{"id":111869,"date":"2026-09-28T15:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=111869"},"modified":"2026-09-28T15:46:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T19:46:13","slug":"student-created-resource-explores-key-issues-in-early-childhood-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2026\/09\/student-created-resource-explores-key-issues-in-early-childhood-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Student-created resource explores key issues in early childhood learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jammie Cole (BECE \u201926) believes understanding the experiences of teachers is crucial to sustaining young children&#8217;s foundational literacy skills.<\/p>\n<p>The recent Brock University Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (BECE) graduate\u2019s research explored how basic literacy outcomes for young learners can be strengthened by engaging with educators&#8217; experiences to inform practical classroom strategies.<\/p>\n<p>Her work is now available online as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/education\/bachelor-of-early-childhood-education-2026-symposium\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2026 Brock Bachelor of Early Childhood Education (BECE) Symposium<\/a>, which allows graduating students to share their research projects with educators around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The publicly available symposium provides research insights and open access resources related to a wide range of issues and topics in early childhood education (ECE) and the early years of learning in school.<\/p>\n<p>Cole&#8217;s undergraduate research involved surveying more than 100 current Grade 1 to 4 teachers in Ontario about the province\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ontario.ca\/page\/putting-student-achievement-first?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">back to basics<\/a>\u201d approach to literacy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wanted to gain insight into primary\/junior classroom teacher\u2019s perspectives and find out from them what supports and strategies they feel help to bridge gaps with students who are below grade level for literacy or have disabilities,\u201d Cole said.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to practical, research-based strategies for literacy learning, her findings revealed that a collaborative approach to literacy education that engages teachers, students and families helps maximize the effectiveness of Ontario&#8217;s current literacy curriculum.<\/p>\n<p>BECE Assistant Professor Jaime Barratt said this year\u2019s cohort of BECE students produced an incredibly robust collection of resources through their work and engaged with knowledge mobilization as part of their capstone experience.<\/p>\n<p>Other research topics explored in the symposium include the impact of family, technology and home-context on learning outcomes; outdoor and nature-based learning; the ECE workforce and profession; and inclusion, equity and neurodiversity.<\/p>\n<p>For Barratt, a key element of the project was students developing a short video as well as a digital media product that translated their findings into a form educators, families and policymakers can actually use.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor students, this means learning to communicate research beyond an academic paper, which is a skill that matters in every ECE setting. For those accessing the symposium, it means practical, evidence-informed resources that are free, easy to share and ready to bring into their own practice. It is a way of making sure student research doesn\u2019t exist only online, but reaches the people it\u2019s meant to serve,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>More information about BECE, an online Honours degree program that builds on the foundational knowledge gained from a two-year Early Childhood Education Diploma or equivalent, is available <a href=\"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/education\/programs\/early-childhood-education\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">on the Brock website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jammie Cole (BECE \u201926) believes understanding the experiences of teachers is crucial to sustaining young children&#8217;s foundational literacy skills. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":111871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119,9794,40,1,5],"tags":[7035,10034,32,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111869"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111883,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111869\/revisions\/111883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}