Recognition

Having spent many years advocating for make-believe play in early childhood classrooms, this is a look at the years of evidence to support the value of play in children’s learning

This international handbook gives a comprehensive overview of findings from longstanding and contemporary research, theory, and practices in early childhood education in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Contemporary Early Childhood Education presents in three comprehensive volumes advanced research, accurate practical applications of research, historical foundations and key facts from the field of contemporary early childhood education.

There is a Tools of the Mind focused chapter in the Handbook of Early Childhood Education Vygotskian and post-Vygotskian views on children’s play by Bodrova E. and Leong, D. J.

In “Assessing and Scaffolding Make-Believe Play,” Deborah J. Leong and Elena Bodrova provide strategies for assessing the levels of preschool children’s independent play to determine the appropriate level of teacher scaffolding.”

There is a Tools of the Mind focused chapter in the The Handbook of the Study of Play titled Vygotskian and post-Vygotskian views on children’s play.

This article reviews a study which examined whether the Tools of the Mind program increased academic achievement, cognitive flexibility, working memory, attention control, and cognitive processing speed for kindergarten students.

A former Tools of the Mind teacher speaks from experience in response to the study published in the PLOS-One journal. Cook concludes that using play- and experience-based lessons to teach both academic and ‘soft-skills’, like self-regulation, is a proven best practice in early education.

An interview with The Marshmallow Test author Walter Mischel, PhD, about his book and his research on the lifelong impact of children’s development executive function and self control.

A review of the study published in the PLOS-One journal on Tools of the Mind’s combined focus on executive functions and early academic learning, suggesting that this combined focus provides the strongest foundation for early success in school.

A look at the study published in the PLOS-One journal and a focus on how promoting structured play in kindergarten yields improved reading, vocabulary and math scores that persist into first grade.

An experimental evaluation on Tools of the Mind, an innovative approach to the education of children in kindergarten that embeds support for self-regulation, particularly executive functions, into literacy, mathematics, and science learning activities. Results indicate positive effects on executive functions, reasoning ability, the control of attention, and levels of salivary cortisol and alpha amylase, as well as improvements in reading, vocabulary, and mathematics at the end of kindergarten that increased into the first grade. The study found a number of effects specific to high-poverty schools, suggesting that a focus on executive functions and associated aspects of self-regulation in early elementary education holds promise for closing the achievement gap.

A look at the study published in the PLOS-One journal and how the focus on developing children’s executive functions skills improved academic learning in and beyond kindergarten.

A look at the study published in the PLOS-One journal which suggests Tools of the Mind provides a significant boost for kindergartners in a slew of areas, including higher reasoning, attention control, and reading, vocabulary, and mathematics performance.

In The Marshmallow Test, Walter Mischel - the world's leading expert on self-control - explains how self-control can be mastered and applied to challenges in everyday life and studies that demonstrate that the ability to delay gratification is critical for a successful life.

This article references the Tools of the Mind curriculum and its emphasis on developing executive functioning.

Brain Rules for Baby shares what current science suggests about how to raise smart and happy children, including discussion of Tools of the Mind and the importance of teaching impulse control.

Describes the Tools of the Mind program as it used in a Children’s Aid Society Pre-k program in East Harlem.

The author’s visit to a Tools of the Mind classroom is included in the introduction to this book which emphasizes the need for educators to promote non-cognitive skills such as self-regulation, in their students.

A chapter on Tools of the Mind in the American Journal of Play.

Tools of the Mind is included in the 2013 CASEL Guide to Effective Social and Emotional Learning Programs. Developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), this guide identifies well-designed school-based program for pre-k and school-aged children with potential for broad dissemination.

This book covers a variety of approaches to early childhood education, including Tools of the Mind.

A report on a pilot study of the Tools of the Mind curriculum in pre-k and kindergarten classrooms in an east coast urban school district in the US.

A New York Times best seller, Nurture Shock offers a revolutionary new perspective on how many of our most popular strategies for raising children are, in fact, backfiring because key findings in the science of child development and behavior have been overlooked.

A summary of a randomized controlled study of the effectiveness of the Tools of the Mind program on improving early education and outcomes for young children. The Tools of the Mind program was found to improve classroom quality and children's executive functions.

A summary of the significance and conclusions of a study which analyzes the importance of cognitive control skills for success in school and life and are how they are amenable to improvement in at-risk preschoolers without costly interventions.

This book by Drs. Bodrova and Leong is recognized as a classic for its down-to-earth explanation of the Vygotskian approach and how it can be applied in classrooms. The second edition published in 2007, and has been translated into multiple languages.

A paper that considers the definition of high quality preschool from a Vygotskian perspective.

A Tools of the Mind article in C. Copple (ed.) Growing Minds: Building strong cognitive foundations in early childhood. Washington DC: NAEYC

This monograph describes the piloting of an early Tools of the Mind project and its development of tools to support early literacy learning and a highly innovative method for training teachers. This pilot was a collaboration between Russian and American education researchers, applying Vygotskian theories to the cultural context of the United States.