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This book provides a simple means of observing and recording a child's level of language performance, measuring progress, and isolating areas of difficulty. Any teacher concerned about observing children's language development will find the volume invaluable.
Researchers, educators, professional organizations, administrators, parents, and policy makers have increased their involvement in the assessment and evaluation of early childhood education programs. This interest has developed swiftly during the last decades. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE) developed a position statement titled, “Early childhood curriculum, assessment, and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8,” to address related trends, issues, guiding principles, and values. Appropriate and well-designed evaluations need to address several audiences including researchers, educators, policy makers, children, and parents. They need to encourage the implementation of a strong foundation that improves the quality of the children’s education. Child assessment and program evaluation can lead to effective results and better accountability for preschool, kindergarten, and primary school programs. The purpose of this volume is to share a collection of research strands on contemporary perspectives on research in assessment and evaluation in early childhood education. It provides a review and critical analysis of the literature on assessment and evaluation of programs, children, teachers, and settings. The volume begins with a brief introductory chapter that presents the reader with a map of the area, laying out the issues and alternatives, and linking these to the chapters that follow. It addresses several areas including (1) understanding assessment and evaluation with young children, (2) schools and assessment implications, (3) teacher evaluation and professional development, (4) social relationships and assessment, (5) content areas in early education assessment, (6) technology and assessment, and (7) conclusion with future research directions in assessment and evaluation in early childhood education. The volume is of interest to researchers, educators, policy makers, university faculty, graduate students, and general readers who are interested in research on assessment and evaluation in early childhood education. The chapters are authored by established scholars in the field.
As major political and social changes continue to sweep through the countries of the world, and more and more nations move toward forms of social democracy, the importance of being able to read has taken on a new urgency. The burden of government, commerce, education, and social welfare is moving increasingly toward the individual, and with it the need to turn basic reading skills into the sophisticated ability to analyze, comprehend, and debate the whole world of language in front of him. This book offers an opportunity to see how the process of learning to read is being handled in a broad cross-section of countries in the world, representing the First, Second, and Third Worlds. Each of the twenty-six country surveys has been written by an international scholar indigenous to that land and follows the same basic pattern in examining reading education. Following a brief introduction to the nation and its particular educational characteristics, ten reading-associated factors are fully discussed and analyzed. These factors include the language of the country in question, its reading policy, the goals of reading, illiteracy, issues pertaining to the rate and diagnosis of reading disabilities, reading readiness programs, the teacher qualification procedure, the source and availability of materials in reading, the financing of reading education, and research thrusts in the field of reading. Each chapter then concludes with a summary and brief bibliography of important reference sources within that country. This unique study will be an essential reference tool for students and practitioners in-the fields of education and reading literacy, as well as a valuable addition to both public and academic libraries.
In an era of change in education, the time is right to refocus attention on guided reading practices. Guided reading remains an anchor in small group literacy instruction, but how has it changed with the new shifts? In this book, Michael Ford provides a practical resource for guided reading. He explains how it has evolved, why it's important, how to fit it into a comprehensive literacy program, how to select texts, how to position it for intervention, and how to assess students. Also included is an appendix with a listing of guided reading books.
The importance of the early years in young children’s lives and the rigid inequality in literacy achievement are a stimulating backdrop to current research in young children’s language and literacy development. This book reports new data and empirical analyses that advance the theory of language and literacy, with researchers using different methodologies in conducting their study, with both a sound empirical underpinning and a captivating analytical rationalization of the results. The contributors to this volume used several methodological methods (e.g. quantitative, qualitative) to describe the complete concept of the study; the achievement of the study; and the study in an appropriate manner based on the study’s methodology. The contributions to this volume cover a wide range of topics, including dual language learners; Latino immigrant children; children who have hearing disabilities; parents’ and teachers’ beliefs about language development; early literacy skills of toddlers and preschool children; interventions; multimodalities in early literacies; writing; and family literacy. The studies were conducted in various early childhood settings such as child care, nursery school, Head Start, kindergarten, and primary grades, and the subjects in the studies represent the pluralism of the globe – a pluralism of language, backgrounds, ethnicity, abilities, and disabilities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.
The tools used in data collection have the ability to influence the ways information is perceived and generated. Analyzing research processes is a concept that can be overlooked, though is as important as the information itself. Methods and Paradigms in Education Research addresses the innovative formulaic approaches taken in research to challenge their effectiveness. Featuring coverage on selection, forms, and analytical procedures of data, this publication is essential for researchers, students, and academicians seeking current information on understanding research methodology.
