A review of 20 experimental, shared book reading (SBR) interventions using questioning strategies with preschool children was conducted. The studies were analyzed in terms of their quality, focus, and the questioning strategies employed. Although there were few methodological concerns about the studies conducted, treatment fidelity and replicability of the reported interventions are raised as issues needing attention in future research. The impact of questioning strategies on language and pre-literacy skills tended to be a focus of the reported studies, with little investigation of the development of children's thinking skills through questioning, and there were few attempts to analyze children's responses to different types of questioning techniques. Across the reported studies, there was also a lack of consistency around the terminology associated with different kinds of questioning. The article concludes with discussion of implications for the use of questioning techniques in early childhood education practice and argues for research into the impact of different questioning techniques on children's cognitive development.

Despite well-articulated social inclusionist and anti-bias agendas in early childhood, the needs of young gifted children in prior-to-school settings appear to have been neglected. The purpose of this paper is to examine the tensions and contradictions that seem to exist between educators working in the fields of early childhood education and gifted education. Areas in which misunderstandings may occur regarding the education of young gifted children are discussed: the identification of young gifted children, the labelling of young gifted children, the application of appropriate gifted education strategies in the early childhood context, the application of current early childhood approaches to meeting the needs of young gifted children, and the socialisation of young potentially gifted children in the educational setting. Recommendations are offered regarding ways in which educators in the two fields might collaborate more effectively to cater appropriately to the unique characteristics of young gifted children.Résumé Malgré qu'il y ait des orientations sociales inclusives et sans préjugés bien articulées en petite enfance, les besoins des jeunes enfants doués paraissent avoir été négligés dans les services préscolaires. Le but de cet article est d'examiner les tensions et contradictions qui semblent exister entre éducateurs travaillant dans les champs de l'éducation de la petite enfance et de l'éducation des enfants doués. Des dimensions susceptibles d'incompréhension relativement à l'éducation des jeunes enfants doués y sont discutées : l'identification des jeunes enfants doués, la socialisation des jeunes enfants doués, le recours à des stratégies de l'éducation des enfants doués appropriées au contexte préscolaire, le recours aux approches

A search of the literature from the past 30 years reveals that there is a dearth of research surrounding effective interventions for intellectually gifted children in the early childhood years. The findings of 11 empirical studies of educational provisions for young gifted children were located and the methodological rigor of the studies examined. Aspects problematic to research with young gifted children are discussed, including issues relating to sample sizes, definitions of giftedness, difficulties in conducting experimental studies, finding appropriate standardized measures for use with gifted children, and measurement of program outcomes. Suggestions are made for strengthening future research in the field of early childhood gifted education.

Research into the effect of questions asked during storybook reading in preschool settings has rarely investigated questions that elicit higher order thinking. In the current study, Blank et al.'s Four Levels of Abstraction were used to code teacher questions and child responses from 177 individual storybook reading sessions with eight intellectually gifted 3-and 4-year-old children. The aim was to investigate the level of cognitive response gifted preschoolers made to lower and higher order questions during shared book reading. As expected, lower order questions, the most frequent form of teacher questions, elicited mainly lower order responses. Significant cognitive correspondence was also found for higher order questions, which elicited higher order child responses 88% of the time. This suggests that higher order questioning would be a valuable addition to preschool storybook reading, particularly to extend the thinking of young intellectually gifted children.

Single-subject experimental designs have long been used in special education to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions for exceptional children. However, the design has not been used widely in gifted education. In this article, an overview of the main features of single-subject design is presented, and its potential for application in gifted education is discussed. The article concludes with a report of a preliminary single-subject study, conducted with a young gifted child, in which the effects of higher order questioning are investigated.