https://ecelab.ca/home daily 1.0 2026-07-31 https://ecelab.ca/contactus daily 0.75 2020-04-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1587250039505-21Z3W2CD26A55BONJG5G/17142.jpg Contact - Contact us. kristy.timmons@queensu.ca Faculty of Education | Queen’s University Duncan McArthur Hall | 511 Union Street Twitter https://ecelab.ca/publications daily 0.75 2026-06-15 https://ecelab.ca/aboutus daily 0.75 2026-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1585448102770-4EKZHO6T92EJ5DKH3FGL/13176.jpg About Us - About the ECE LAB: Led by Dr. Kristy Timmons, the Early Childhood Education Lab studies how the adults in young children's lives shape what those children learn. We start there because of what the early years are. The first 2000 days of life are the most critical period for social, emotional, and physical development, and they establish trajectories that hold across a lifetime. We approach early childhood education and care from the perspective of social determinants of health and learning, which stresses the importance of "early experiences in lifelong health and well-being for individuals and for populations" (SECD, 2023). What happens in a preschool room or a kindergarten classroom is not preparation for education. It is the point at which differences in opportunity begin to compound. Those differences are not the result of anything a child does. They are produced in part by what the adults around them expect, notice, measure, and know how to teach. A child whose educator holds lower expectations receives fewer opportunities to learn. A skill that is never assessed is easily overlooked. An educator who was never taught how to foster phonological awareness cannot be expected to foster it. Each of these is shaped by adults, and each can be changed through PD. That is why our research concentrates there, and why we measure children's outcomes alongside educators' knowledge and practice. Our commitment is to equity, with particular attention to children who are historically and continuously marginalized. The early years are when educational inequity is most visible and least entrenched, and strengthening the policies and programs that operate at this stage is among the most effective ways to change what follows. We work in partnership with the people this research concerns. Early childhood educators, teachers, children, and families are collaborators in our studies rather than subjects of them, and our projects are carried out alongside community partners, not-for-profit organizations, and public and private education contexts. This reflects a conviction that research developed apart from practice tends to stay apart from it. Training the next generation of early childhood researchers is central to this work. Graduate students in the ECE LAB are involved at every stage of a project, from design and data collection through analysis, publication, and the work of putting findings into the hands of people who can use them. https://ecelab.ca/ourteam daily 0.75 2026-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1587238416792-BQS4TNZ2FQQNB7N56YRZ/Kristy-Timmons-removebg-preview+%281%29.png Our Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/354323ed-dfcf-43bc-9359-284c3b13c99c/headshot-removebg-preview.png Our Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1607971606824-13VWWG5F6LAV0T753Q1F/Untitled-removebg-preview+%281%29.png Our Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/fdda253f-0e36-494a-bb9c-9f1eb23379c9/IMG_5221-removebg-preview.png Our Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/3a033148-1445-4cd4-9911-0d1c95cee469/Heather_Braund_reduced-removebg-preview.png Our Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/0ffe6bf2-b1b0-41c5-8fd2-475db4e9a6d8/Headshot_2023__2_-removebg-preview.png Our Team https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/e290c8b3-2f21-44e6-9a17-7071942f16b9/Headshot2__1_-removebg-preview.png Our Team https://ecelab.ca/research daily 0.75 2026-07-31 https://ecelab.ca/research/project-three monthly 0.5 2026-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/109c9006-839b-465f-a79b-7d67dfb1bded/pexels-pavel-danilyuk-8422129.jpg Research - Educator Capacity - Project 1: The Sound Start Pilot Project: Building ECE expertise in early phonological awareness Funding: SSHRC Insight Development Grant Co-Investigators: Dr. Pamela Beach | Dr. Angela Pyle Collaborator: Dr. Scott Compeau, BGC South East Phonological awareness, the ability to recognize and manipulate the sound structures of language, is among the strongest predictors of later reading success (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). The preschool years represent a critical window for developing these skills, and children who enter kindergarten with underdeveloped phonological awareness experience reading difficulties that persist throughout their elementary years. Early childhood educators play a pivotal role in supporting this development, yet research consistently demonstrates that many lack the specialized knowledge required to foster phonological awareness in young children due to insufficient training in early literacy (Cunningham et al., 2004; Piasta et al., 2020). Our understanding of how to translate phonological awareness research into everyday practice is limited because few professional development programs have been designed specifically for preschool settings. The Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Right to Read inquiry (2022) called for evidence-based instruction in foundational reading skills, but its recommendations focus primarily on elementary grades. Concurrently, implementation of the Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care system has created new emphasis on workforce development without providing specific guidance on early literacy content. This research responds to both imperatives. The purpose of this research is to pilot evidence-informed professional development that enhances educators’ knowledge and ability to foster phonological awareness through everyday interactions with preschool children. This research addresses three objectives: 1) to develop evidence-based professional development that meets the learning needs and practical contexts of ECEs working in preschool classrooms; 2) to pilot the professional development using a quasi-experimental design with intervention and control groups to examine feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effects on educator knowledge, confidence, and practices; and 3) to examine preliminary effects on children’s phonological awareness outcomes, generating effect size estimates to inform future large-scale research. A three-phase sequential mixed methods design will be used. Ten licensed childcare centres in southeastern Ontario will participate, with five centres assigned to receive the professional development and five to a waitlist control group. Data will be collected from 20 to 30 educators and 100 to 115 children. Program materials will be made freely available through our partnerships. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/8bec9976-f773-4407-ac29-ce7a314e7ec0/curriculum_card_v2+%281%29.png Research - Educator Capacity - Project 2: Comparative Analysis of the Ontario Kindergarten Curriculum (2016 and 2026) What changed when Ontario replaced its 2016 Kindergarten Program, and what it means for play, literacy, and equity. In December 2025, the Ontario Ministry of Education released The Ontario Curriculum: Kindergarten, replacing The Kindergarten Program (2016) for all Kindergarten classrooms beginning in September 2026. This project is a detailed comparative analysis of the two documents, identifying what has changed, what has been preserved, and what those changes mean for educators, children, and families. The core of the 2016 approach remains in place, including play-based learning, inquiry, pedagogical documentation, the educator team model, and a whole-child vision, but the way it is delivered has shifted. Pedagogical guidance now lives on a provincial website rather than within the document itself, and explicit instruction has been added alongside play rather than in place of it. The most significant content change is in literacy, where the new curriculum introduces explicit phonics, phonemic awareness, and reading fluency expectations, a research-backed response to the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read inquiry. The revision also brings Kindergarten into the same policy, assessment, and accountability framework as Grades 1 to 12, and adds new domains including coding, transferable skills, financial literacy, and a dedicated focus on Indigenous education. Taken together, these changes mark a shift in emphasis, from following the child toward preparing the child for Grade 1, and our analysis sets out the implications for practice and policy in the early years. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1587246162211-DQJXW3IG9VZ7W8J7XLOG/987.jpg Research - Educator Capacity - Project 3: Program evaluation for the Provincial Outreach Program for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (POPFASD) Funding: Kids Brain Health Network Co-Investigator: Dr. James Reynolds The overarching goal of this objectives-based program evaluation is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Provincial Outreach Program for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (POPFASD) in preparing educators in British Columbia (BC) to support students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). The program evaluation will be completed over the next three years, starting September 2019. Approximately 100 educators and affiliated staff will be recruited with support from our teacher consultant partner, from each of the 67 school districts in BC to participate in this program evaluation. The participants will include teachers, education assistants, youth care workers, early childhood educators, administrators, district support staff including speech pathologists, counselors, behaviour specialists, and occupational therapists. Data will be collected from annual outcome reports and pre- and post- questionnaires. The mandate for POPFASD is to increase educators' capacity to meet the educational needs of students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) through FASD-informed practice that benefits all students. This objectives-based program evaluation will support us in understanding the extent to which POPFASD is meeting their specific objectives and the ways in which they can better prepare teachers to support students with FASD. https://ecelab.ca/research/stream-2 monthly 0.5 2026-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1585448505079-AD68VRVHJEEKCCOQFTUV/289248-P6O0CN-434.jpg Research - Early Learning Assessment - Project 1: Examining kindergarten policies and practices to foster self-regulation Funding: SSHRC Institutional Grant (SIG) Ontario’s full-day kindergarten program was launched in a time and context in which a growing body of evidence points to the importance of play and self-regulation in promoting healthy child development. Therefore, it was not surprising that play and self-regulation were important components of both the Draft Full-Day Kindergarten Program (2010) and the revised Kindergarten Program (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016). Despite expanding efforts to foster self-regulation in play-based environments, there is limited understanding of what self-regulation is and how best to support it in the day-to-day life of a classroom. One of the major challenges is that there is no universal definition for self-regulation, and with differing definitions comes varying ways of measuring self-regulation. Guiding this study is 3 objectives: 1) to examine the ways self-regulation skills are defined and promoted in policy and practice documents in Canada; 2) to compare this practice-oriented conceptualization of self-regulation with theoretical models of self-regulation, and 3) to develop and disseminate recommendations based on improving clarity in understanding what self-regulation is and how best to foster it in early years contexts. Accordingly, this study represents an important step in supporting kindergarten learning by supporting early years educators and researchers in understanding and fostering self-regulation in kindergarten https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1585449830159-0UN7GQELVDBNYIPNH8CV/OR2EZX0.jpg Research - Early Learning Assessment - Project 2: Assessing self-regulation in play-based contexts Funding: SEED Grant, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University This research builds on Study 1 described above and takes a practice-oriented view of self- regulation, generated from an examination of policy documents (Timmons, Pelletier, & Corter, 2016; Timmons, 2019). This view differs from the cognitive-only view of self-regulation in that it acknowledges the importance of learning contexts and interactions between and among children and other educators. As part of Dr. Timmons’ previous research (led by Drs. Janette Pelletier and Carl Corter) the Child Observation Framework (COF) was developed as a tool for researchers to analyze and examine children’s self-regulation and play behaviour. Using the COF, 10 minute observations (running records) are carried out during four classroom contexts: educator-led whole-group time, small group time, transitions between activities and child-chosen free-play time. Prior to validating the COF, additional refinements to the tool are needed. Preliminary findings have revealed a significant amount of overlap between the child-child and child-educator play and learning items; therefore, these items have been updated to improve clarity. Another issue that was identified was how to observe a student when they were transitioning from one context to another during the 10-minute observational period. Given this issue, we are working to revise the COF to capture more open blocks of time. This is allowing the research team to have a more accurate picture of the daily interactions of a play-based kindergarten classroom. The tool is currently used for research purposes only. We are currently working to revise and validate the COF to allow for classroom use by teachers and early childhood educators. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/b677db66-2496-412e-a33f-cdc76e524a61/Little%2BRipples%2BChad_2.webp Research - Early Learning Assessment - Project 3: Partnering to support and scale up assessment efforts of refugee-led early childhood education programs in emergencies Funding: SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant PI: Dr. Aurelia Di Santo | Co-Investigators: Dr. Kristy Timmons, Dr. Jason Nolan, Dr. Andrea Bellucci, and Sara-Christine Dallain Education is a fundamental human right for all children worldwide. Many children who have fled war zones and are living in refugee camps are denied this right to education. In the early years, quality play-based programs are known to support learning and development (Bakken et al., 2017; OECD, 2016). Unfortunately, for children living in refugee camps, early learning programs are beyond the scope of legislation related to compulsory education (UNHCR, UNICEF, IOM, 2019). Thus, it is not surprising, that early learning programs that do exist in refugee camps are often limited in scope and ability to document and assess learning. Furthermore, assessing early learning outcomes within emergency learning contexts requires a unique approach that shifts away from traditional Euro-Western standardized testing models. iACT is an international organization that provides humanitarian action to support and empower those affected by mass atrocities and is currently experiencing the challenges cited above. iACT works in some of the most challenging places around the world. Currently they are working in refugee camps located in five countries that have accepted refugees fleeing war conflict zones. Despite being one of the few NGOs offering refugee-led early learning programs in refugee camps, they are currently facing challenges with documenting and assessing learning within their unique programs. This research will directly respond to the challenges iACT is currently facing through 3 research objectives: 1) to conduct a case study to critically examine iACT's current model for assessing their early childhood education and development (ECED) programs in refugee camps in Chad; 2) to complete a rapid review of assessment practices/tools being used in other ECED programs in emergency contexts; and 3) to draw from the case study and rapid review to provide recommendations for an assessment framework. The development of an assessment framework will also assist iACT with the scaling-up of programs to reach more children and to fill the gap between the emergency phase of programs, funding, and the development aid that is essential in protracted situations. The findings will serve as a guide for future research, including piloting the assessment in a refugee camp in eastern Chad. More broadly, this research will benefit other NGOs, researchers, and faculty in Canada and internationally. https://ecelab.ca/research/stream-1 monthly 0.5 2026-07-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1585452401432-57MAQVWFW9C1Z1YZK7NX/836.jpg Research - Educator Expectations - Project 1: Teaching teams in kindergarten: Comparing educator expectations in kindergarten Funding: SEED Grant, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University Educators incorporate information from various sources as they form their academic expectations for students. The student record of prior achievement is the most salient factor that educators use to form their expectations for children’s achievement. Research on the factors that influence educator expectations has primarily focused on the ways teachers assimilate various pieces of information about students. More recently, there is an interest in moving away from this perspective and focusing more on teacher factors that may influence these differing expectations. The purpose of this research is to explore the factors that contribute to the formation of educator expectations in full-day play-based Kindergarten in Ontario. This study examines reports from Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) and teachers on their teaching beliefs, roles, teaching practices, and interactions that support students in meeting curriculum expectations. This study examines the differences in the two groups in terms of how their expectations are formed and in turn how they affect processes leading to child outcomes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7bd9fe0ebfc91090d87abc/1585452617427-FE2C6HWJQZOA80O62W4P/290090-P6O5T5-20.jpg Research - Educator Expectations - Project 2: Inequity at the starting line: The influence of teacher expectations, beliefs, and practices on learning outcomes in kindergarten Funding: SSHRC Insight Development Grant Co-Investigator: Dr. Angela Pyle Teachers are the most important in­ school factor affecting student achievement. As a result, researchers are interested in the ways that teacher factors (i.e., teacher expectations, beliefs, and practices) influence the learning opportunities teachers provide in their classrooms. Teacher expectations regarding student potential differ based on student characteristics such as gender, ethno-­racial background, and socioeconomic status. Teacher expectations can significantly affect the learning opportunities that are provided to students. This is highly problematic because teacher expectations are often inaccurate, have long ­lasting influence, and differentially affect the future achievement of girls, racialized students, and children living in poverty. Our understanding of how teacher expectations affect equitable learning opportunities and learning outcomes is limited in kindergarten because current research focuses on older children. Furthermore, the field of teacher expectations has failed to examine how the key teacher factors of expectations, beliefs, and practices combine to influence children’s learning outcomes. This has resulted in disjointed knowledge and barriers to applying findings in practice. Researchers have called for a focus on how expectations are informed by beliefs, but the extant research currently explores specific teacher factors in isolation; research examining relations among teacher factors is missing. Our research responds to this challenge by moving away from the traditional approach of exploring these constructs separately, toward a more complete examination of the relations among teacher expectations, beliefs, and practices. Clarifying the ways that teacher beliefs contribute to expectations and result in differential teaching practices that affect learning outcomes is an important step in addressing equity concerns in kindergarten. This research addresses three objectives: 1) examines the relations among kindergarten teacher expectations, beliefs, and practices; 2) analyzes the influence of teacher expectations, beliefs, and practices on learning outcomes; and 3) describes how teacher expectations, beliefs, and practices can lead to inequitable learning opportunities and affect learning outcomes in kindergarten.