PDF Moving Toward an Integrated Curriculum in Early Childhood Education Download
- Author: Dianne Lawler-Prince
- Publisher:
- ISBN:
- Category : Education
- Languages : en
- Pages : 108
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Based on research that demonstrates the powerful advantages of integrating the curriculum while providing inquiry opportunities, The Early Childhood Curriculum shows how to make such an approach work for all children, preschool through the primary grades. The text demonstrates how to confidently teach using inquiry-based methods that address the whole child, while also meeting and exceeding academic standards. Offering a foundation in early childhood theory, philosophy, research, and development, the 2nd edition of this unique textbook helps future teachers, as well as current educators, understand the "why" of curriculum in early childhood and invests them with the skills they need to move from simply following a script to knowledgeably creating curricula on their own. Since each curricular subject has its own integrity, there is a chapter for each discipline, grounding the reader in the essentials of the subject in order to foster knowledgeable and effective integration. The 2nd edition of The Early Childhood Curriculum includes information on the most recent trends in national curriculum standards, particularly in regard to the Common Core State Standards Initiative and the Next Generation Science Standards. Coupled with this information are practical suggestions for meeting standards while still providing young learners with a truly child-centered educational experience. Chapters contain real-life vignettes that demonstrate inquiry and integration in practice. The entire text reflects the philosophy that the use of inquiry to seek and obtain information is one of the most valuable and powerful tools children can acquire along the way to becoming lifelong learners.
Combines research and practice on integrated developmentally appropriate curriculum that helps theorists, researchers, parents, and teachers understand how to match early childhood teaching practices to the integrated manner that young children naturally think and learn.
Curriculum in Early Childhood Education: Re-examined, Reclaimed, Renewed critically and thoroughly examines key questions, aims, and approaches in early childhood curricula. Designed to provide a theoretical and philosophical foundation for examining teaching and learning in the early years, this fully updated and timely second edition provokes discussion and analysis among all readers. What influences operate (both historically and currently) to impact what happens in young children's classrooms? Whose perspectives are dominant and whose are ignored? What values are explicit and implicit? Each chapter gives readers a starting point for re-examining key topics, encourages a rich exchange of ideas in the university classroom, and provides a valuable resource for professionals. This second edition has been fully revised to reflect the current complexities and tensions inherent in curricular decision-making and features attention to policy, standardization, play, and diversity, providing readers with historical context, current theories, and new perspectives for the field. Curriculum in Early Childhood Education is essential reading for those seeking to examine curriculum in early childhood and develop a stronger understanding of how theories and philosophies intersect with the issues that accompany the creation and implementation of learning experiences.
Clearly babies come into the world remarkably receptive to its wonders. Their alertness to sights, sounds, and even abstract concepts makes them inquisitive explorersâ€"and learnersâ€"every waking minute. Well before formal schooling begins, children's early experiences lay the foundations for their later social behavior, emotional regulation, and literacy. Yet, for a variety of reasons, far too little attention is given to the quality of these crucial years. Outmoded theories, outdated facts, and undersized budgets all play a part in the uneven quality of early childhood programs throughout our country. What will it take to provide better early education and care for our children between the ages of two and five? Eager to Learn explores this crucial question, synthesizing the newest research findings on how young children learn and the impact of early learning. Key discoveries in how young children learn are reviewed in language accessible to parents as well as educators: findings about the interplay of biology and environment, variations in learning among individuals and children from different social and economic groups, and the importance of health, safety, nutrition and interpersonal warmth to early learning. Perhaps most significant, the book documents how very early in life learning really begins. Valuable conclusions and recommendations are presented in the areas of the teacher-child relationship, the organization and content of curriculum, meeting the needs of those children most at risk of school failure, teacher preparation, assessment of teaching and learning, and more. The book discusses: Evidence for competing theories, models, and approaches in the field and a hard look at some day-to-day practices and activities generally used in preschool. The role of the teacher, the importance of peer interactions, and other relationships in the child's life. Learning needs of minority children, children with disabilities, and other special groups. Approaches to assessing young children's learning for the purposes of policy decisions, diagnosis of educational difficulties, and instructional planning. Preparation and continuing development of teachers. Eager to Learn presents a comprehensive, coherent picture of early childhood learning, along with a clear path toward improving this important stage of life for all children.
Aimed at courses on early childhood, this text systematically shows how to apply a unified philosophy to early childhood curricula. For the pre-primary years' there are cross-curricular ideas that can be taught informally and for primary years' there are suggestions for very academic environments.
Implementing a Standards-Based Curriculum in the Early Childhood Classroom demonstrates how pre-service and in-service teachers can develop mathematics, language arts, and integrated curricula suitable for equipping young children with the knowledge, dispositions, and skills needed to operate successfully as 21st century learners. Chapters promote family-school partnerships, and each content area chapter (mathematics, language arts and integrated curriculum) will demonstrate assessment practices proven to be effective for detecting the impact of specific early childhood teaching methods on student learning.
This updated resource offers ten models that allow teachers to work together to create learner-centered classrooms by grouping elements from various content areas into a coherent, standards-based curriculum.
Early Childhood Curriculum for All Learners: Integrating Play and Literacy Activities is designed to teach early childhood professionals about the latest research on play and early literacy and then to show them practical methods for adapting this research to everyday classroom practices that will encourage the development of learning skills. The authors link solid, play-based research to specific developmentally appropriate practices. By combining these two areas, the text demonstrates that academic learning and play activities are highly compatible, and that children can and do develop academic skills through play. In addition, the text focuses on socio-dramatic play, a recently acknowledged, essential aspect of child-initiated play interactions. It provides specific strategies that link these interactive behaviors with the early academic skills needed for the initial primary grades. Implementation of the information presented in this book will enable children to experience a richer transition into primary education classrooms.