In an era where assessment mandates tend to minimize or dismiss individual differences and creativity, resulting in punitive outcomes or inertia, this essential guide provides teachers with a collaborative approach to assessment that emphasizes the importance of bringing children and families into the process. Now in its second edition, Assessment of Young Children explores both standardized and authentic assessment, work sampling systems, and observation skills. Fully updated with current standards and research, this new edition also features an enhanced focus on trauma-informed practices, culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and family involvement. Lively and engaging, chapters help readers cultivate developmentally appropriate practice, create appropriate expectations, examine and celebrate children's work, interact in groups, and improve their reflective teaching. Accounts of real experiences from children, families, teachers, and administrators provide on-the-ground models of assessment strategies and demonstrate how children are affected. Exploring a variety of ways to observe and assess young children in their natural environments, this critical volume encourages an assessment strategy where the child remains the focus and collaboration with children, families, and colleagues creates an image - not a diagnosis - of the child that is empowering rather than constraining.

This easy-to-read series provides an introduction to some of the most important early years philosophies and shows how they can be incorporated into your setting. Each book provides:

• an outline of the background to the approach
• clear explanations of the relevance to contemporary thinking
• suggestions to help you plan a successful learning environment
• examples of what the individual approach can look like in practice.

These convenient guides are essential to early years practitioners, students and parents who wish to fully understand what each approach means to their setting and children.

How has Forest School helped to change attitudes about risk and challenge in the early years? What are the benefits of using this approach for children s development, health and overall wellbeing? "

Bringing the Forest School Approach to your Early Years Practice "provides an accessible introduction to Forest School practice. It identifies the key issues involved in setting up, running and managing a Forest school environment and offers clear guidance on resources, staffing and space required for successful play and learning outdoors.

Including links to the Early Years Foundation Stage and a wide range of case studies, the book covers:

• The beginnings of Forest School and how practice has developed
• Child centred play and learning that allows for risk taking and challenge
• Planning for children s individual needs, learning styles and schemas
• The learning environment
• The role of the adult including health and safety and children s welfare.

Full of practical advice, this convenient guide will help practitioners to deliver new, exciting and inspiring opportunities for the children they care for."

Evaluating Early Learning in Museums presents developmentally appropriate and culturally relevant practices for engaging early learners and their families in informal arts settings. Written by early childhood education researchers and a museum practitioner, the book showcases what high-quality educational programs can offer young children and their families through the case study of a program at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Providing strategies for building strong community partnerships and audience relationships, the authors also survey evaluation tools for early learning programs and offer strategies to help museums around the world to engage young children. At the center of this narrative is the seminal partnership that developed between researchers and museum educators during the evaluation of a program for toddlers. Illuminating key components of the partnership and the resulting evolution of family offerings at the museum, the book also draws parallels to current work being done at other museums in international contexts. Evaluating Early Learning in Museums illustrates how an interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers and practitioners can improve museum practices. As such, the book will be of interest to researchers and students engaged in the study of museums and early childhood, as well as to practitioners working in museums around the world.

An essential part of children's development in the early years involves creative engagement through language, gestures, body movements, drawing, music, and creating shared meanings in playful contexts. Supporting Children's Creativity through Music, Dance, Drama and Art brings together contributions from a range of early years practitioners and professionals, sharing their 'creative conversations' and helping readers to implement the themes of the Early Years Foundation Stage framework in a creative way. Including a new chapter to explore the relationships between music and movement, this second edition has been fully updated and covers: How to incorporate music-making and storytelling in the classroom How to use stories of practice to inspire reflection and change How to extend, challenge and sustain children's interests How to make use of the 'Talking Table' and 'Helicopter' approaches How to become an effective play-partner How to improve practice with interactive strategies and music for well-being How to use observation to inspire planning and learning projects. Appealing to all with an interest in early years practice, this new edition demonstrates how parents, carers and practitioners can put excitement and inspiration back into the learning process, guiding them to encourage and support the creative capacities of young children.

This accessible book provides evidence-based guidelines on dyscalculia, offering a thorough explanation of the science behind the disorder. It combines this theoretical framework with practical recommendations, offering interventions for managing the condition at home and school and avoiding potential behavioural consequences. Written in a straightforward style, this book provides a concise summary of relevant research to empower the reader to take an informed and positive approach to dyscalculia and those who live with it. The internationally based team of contributors examine the different models that explain the construct of dyscalculia, looking at definitions and theories alongside signs, symptoms and diagnosis. Chapters also explore how to communicate diagnosis to peers, possible cultural differences and sensitivities when related to mathematics education and dyscalculia and the importance of maintaining a proactive attitude when working with children with dyscalculia. Understanding Dyscalculia is essential reading for parents and practitioners in clinical and educational psychology, education professionals and students and researchers of special educational needs, educational psychology and counselling psychology.

An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children, Second Edition explores how to integrate play across the curriculum, helping teachers develop their early childhood curriculum using developmentally and culturally appropriate practice. Distinguished author Olivia N. Saracho offers a theoretical framework for understanding the origins of an early childhood play-based curriculum and illuminates how young children learn and understand concepts in a social and physical environment. This second edition has been fully updated throughout and its comprehensive coverage has been expanded with entirely new sections on technology and social media, cultural differences in play, and teaching English language learners and students with disabilities. Packed with vignettes, activities, and practical examples, this text is essential reading for pre-service teachers seeking appropriate theoretical practices for designing and implementing a play-based curriculum.

In light of the latest research from cognitive and developmental psychology, this key text explores reasoning, rationality, and democracy, considering the unique nature of each and their relationship to each other. Broadening our understanding from the development of reasoning and rationality in individuals to encompass social considerations of argumentation and democracy, the book connects psychological literature to philosophy, law, political science, and educational policy. Based on psychological research, Moshman sets out a system of deliberative democracy that promotes collaborative reasoning, rational institutions such as science and law, education aimed at the promotion of rationality, and intellectual freedom for all. Also including the biological bases of logic, metacognition, and collaborative reasoning, Moshman argues that, despite systematic flaws in human reasoning, there are reasons for a cautiously optimistic assessment of the potential for human rationality and the prospects for democracy. Reasoning, Argumentation, and Deliberative Democracy will be essential reading for all researchers of thinking and reasoning from psychology, philosophy, and education.

In light of the latest research from cognitive and developmental psychology, this key text explores reasoning, rationality, and democracy, considering the unique nature of each and their relationship to each other. Broadening our understanding from the development of reasoning and rationality in individuals to encompass social considerations of argumentation and democracy, the book connects psychological literature to philosophy, law, political science, and educational policy. Based on psychological research, Moshman sets out a system of deliberative democracy that promotes collaborative reasoning, rational institutions such as science and law, education aimed at the promotion of rationality, and intellectual freedom for all. Also including the biological bases of logic, metacognition, and collaborative reasoning, Moshman argues that, despite systematic flaws in human reasoning, there are reasons for a cautiously optimistic assessment of the potential for human rationality and the prospects for democracy. Reasoning, Argumentation, and Deliberative Democracy will be essential reading for all researchers of thinking and reasoning from psychology, philosophy, and education.

Demonstrating that public health and prevention program development is as much art as science, this book brings together expert program developers to offer practical guidance and principles in developing effective behavior-change curricula. Feinberg and the team of experienced contributors cover evidence-based programs addressing a range of physical, mental, and behavioral health problems, including ones targeting families, specific populations, and developmental stages. The contributors describe their own professional journeys and decisions in creating, refining, testing, and disseminating a range of programs and strategies. Readers will learn about selecting change-promoting targets based on existing research; developing and creating effective and engaging content; considering implementation and dissemination contexts in the development process; and revising, refining, expanding, abbreviating, and adapting a curriculum across multiple iterations. Designing Evidence-Based Public Health and Prevention Programs is essential reading for prevention scientists, prevention practitioners, and program developers in community agencies. It also provides a unique resource for graduate students and postgraduates in family sciences, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, social work, education, nursing, public health, and counselling.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions - so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field. This volume brings together articles, essays, poetry, and artwork from Jerome C. Harste's extensive career across the field of literacy studies. This book addresses his contributions to early literacy, reading comprehension, ways of knowing, inquiry-based education, and creating critical classrooms - among other topics - in his characteristically whimsical tone. Following the chronology of his career, each section of the book reflects an important theme of Harste's work and documents the impact of his contributions on the field. Combining his key articles with historical notes, fun facts, and professional tips, Harste tells stories about encounters with colleagues, and covers everything from seminars he developed and taught, the importance of collaboration, how his thinking and teaching have grown and evolved, ways his scholarship was enhanced through participation in professional organizations, as well as pithy words of advice for fellow scholars. The articles in this collection trace the development of a thought collective which Harste helped create and which continues to shape research and practice in the field of literacy education.

This accessible guide offers a concise introduction to the science behind worry in children, summarising research from across psychology to explore the role of worry in a range of circumstances, from everyday worries to those that can seriously impact children's lives. Wilson draws on theories from clinical, developmental and cognitive psychology to explain how children's worry is influenced by both developmental and systemic factors, examining the processes involved in pathological worry in a range of childhood anxiety disorders. Covering topics including different definitions of worry, the influence of children's development on worry, Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) in children, and the role parents play in children's worry, this book offers a new model of worry in children with important implications for prevention and intervention strategies. Understanding Children's Worry is valuable reading for students in clinical, educational and developmental psychology, and professionals in child mental health.

This accessible book provides evidence-based guidelines on dyscalculia, offering a thorough explanation of the science behind the disorder. It combines this theoretical framework with practical recommendations, offering interventions for managing the condition at home and school and avoiding potential behavioural consequences. Written in a straightforward style, this book provides a concise summary of relevant research to empower the reader to take an informed and positive approach to dyscalculia and those who live with it. The internationally based team of contributors examine the different models that explain the construct of dyscalculia, looking at definitions and theories alongside signs, symptoms and diagnosis. Chapters also explore how to communicate diagnosis to peers, possible cultural differences and sensitivities when related to mathematics education and dyscalculia and the importance of maintaining a proactive attitude when working with children with dyscalculia. Understanding Dyscalculia is essential reading for parents and practitioners in clinical and educational psychology, education professionals and students and researchers of special educational needs, educational psychology and counselling psychology.

Twenty years after Gordon Sturrock and the late Professor Perry Else's 'Colorado Paper' introduced the Play Cycle, this theory of play now supports professional playwork practice, training and education. The Play Cycle: Theory, Research and Application is the first book of its kind to explain the theoretical concept of the Play Cycle, supported by recent research, and how it can be used as an observational method for anyone who works with children in a play context. The book investigates the understandings of the Play Cycle within the playwork field over the last 20 years, and its future application. It addresses each aspect of the Play Cycle (metalude, play cue, play return, play frame, loop and flow and annihilation) and combines the theoretical aspect of the Play Cycle with empirical research evidence. The book also provides an observational tool for people to observe and record play cycles. This book will appeal to playworkers, teachers, play therapists and professionals working in other contexts with children, such as hospitals and prisons. It will support practitioners and students in learning about play and provide lecturers and trainers with a new innovative teaching and training aide.

Originally published in 1963, this account, based on a lifetime of first-hand experience of the growing child, covers all the situations and problems which a child - and its parents and educators - meet in the first twelve years of life, from the earliest of feeding and sleeping right through to learning to read, write, and adjust happily to other people. Every parent wants to be sure that his or her child gets the best possible start in life. At the time so many books that were supposed to deal with the formative years of a child's life gave advice that was incomplete, conflicting or ambiguous. It was for this reason that there had been so many pleas for a book which gave full explanations for its recommendations without sacrificing either warmth or humanity. The author produced such a book. The late Beatrix Tudor-Hart's early study of psychology at Cambridge and in Germany and America was followed by six years of running her own nursery kindergarten for children of two to seven years, until in 1933 she felt that it was wrong to separate this age group from older children. For sixteen years, from 1938-1954, she ran a cooperative, non-profitmaking school for children of two to twelve years. At the time of original publication, the author was a lecturer in Child Psychology for Department of Child Care at the North Western Polytechnic, London.

Exploring Materiality in Childhood: Body, Relations and Space explores the multiple ways that childhood and materiality are intertwined and assembled. Bringing together a diverse range of authors, this topical book makes a scholarly contribution to our understanding of the entanglements of materiality and childhoods in international contexts. Chapters explore how various environments and material resources, including technologies and consumer goods, affect children's lives. The book caters to a diverse range of theories, in sociomaterialist, posthumanist, post-anthropocentric and more-than-human research, critically exploring the boundaries of these theoretical approaches with diverse empirical cases. These wide ranges of perspectives develop alternatives to human-centred approaches in understanding children and childhoods. With its diverse theoretical and methodological choices, the book also serves as a versatile example for how to conduct research with children and on childhood. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and postgraduate students in childhood studies, early childhood education, social sciences, cultural sciences and sociology.

How does early years policy impact on practitioners, children, settings and families? What are the implications of current policy for the future? How can early years professionals shape and craft practice in ways that genuinely focus on the needs of children and families, rather than the interests of policy makers? This exciting new text explores the changing context and increasing importance of early years policy. It takes a broad look at policy developments and shows how these have affected children, settings, parents and the early years workforce. Divided into two parts, the first examines theoretical perspectives and sets out the early years policy context, looking at issues surrounding accountability, international influences on policy and the Early Years Foundation Stage. The second half of the book directly shows how policy has influenced practice, and considers: the upskilling of the workforce and the impact of this on practitioners; the development of the learning environment including outdoor provision; sustained shared thinking and its link to high quality learning and teaching; the impact of policy on parents. Offering a fresh perspective on early years policy, this timely textbook will be essential reading for students on undergraduate and postgraduate Early Years and Childhood Studies courses and those working towards Early Years Teacher status.

This innovative and user-friendly book uses a design thinking approach to examine transformative learning and liminality in physical education. Covering theory and practice, it introduces the important idea of 'threshold concepts' for physical education, helping physical educators to introduce those concepts into curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. The book invites us to reflect on what is learned in, through and about physical education - to identify its core threshold concepts. Once identified, the book explains how the learning of threshold concepts can be planned using principles of pedagogical translation for all four learning domains (cognitive, psychomotor, affective and social). The book is arranged into three key sections which walk the reader through the underpinning concepts, use movement case studies to explore and generate threshold concepts in physical education using design thinking approach and, finally, provide a guiding Praxis Matrix for PE Threshold Concepts that can be used for physical educators across a range of school and physical activity learning contexts. Outlining fundamental theory and useful, practical teaching and coaching advice, this book is invaluable reading for all PE teacher educators, coach educators, and any advanced student, coach or teacher looking to enrich their knowledge and professional practice.

Structured around Bishop's six fundamental mathematical activities, this book brings together examples of mathematics education from a range of countries to help readers broaden their view on maths and its interrelationship to other aspects of life. Considering different educational traditions and diverse contexts, and illustrating theory through the use of real-life vignettes throughout, this book encourages readers to review, reflect on, and critique their own practice when conducting activities on explaining, counting, measuring, locating, designing, and playing. Aimed at early childhood educators and practitioners looking to improve the mathematics learning experience for all their students, this practical and accessible guide provides the knowledge and tools to help every child.

This is a much-needed book for educators who want to learn more than just the surface features of lesson study, to deepen the process and learning. Bringing together current knowledge and resources from lesson study practitioners and researchers all over the world, this book provides models and examples of how teachers can learn more deeply and how to support them to learn more in lesson study. The chapters connect current research/educational theories to classroom practices and are filled with examples to illustrate how deeper learning looks with lesson study; for example, highlighting the research process, paying attention to educative talk, using of case pupils (students) as the teachers' focus, doing kyouzai kenkyuu well, facilitating mock-up lessons and so forth. This is not a basic "how-to" handbook of lesson study, and readers can choose chapters with topics of interest to learn and use the new ideas promptly in their work. Coming from the global network of lesson study educators, the book not only provides new learning guides but also provides stories of how lesson study has been adopted in different cultures and educational contexts.

In this fully revised and updated second edition, Early Childhood Teacher Research addresses the questions and concerns that pre- and in-service teachers of young children frequently have when engaging in teacher research. Accessible and interactive, this book explores the important issues every early childhood teacher should know, guiding readers from conceptualization, generating research questions, identifying data sources, gathering and analyzing data, interpreting and sharing results, to taking action. This second edition features thoroughly updated references, standards, and resources, as well as all-new sections on teacher advocacy, social media and devices, data collection, and planned versus unplanned research. Each chapter features: Teacher Researcher Notebook prompts for the reader to record ideas for research questions and to develop a plan for doing research. "From the Field" vignettes providing rich examples of real-world early childhood teacher researchers and their perspectives on doing teacher research. Reflection prompts inviting readers to pause and think deeply about relating content to their own situations. Reflections can be recorded in the Teacher Researcher Notebook. Explorations of additional content, websites, resources, interviews, and activities.

_______________ The 50 Fantastic Ideas series is packed full of fun, original, skills-based activities for Early Years practitioners to use with children aged 0-5. Each activity features step-by-step guidance, a list of resources, and a detailed explanation of the skills children will learn. Creative, simple, and highly effective, this series is a must-have for every Early Years setting. The outdoor environment is a rich, dynamic and natural space for promoting learning and development in children of all ages. Its value as an essential learning resource has been recognised by many government policies, including the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), particularly within the principle of 'Enabling Environments'. In a survey of schools who had improved their grounds, 65% reported an improved attitude to learning, 73% an improvement in behaviour and 64% a reduction in bullying. 50 Fantastic Ideas for Nursery Gardens is packed full of exciting activities, such as making a bird feeder and a garden treasure hunt, that have been tried and tested in the LEYF (London Early Years Foundation) nursery gardens with the children and nursery staff. These are designed to enrich children's skills and knowledge by broadening their horizons and opening up wider opportunities, extend language and contribute to deeper conversations about the great outdoors.

Bilingual language exposure is highly variable, with wide-ranging influences on early language skills. This underscores the need for understanding what to expect in early language acquisition so that those with typical language development can be differentiated from those who are struggling or at risk, and so requiring early intervention. One of the key ways to look at language development in very young children is to investigate their vocabulary development, and for bilingual children, this means measuring their abilities in both languages. This book takes an important step in this direction: it documents the expressive vocabularies of children aged 16-45 months who were exposed to different language pairs and bilingual contexts, and investigates the risk and protective effects of various environmental factors. In each of the six studies, the vocabularies of typically-developing children were measured using the vocabulary checklist of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and its adaptations to other languages. Developmental and language background questionnaires provided additional information on children's developmental history, risk factors for language impairment, language exposure, as well as parental education and occupation. This harmonised methodology was designed within COST Action IS0804 (Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment). The outcomes of this cross-linguistic research contribute towards answering theoretical questions regarding early bilingual vocabulary acquisition. They also have clinical relevance, potentially assisting speech-language pathologists and those interested in early language development in distinguishing between clinically significant bilingual delays and the natural consequences of bilingual exposure. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

This volume extends the knowledge base supporting research-informed child care for infants and toddlers, while simultaneously highlighting areas of study ripe for future research. The authors demonstrate from a systems perspective, that the experiences and outcomes of very young children in child care are influenced by characteristics of and interactions between the children, adults, and settings. Varying methodological approaches as well as the utilization of newer data collection instruments inform the field's understanding of current practices and procedures while offering guidance for future programming and policy. In turn, the chapters highlight a plethora of open questions and a need for a new generation of research to support the field of infant/toddler care. Future challenges are evident in the recognition of the inadequate nature of our current measures of child outcomes and classroom processes, the field's unmet promise to incorporate interdisciplinary perspectives, and the need for newer methodological designs that blend the strengths of quantitative and qualitative approaches. These issues are important given the growing demand for infant/toddler care and the increasing recognition of the unique role of this age period in serving as the foundation for all later development. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Education and Development.

* Advises counselors in a positive way and aims to change the lives of students with learning disabilities by preparing them for college in an effective, concrete way * The first part is an overview of learning disabilities as they apply to the role of the elementary school counselor * The second part of the book is a step-by-step program for creating counselor-led groups for elementary school students with learning disabilities

An Integrated Play-Based Curriculum for Young Children, Second Edition explores how to integrate play across the curriculum, helping teachers develop their early childhood curriculum using developmentally and culturally appropriate practice. Distinguished author Olivia N. Saracho offers a theoretical framework for understanding the origins of an early childhood play-based curriculum and illuminates how young children learn and understand concepts in a social and physical environment. This second edition has been fully updated throughout and its comprehensive coverage has been expanded with entirely new sections on technology and social media, cultural differences in play, and teaching English language learners and students with disabilities. Packed with vignettes, activities, and practical examples, this text is essential reading for pre-service teachers seeking appropriate theoretical practices for designing and implementing a play-based curriculum.