1-03 The Spiritual Needs of Early Childhood

Research shows that the most significant part of a child's faith formation happens at home, which means that it’s never too early for parents to start forming their children – even infants and toddlers – in our faith.  In this presentation, Dr. Kathryn Bojczyk will take participants inside the minds and hearts of young children from ages 0 to 5 years and will identify strategies for effective faith formation for these “littlest ones” in order to nurture a faith that will last a lifetime.

Dr. Bojczyk is the Department Chair, an Associate Professor, and Coordinator of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Education at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.. She earned her Ph.D. in Child Development and Family Studies with specialization in Early Childhood from Purdue University. Dr. Bojczyk specializes in early childhood education, early literacy intervention, self-efficacy, assessment design, and program evaluation. From 2008-2013, Dr. Bojczyk served as the Senior Study Director at Westat, where she conducted empirical research funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the U.S. Department of Education, including ECLS-K. Her current research interests focus on investigating gratitude to God developmentally from early childhood through young adulthood and exploring student's help-seeking behaviors in STEM classes. She is the Co-PI of a three year NSF-funded grant, "Enhancing Student Help-Seeking Behavior and Reinforcing Problem-Solving Skills in Online Mathematics Learning (E-SHARP)."