The High-Performing Preschool

The High-Performing Preschool

Author: Gillian Dowley McNamee

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2015-05-04

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 022626100X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“Masterful. . . . presents a cogent and compelling picture of preschool programs serving low socioeconomic status students who achieve equity and excellence.” —Choice The High-Performing Preschool takes readers into the lives of three- and four-year-old Head Start students during their first year of school and focuses on the centerpiece of their school day: story acting. In this activity, students act out stories from high-quality children’s literature as well as stories dictated by their peers. Drawing on a unique pair of thinkers—Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky and renowned American teacher and educational writer Vivian G. Paley—Gillian Dowley McNamee elucidates the ways, and reasons, this activity is so successful. She shows how story acting offers a larger blueprint for curricula that helps ensure all preschools—not just those for society’s well-to-do—are excellent. McNamee outlines how story acting cultivates children’s oral and written language skills. She shows how it creates a crucial opportunity for teachers to guide children inside the interior logic and premises of an idea, and how it fosters the creation of a literary community. Starting with Vygotsky and Paley, McNamee paints a detailed portrait of high-quality preschool teaching, showing how educators can deliver on the promise of Head Start and provide a setting for all young children to become articulate, thoughtful, and literate learners. “As McNamee demonstrates in detail, a classroom is never simply a setting: by engaging what is already there—the students’ ideas, imaginations, experiences, stories, relations, and conversations—it becomes a powerful source of development.” —Luis C. Moll, University of Arizona


The Diverse Schools Dilemma

The Diverse Schools Dilemma

Author: Michael J. Petrilli

Publisher:

Published: 2012-11-15

Total Pages: 119

ISBN-13: 9780615652337

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Many of today's parents yearn to live in or near the lively, culturally vibrant heart of the city—in diverse, walkable neighborhoods full of music and theater, accessible to museums and stores, awash in ethnic eateries, and radiating a true sense of community. This is a major shift from recent generations that saw middle class families trading urban centers for suburbs with lawns, malls, parks, and good schools. But good schools still matter. And standing in the way of many parents' urban aspirations is the question: Will the public schools in the city provide a strong education for my kids? To be sure, lots of parents favor sending their sons and daughters to diverse schools with children from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. But can such schools successfully meet the educational needs of all those different kids? How do middle class children fare in these environments? Is there enough challenge and stimulation in schools that also struggle to help poor immigrant children reach basic standards? Is there too much focus on test scores? And why is it so hard to find diverse public schools with a progressive, child-centered approach to education? These quandaries and more are addressed in this groundbreaking book by Michael J. Petrilli, one of America's most trusted education experts and a father who himself is struggling with the Diverse Schools Dilemma.


Skillstreaming in Early Childhood

Skillstreaming in Early Childhood

Author: Ellen McGinnis

Publisher: Research Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780878224494

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This program shows how elementary students can use skillstreaming in order to use proper social skills in dealing with difficult situations. Skill cards list the steps needed to successfully perform each of the 60 prosocial skills outlined in skillstreaming the elementary school child.


Pretend Play As Improvisation

Pretend Play As Improvisation

Author: R. Keith Sawyer

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2013-01-11

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1134799055

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Everyday conversations including gossip, boasting, flirting, teasing, and informative discussions are highly creative, improvised interactions. Children's play is also an important, often improvisational activity. One of the most improvisational games among 3- to 5-year-old children is social pretend play--also called fantasy play, sociodramatic play, or role play. Children's imaginations have free reign during pretend play. Conversations in these play episodes are far more improvisational than the average adult conversation. Because pretend play occurs in a dramatized, fantasy world, it is less constrained by social and physical reality. This book adds to our understanding of preschoolers' pretend play by examining it in the context of a theory of improvisational performance genres. This theory, derived from in-depth analyses of the implicit and explicit rules of theatrical improvisation, proves to generalize to pretend play as well. The two genres share several characteristics: * There is no script; they are created in the moment. * There are loose outlines of structure which guide the performance. * They are collective; no one person decides what will happen. Because group improvisational genres are collective and unscripted, improvisational creativity is a collective social process. The pretend play literature states that this improvisational behavior is most prevalent during the same years that many other social and cognitive skills are developing. Children between the ages of 3 and 5 begin to develop representations of their own and others' mental states as well as learn to represent and construct narratives. Freudian psychologists and other personality theorists have identified these years as critical in the development of the personality. The author believes that if we can demonstrate that children's improvisational abilities develop during these years--and that their fantasy improvisations become more complex and creative--it might suggest that these social skills are linked to the child's developing ability to improvise with other creative performers.


Preschool Clues

Preschool Clues

Author: Angela C. Santomero

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-04-03

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1501174347

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The award-winning creator of Blue’s Clues, Super Why!, and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood shares the secret sauce behind her shows’ powerful, transformative results in the form of eleven research-based, foundational “clues” to ensure that preschoolers flourish academically, socially, and emotionally during this critical time. The preschool years—when children are between the ages of two and five—are the most influential, important years in a child’s life. Studies show that pausing to interact, playing to solve problems, diffusing with humor, and using repetition are the hidden clues conscious parents use to raise successful kids and help them learn critical thinking skills, foster empathy, and nurture their sense of self-worth. Angela C. Santomero, MA, the award-winning creator of children’s television phenomena knows this better than anyone and has spent decades working to instill confidence in her young viewers. In Preschool Clues, she breaks down the philosophy behind her shows—educating, inspiring, and empowering kids—into concrete strategies that parents and educators can incorporate into their family and classroom to set their preschoolers up for success, such as: -Intentionally pausing to foster bonding, independence, and resilience -Developing empathy and confidence through soliciting preschoolers’ help -Becoming “fluent” in the language of preschoolers: Play -Igniting your preschooler’s curiosity -Being an involved co-player everyday -Designing a healthy media diet In Preschool Clues, Angela shares the latest research from top thinkers in child development and education. Through her practical, straightforward advice and inspiring, conversational approach, you will not only understand exactly what your children are learning from the shows they watch and why these shows are so effective, you’ll know exactly how to apply these same proven approaches in your daily life and with the same powerful results.


Author: Prof.Izhar

Publisher: Dr.Norul izhar

Published: 2015-08-09

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK


Tools of the Mind

Tools of the Mind

Author: Elena Bodrova

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-04-24

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 1040005438

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Now in its third edition, this classic text remains the seminal resource for in-depth information about major concepts and principles of the cultural-historical theory developed by Lev Vygotsky, his students, and colleagues, as well as three generations of neo-Vygotskian scholars in Russia and the West. Featuring two new chapters on brain development and scaffolding in the zone of proximal development, as well as additional content on technology, dual language learners, and students with disabilities, this new edition provides the latest research evidence supporting the basics of the cultural-historical approach alongside Vygotskian-based practical implications. With concrete explanations and strategies on how to scaffold young children’s learning and development, this book is essential reading for students of early childhood theory and development.


Look at That Building!

Look at That Building!

Author: Scot Ritchie

Publisher: Kids Can Press Ltd

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 35

ISBN-13: 1525304208

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

An engaging introduction to buildings, with a deft mix of nonfiction and fiction elements.


Already Ready

Already Ready

Author: Katie Wood Ray

Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the very first chapter of this informative and inspiring book, a clear picture emerges of how even three- and four-year-olds' capacities for serious authorship can and should be supported. - Lillian G. Katz Coauthor of Young Investigators: The Project Approach in the Early Years By the time they reach preschool or kindergarten, young children are already writers. They don't have much experience, but they're filled with stories to tell and ideas to express - they want to show the world what they know and see. All they need is a nurturing teacher like you to recognize the writer at work within them. All you need to help them is Already Ready. Taking an exciting, new approach to working with our youngest students, Already Ready shows you how, by respecting children as writers, engaged in bookmaking, you can gently nudge them toward a lifetime of joyful writing. Katie Wood Ray and Matt Glover guide you through fundamental concepts of early writing. Providing numerous, helpful examples of early writing - complete with transcriptions - they demonstrate how to: make sense of children's writing and interpret how they represent sounds, ideas, and images see important developmental signs in writers that you can use to help them grow further recognize the thinking young children engage in and discover that it's the same thinking more experienced writers use to craft purposeful, thoughtful pieces. Then Ray and Glover show you how little ones can develop powerful understandings about: texts and their characteristics the writing process what it means to be a writer. You'll learn how to support your writers' quest to make meaning, as they grow their abilities and refine their thinking about writing through teaching strategies such as: reading aloud working side by side with writers sharing children's writing. Writing is just one part of a busy early childhood classroom, but even in little doses, a nurturing approach can work wonders and help children connect the natural writer inside them to a life of expressing themselves on paper. Find that approach, share it with your students, and you'll discover that you don't have to get students ready to write - they're Already Ready.