundamental Value for the Educare Learning Network

Our Child Care Facilities Are in Crisis But There Are Solutions

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