In Hong Kong children aged 4-6 years old are taught Chinese characters writing in local preschools. Non-Chinese speaking (NCS) preschool children are affected by the differences between their mother language and Chinese when they are given similar Chinese writing exercises in the preschools. This study aimed to investigate how Chinese preschool teachers taught Chinese characters writing in local preschools and how NCS preschool children learnt to write Chinese characters in an authentic classroom. Three parts of ‘Object of Learning’ were employed in this phenomenographic study. The first part was ‘Intended Object of Learning’, in which data were collected through semi-structured interviews with participating teachers. It aimed to study the teachers’ understanding of the teaching of character writing to the preschool children. The second part was ‘Enacted Object of Learning’, whose data were recorded by the researcher about how the teachers implemented their character writing activities in the class. The third part, ‘Lived Object of Learning’ concerned how the NCS children, who were 5 to 6 years old, performed after they had experienced the character writing activities. This study investigated the mentioned experiences of teachers and NCS children of upper level in 3 local preschools. A total of 4 preschool teachers and 12 NCS preschool children participated in this present study. The time period was twice a week, especially during their daily Chinese character writing demonstration times, for twelve consecutive weeks. The researcher used various methods to collect data, including video- and audiotaping, field notes, photographic documentation, collection of lesson plans and interviews. The findings were compiled using ‘Categories of Descriptions’, which reflected the preschool teachers‟ and NCS preschool children’s ways of seeing Chinese characters writing in their daily classroom experiences. In the first part of the findings five teachers’ conceptions from their understanding

Teachers are considered important role models for the behavior of children during early childhood. The purposes of this study are to: (a) compare activity levels of preschool children in a structured physical education (PE) class taught by an active or less active teacher; (b) examine the interaction effect of gender, school size, and teacher activity levels on the activity levels of children. The participants were 248 preschool children (134 boys, 114 girls; mean age = 5.5 years) and teachers from 12 preschools in Hong Kong. Regular classroom teachers conducted a 30-min structured PE class, and the participants' physical activity (PA) levels were measured using pedometers. The recorded step counts of teachers were employed to classify whether children were in the classes taught by active or less active teachers. Factorial analysis of variance was used to examine differences in the pedometer-determined activity regarding gender and school size between the different types of classes. The results indicated that preschool children had higher PA levels in PE classes taught by more active teachers than in those taught by less active teachers (1712 versus 951 steps). Future studies could explore other teacher-related factors that might facilitate appropriate strategies to engage preschoolers in higher PA during PE classes. Copyright © 2019 The Author(s).

Research Findings: The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of Incredible Years Basic Parent Training (IYPT Basic) in a community clinic setting in Hong Kong. IYPT Basic is a Western program developed to promote children’s academic, social, and emotional regulation skills and to reduce conduct problems among typically developing children. The program has not been tested in non-Western cultures, where the challenges for parents of children with developmental disabilities can be different. The IYPT Basic was adapted slightly to accommodate cultural characteristics in Hong Kong. Parents of 52 preschoolers with developmental disabilities were randomly assigned to either the IYPT Basic or a waitlist control. Parent and child dyads were assessed before and after the 12-week intervention/waitlist period via self-reports and spouse/kin reports and videotape coding by observers blind to the intervention/waitlist status. Significant intervention benefits included (a) increase in positive and reciprocal parent -child interaction, (b) reduction in parental stress, and (c) decrease in oppositional behavior among the children. The parents’ attendance, satisfaction, and homework compliance was high. Practice or Policy: IYPT Basic, when implemented with cultural sensitivity, can be effective for —and well received by—Chinese parents of preschoolers with developmental disabilities in a community setting.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1461987]

This study investigated the extent to which preschool teachers and children (ages 4–6) used literal and inferential language within the context of whole-group instruction in four kindergarten classrooms in Hong Kong. A total of 20 sessions of videotaped classroom observations of linguistic interactions between teachers and children were transcribed and then analyzed using a coding scheme to determine the cognitive complexity of teacher questions and child responses with reference to four levels of abstraction, representing a literal-to-inferential continuum. The results indicated that the teachers' questions were predominantly literal in nature (83 %), and similarly the majority of the children's responses (77 %) were also literal. Furthermore, it was revealed that in an average instructional session: (a) teachers produced significantly more utterances than children; (b) the difference in the quantity of teachers' questions between literal and inferential levels was statistically significant; (c) similarly, the difference in the quantity of children's responses between literal and inferential levels was also statistically significant; and (d) children produced a significantly larger quantity of shorter than longer utterances. As there is distinct value in whole-group instruction as a salient context for teacher–child interactive, linguistic engagement in kindergarten classrooms in Hong Kong, it is particularly vital that early childhood educators understand what types of linguistic interactions are occurring there and how to target professional development for teachers to better support language learning in young children.
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This study investigated the moderating effect of gender on the causal relationships between different school play activities (pretend and non-pretend play) and social competence in peer interactions among a sample of Hong Kong children. Participants were 60 Hong Kong preschoolers (mean age = 5.44, 36.67 % female). Children with matched home pretend play time period were randomly assigned to pretend or non-pretend play groups to take part in pretend or non-pretend play activities respectively in the 1-month kindergarten play training. Children's pre- and post-training social competences were assessed by their teachers. Results revealed a trend that girls who participated in school pretend play tended to be less disruptive during peer interactions after the training than those who participated in non-pretend play, while boys were similarly benefited from the two play activities. The implications for play-related research and children's social competence development are discussed.

Children are expected to read and write Chinese character before they reach their formal schooling in Hong Kong. The 4 to 6 years old children, *non-Chinese speaking (NCS) and native Chinese speaking children are given similar Chinese writing exercise in the preschools. Nevertheless NCS children are still affected by the differences between their mother language and Chinese. NCS children are more likely to encounter difficulties in writing and reading Chinese. According to the past research reports, the NCS students in Hong Kong who enter a mainstream primary school (Chinese medium instruction), their levels of literacy in Chinese tends to remain at a low level, and they are unable to keep up with local Chinese classmates. The aim of the study is to focus on how NCS children who are 5 to 6 years old learn Chinese characters in a realist classroom setting. The study will be conducted in three Chinese preschools in Hong Kong and investigate the teaching and learning of Chinese characters in five classroom settings using with a phenomenographic approach.

Innovation in pedagogy by technology integration in kindergarten classroom has always been a challenge for most teachers. This design-based research aimed to explore the feasibility of using Augmented Reality (AR) technology in early art education with a focus on the gains and pains of this innovation. A case study was conducted in a typical kindergarten in Hong Kong, with a class of four- to five-year-old children (N=30) and their class teacher, ICT teacher as well as two parent volunteers. A series of art education activities using AR was designed and implemented in the class. Effectiveness of the activities was evaluated through a triangulation of semi-structured interviews with teachers, principal and parents, and surveys administered to children. The results indicated that (1) all the children could design, control and interact with the animated objects generated by the AR application; (2) all the stakeholders interviewed were supportive of this pedagogical innovation and (3) the principal, teachers and parents were concerned about the side effects of using AR in early childhood education. Possible improvements and implications to AR-based art education were also addressed.
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To read and write Chinese require an ability to recognise more than 1,000 basic graphic units. Very few studies have looked into the perceptual learning process of these graphic units at the initial stage when young children are being introduced to the script. Two tasks were developed to tap children‘s understanding of graphic properties of written Chinese. In the name writing task, we investigated whether preschool children, aged 3-5, (1) would differentiate drawing from writing, (2) used a correspondence between character and syllable in their writing, (3) used multiple units within one character or across characters, and (4) respected some of the supra-segmented properties of written Chinese. In the graphic acceptability task, we examined if 5-9 years old children could make orthographic judgements based on positioning and graphic properties of the stroke-patterns. Our results indicated that preschool children could already demonstrate some knowledge of the properties of graphic units in Chinese by using strokes or made-up stroke-patterns in their name writing. Five and six-year-olds rejected words with illegal graphic features and seven- and eight-years-olds distinguished nonwords from pseudowords based on illegal position of stroke-patterns. We conclude that Chinese children implicitly learn graphic properties of the writing System which arc crucial in the learning process, the possibility to shift perceptual learning of graphic properties of written Chinese from implicit learning to explicit teaching deserves further investigation. The aim of this chapter is to analyze children’s developing knowledge of the graphic units that arc related to speech units in Chinese and the difference between what children arc explicitly taught and what they learn implicitly about these graphic units. The term ‘implicit‘ is used here to indicate that both Chinese children and adults are usually unaware of those formal characteristics of their script that are analyzed in this paper