The practice of documentation has been a "hard to reach place" for many preschool teachers despite the fact that it has largely been encouraged and used as a tool in early childhood settings to assess young children's learning. Recent policy changes in Hong Kong have also called for the continuous documentation and authentic assessment of children's performance to replace traditional examinations in preschools. In this study, 62 preschools in Hong Kong were surveyed to determine the current situation of documentation as a tool for assessment of children's learning in Hong Kong preschools in the face of the new governmental requirements and interventions. The results showed that (1) preschools generally recognized the importance and necessity of using documentation to assess children's learning, (2) governmental influences were clearly demonstrated in the learning areas documented and assessed, and (3) there was a dissonance between the practice and belief of preschools, and various concerns related to the implementation were also reported. Implications for policies, professional development, and research are discussed.
[Copyright of Early Childhood Education Journal is the property of Springer.]

"Many parents today have an educational perspective based on current theory and trends. Schools need to educate parents about the current situation in today's education, help parents to understand the children’s need to develop skills and attitudes in co-constructing beyond a knowledge driven curriculum. Hong Kong Education Bureau proclaims the roles and responsibilities of parents, in the belief that parents are the primary educators for young children at home and play an active role in the education of their children as partners of the school (Cheng, 2015). On the other hand, parents in the Mainland China have become more conscious about how to play their part in home-school collaboration and engage themselves in children’s education, especially in face of the Two-child policy (Fang, et. al. 2018). As a school, it is important to provide education for parents to create a collaborative relationship between parents and educators, empowering life success to students with learning intentions. Communication has always been the key factor in fostering parents-school collaboration. However recent trends revealed schools’ concern of additional factors influencing the parent-school relationship and communication process – 'transparency’ and ‘frequency’ have played a role in parents’ understanding of what goes on in children’s school life. In this paper, educators from Hong Kong and Guangdong Province of Mainland China will share ways of kindergartens from the two regions in educating and communicating with parents, and how parents can be supported as part of their child’s learning journey. Technology provides online channels for parents to be informed, while face-to-face and other offline options are still being considered as commonly-used for communication. For data collection, survey questionnaires were sent to kindergarten principals from Hong Kong and Guangdong to explore ways of communication and collaboration between schools and parents that will encourage a common understanding

Literature reveals that there are very few validated motor proficiency tests for young children. According to Gallahue and Ozmun, the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency is a valid test. However, manipulative skills, which are classified as gross motor skills by most motor development specialists, are only tested in the Upper Limb Coordination Subtests but not in the Gross Motor Subtests of BOTMP. As there is no evidence that the five subtests of BOTMP: Running Speed and Agility, Balance, Bilateral Coordination, Strength and Upper Limb Coordination are of the same construct, this paper aims at using BOTMP to explore the construct validity of these five skills. The gross motor proficiency of 333 Hong Kong preschool children was assessed by the five subtests of BOTMP. The results indicated that the five subtests of BOTMP were of one underlying construct in measuring the gross motor proficiency of the preschoolers.
[Copyright of Roeper Review is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2011.536640]

This study aimed to establish the validity of the Language Development Rating Scale and the Attitudes toward Reading and Voluntary Reading Behaviour Rating Scale in Morrow's Checklist for Assessing Early Literacy Development for use with preschool children in Hong Kong. The sample comprised 2619 preschool children aged three-five years who were currently enrolled in preschool levels K1-K3 in Hong Kong. Analysis showed that the two scales had strong construct validity and internal consistency, and that both fit well to the Rasch model. Nevertheless, findings of the Rasch analysis suggested that the level of the Language Development Scale did not align well with the language proficiency of kindergarten children in the sample who were more proficient than the proficiency levels demanded by the items in the scale. The results suggested such further refinement such as the inclusion of more advanced items may be necessary for valid local applications.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2011.536641]

Over the past two decades children's fitness levels may have declined (Ross and Pate, 1987; Ignico, 1990; Leung, 1995). Currently, attention is being directed to young children's gross motor performance, assessment procedures and program planning issues. This paper will present findings of a study which investigates the gross motor proficiency of young children in Hong Kong. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (Subtests 1-5) was used to assess the gross motor proficiency of 320 children aged 5 to 6 years. Gross motor proficiency was measured in terms of their performance on running speed and agility, balance, bilateral coordination, strength and upper-limb coordination.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443011710102]

The present study investigates the views of Hong Kong parents on kindergarten education. A questionnaire was designed to examine the reasons for parents to send their children to kindergartens, their concept of kindergarten education, their views on kindergarten teachers' work and training. There were 14,328 returned questionnaires. The findings indicate that parents had positive attitudes towards kindergarten education; they thought that kindergarten education was important for their children and that well qualified teachers were necessary for kindergarten education.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443991590103 ]