International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 2016, 8(4) ISSN:1307-9298 Copyright © IEJEE www.iejee.com Dear IEJEE Reader, In this number of the International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, you’ll find ten articles. They are addressing several important topics: STEM-education, teacher- student relationship, PISA, professionalism in early childhood education, child-centered reading education, creative writing, Math education, the challenges for Math teachers, teaching English as a third language and factors related to reading comprehension. The first one is about the effects of an inquiry-based didactic method for preschool science in a real practical classroom setting. This is an impressing study on teaching science in early childhood in Belgian context. The article highlights the important aspects of STEM- education based on problem-solving and inquiry based teaching and learning. The second article is about teacher-student relationship and how the students and their teachers reciprocally construe each others personality in teaching-learning context. The article has a comprehensive literature review and an empirical part. On the basis of their findings the two authors discuss how different categories of students’ perspectives and their teachers’ perspectives construct each others respectively ‘ideal teacher profile’ and ‘ideal student profile’. Although this study is not the only one, it’s one of the original studies on the topic. The third article is also addressing an international theme: PISA. Three researchers from Mugla Sitki Kocman University explore the relationship among new literacies, reading, mathematics and science performance of Turkish students in PISA 2012. As most of you may accept, PISA-results started to have much and sometimes too much impact on educational debates in many countries. As I once put it “PISA has tendency to act as a shadow minister of education in many countries”. To what extend this is true for Turkish education, is a matter of research, but this article is a good piece of scientific work. The fourth article is from Canada. Two researchers brilliantly formulated a tittle for their study of early childhood educators’ narratives about ‘professionalism’. The tittle of “Babysitter or Professional” most likely will show many researchers around the world that they are not alone in their efforts to improving the competencies of those who the parents deliver their child to. More and more children in many countries use to bring longer and longer of their childhood together with early childhood educators. This article adds a critical dimension to the debate on professionalism in the early childhood education/care. The fifth article explores an approach to a child-centered reading Intervention. Two researchers tried out an interesting practical intervention strategy to help a low achieving reader to improve his reading skills. The article is based on a single-subject case study, and it’s very informative. The article presents ‘hand-on’ type of materials, steps and strategies and illustrates how a teachers can help a struggling 4th grader to improve his skills in reading and writing. The sixth article is about an experimental study on creative writing instruction program based on speaking activities. The researcher investigates the effect of a well-planned creative writing program on fourth-grade primary school students' creative writing http://www.iejee.com/ Editorial / Özerk vi achievements and writing attitudes. The experimental method based on the pre-test/post- test model was utilized. This can be a good contribution to the field of writing methodology. The seventh article is examining pre-service elementary school teacher beliefs and Instructional practices in Math class in Indonesian context. This a single-subject study, but a quite impressive study. The three researchers’ findings on one hand indicate that the instructional practices do not necessarily reflect the beliefs that are held by a pre-service elementary school teacher. On the other hand, beliefs about the nature of mathematics influence more dominant than the other beliefs against instructional practices. The eight article is a study in which the researcher examined prospective middle school mathematics teachers’ problem-posing skills by investigating their ability to associate linear graphs with daily life situations in a Turkish context. The study, in line with several other studies, argues that the teachers’ mathematics content knowledge is a crucial factor influencing the quality of mathematics teaching. The author goes further and explains what the mathematic content knowledge is comprised of. In his empirical study he identifies the challenges the prospective middle school math teachers have due to poor mathematics content knowledge and experience. The author stresses the importance of more research on problem-posing in mathematic teaching. Introducing English as a third language teaching in early grades in Kazakhstan is the topic of the ninth article. Kazakhstani researchers discuss the ideological grounds of this language policy in the educational system of their own country. Furthermore they address the role of the teachers in implementation of this policy at operational curriculum level. Their study will be a good contribution to the widespread international trend of introducing English teaching at early stages of elementary education. The last article in this number of IEJEE is about an exploratory study of the relationships between reading comprehension competence, reading attitude and the vividness of mental imagery among 103 Turkish 4th graders. The author employed a reading comprehension test, developed by himself, Vividness of Imagery Questionnaire and Elementary Reading Attitude Survey, developed by other researchers. The findings of this study strengthen the existing belief in the field that there is a positive relationship between reading comprehension and attitudes to reading /recreational reading, and between reading comprehension and vividness of mental imagery. I want to express my deep gratitude to all the authors in this number of the International Electronic journal of Elementary Education. I also want to thank to the blind-reviewers who did a great job for this young and promising journal. Last but not least I want to thank to my closer colleagues and executive editors Dr. Turan TEMUR, Dr. Gökhan Özsoy and Dr. Hayriye Gül Kuruyer, and editorial assistants Doctoral candidate Hasan TABAK, and Doctoral candidate Mustafa BAKIR for the demanding job they have accomplished. Editor-In-Chief Kamil ÖZERK, Professor of Education, University of Oslo