Preschool Teachers' Lives and Work focuses on preschool teachers as people, what they do, and how they are affected by what they do. Highly politicized and hotly debated, preschool today is increasingly focused on comparatively narrow views of school readiness and academic outcomes which are generally in opposition to the broader view of readiness proposed by NAEYC. This powerful book, based around interviews and data drawn primarily from Head Start programs, illustrates the profound humanity of this profession and underscores the pressing and insistent need for greater investments in teachers' well-being.

Preschool Teachers' Lives and Work focuses on preschool teachers as people, what they do, and how they are affected by what they do. Highly politicized and hotly debated, preschool today is increasingly focused on comparatively narrow views of school readiness and academic outcomes which are generally in opposition to the broader view of readiness proposed by NAEYC. This powerful book, based around interviews and data drawn primarily from Head Start programs, illustrates the profound humanity of this profession and underscores the pressing and insistent need for greater investments in teachers' well-being.

This text provides teachers, speech-language pathologists, and others working with young children with methods for providing systematic and engaging literacy instruction. The approaches it treats are evidence based, being examined and refined by classroom implementation. They cover the array of important early literacy and language skills, both print based and meaning based (phonological awareness, print awareness and letter knowledge, story comprehension and vocabulary, and oral and written language). In a casual style and tone, easily accessible to a wide variety of readers, each chapter presents underlying research, applied principles, and illustrations of a variety of contexts and activities for instructional purposes. Ideas for school-home connections are included as well.While there are a number of texts that focus on emergent and early literacy curriculum (defining curricular components and developmental progression), assessment, and instructional delivery models, this book contains innovative content not found elsewhere, including: Strategies and procedures for coordinating class-wide literacy instruction and activities with supplemental literacy services provided by support personnel Specific ways to use paraeducators and parent or community volunteers to increase instructional opportunities Procedures for conducting effective professional development Integrated arts curriculum and procedures Mechanisms for embedding literacy learning in all classroom contexts with varied participant structures in order to provide intense and frequent opportunities for children to practice literacy skills Primarily targeted at early childhood educators and speech-language pathologists at preservice and practicing professional levels, the content will also be relevant to any education professionals involved with literacy instruction in early childhood settings, including reading specialists, special educators, and teachers of English as a second language. The book is also appropriate for undergraduate or graduate level classes dealing with early language and literacy instruction or with intervention in early childhood education, speech-language pathology, or special education programs.