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This study examined the extent to which observed teaching practices and self-reported teacher stress predict children's learning motivation and phonological awareness in kindergarten. The pre-reading skills of 1,268 children were measured at the beginning of their kindergarten year. Their learning motivation and phonological awareness were assessed in the following spring. Questionnaires measuring teacher stress were filled out by 137 kindergarten teachers. A pair of trained observers used the Classroom Assessment Scoring System to observe 49 kindergarten teachers from the whole sample on their emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support. The results of multilevel modeling showed that low teacher stress and high classroom organization predicted high learning motivation in children and that the children's learning motivation contributed to their level of phonological awareness. Moreover, children's learning motivation mediated the association between teacher stress and children's phonological awareness. The results emphasize the importance of teachers' pedagogical well-being and classroom organizational quality for children's learning motivation.

2 Research Highlights How do child-centered versus teacher-directed practices promote academic skills development? Child-centered practices contribute positively to academic skills development at school.  The effect of child-centered practices on academic skills did not depend on the initial skill level  Teacher-directed practices are negatively associated with average and high reading skills. AbstractThis study examined the extent to which child-centered versus teacher-directed teaching practices predicted the development of children's reading and math skills in the first year of elementary school. In addition, we investigated whether associations between teaching practices and children's academic skills development in Grade 1 differed among children who had low, average, or high initial academic skills at the beginning of school. The reading and math skills of 1,132 Finnish children from 93 classrooms were assessed at the beginning and end of Grade 1, and the Early Childhood Classroom Observation Measure (ECCOM) was used to observe teaching practices in 29 classrooms. The results of multilevel modeling showed, first, that better reading skills upon entering school were associated with a higher level of childcentered teaching practices in the classroom. Second, a high level of child-centered teaching practices predicted children's reading and math skills development during the first school year. Third, the results showed that child-centered teaching practices were equally beneficial for the academic skills development of children with varying initial skill levels. However, teacher-directed practices were found to be negatively associated with reading skills development, particularly among children who had average or high initial reading skills at the beginning of school. The results emphasize the importance of childcentered teacher practices in promoting children's academic skills development also after kindergarten in elementary school.Keywords: reading, math, child-centered practices, teacher-directed practices, Grade 1 5 Child-Centered versus Teacher-Directed Teaching Practices:Associations with the Development of Academic Skills in the First Grade at School A considerable body of literature indicates that early childhood education (ECE) classroom practices impact child outcomes (Burchinal et al., 2008;Burchinal, Peisner-Feinberg, Pianta, & Howes, 2002). The majority of this research has been conducted in preschools and kindergartens, but only a few studies have focused on the first school year in depth. For example, a wide range of documentation exists on the positive relationship between child-centered teaching practices and children's social skills and academic pre-skills at the preschool age (Stipek, Feiler, Daniels, & Milburn, 1995). However, children with poor academic skills seem to benefit from teacher-directed practices later on in kindergarten (Huffman & Speer, 2000) and at school age (Kikas, Peets, & Hodges, 2014). The present study examined the extent to which child-centered and teacher-dire...