Janet B. Taylor

Nancy Amanda Branscombe

Jan Gunnels Burcham

Lilli Land

For early childhood classrooms – where curriculum is increasingly shaped by standards and teachers are pressed for time – Beyond Early Literacy offers a literacy method that goes beyond simply developing language arts skills. Known as Shared Journal, this process promotes young children’s learning across content areas – including their communication and language abilities, writing skills, sense of community, grasp of diverse social and cultural worlds, and understanding of history, counting, numeracy, and time. Pairing interactive talk with individual writing in the classroom community, this rich method develops the whole child. Special features include: sample lesson plans, rubrics, and templates throughout the book children’s artifacts, including examples of oral and written work teacher accounts examining the use of Shared Journal in the classroom, including strategies and suggestions a Companion Website with templates, additional resources, and video clips of in-classroom teaching and examples of exciting ways to use new technologies. This two-part book is first framed by current theory and research about children’s cognitive, language, and literacy development, and an extensive body of research and case studies on the efficacy of the method. The second part features strategies from on-the-ground teachers who have used the process with their students and explores how Shared Journal can be used with new technologies, can meet standards, and can be appropriate for diverse populations of children. This is a fantastic resource for use in early childhood education courses in emergent literacy, language arts, and curriculum.

A Balanced Approach to Developing the Whole Child

Beyond Early Literacy

Kathryn Castle

Elaine Surbeck

Through its unique integration of curriculum and learning principles, Early Childhood Curriculum: A Constructivist Perspective, 2nd Edition fosters authentic, developmentally appropriate practice for both preschool and early elementary classrooms. The constructivist format of this book encourages active involvement on the part of readers by asking them to observe, question, reflect, research, and analyze, thus allowing readers to create their own knowledge through their responses and actions. Early Childhood Curriculum examines curricular goals such as autonomy, development, and problem solving and links those goals with constructivist principles of learning. It explores ways teachers can create meaningful learning environments and choose curriculum tasks appropriately—in all content areas—that are linked to the learning and development needs of young children. The text provides a wealth of practical detail about implementing constructivist curriculum as the authors discuss classroom climate and management, room design, play, and cooperative learning, among other topics. The book also includes information about how teachers can meet required mandates and national and state standards in appropriate ways as they plan their curriculum, and examines the early childhood educator's role with community agencies, reform and legal mandates, and public relations. Special Features: • “Curriculum Strategies” highlight models for developing curriculum, including projects, curricular alignment, integration of various subject matter areas, and types of knowledge. • “Constructions” promote problem solving by allowing students to explore, revisit, examine, and learn from first-hand experience. • “Multiple Perspectives from the Field” provide interviews with teachers and other early childhood professionals, offering students a realistic look at the profession from a diverse group of educators. • “Teacher Dialogues” explore a wide range of student concerns, including curriculum, learning environments, assessment, and documentation, representing a collaborative support group for pre-service teachers and readers.

A Constructivist Perspective

Early Childhood Curriculum

Jan Gunnels Burcham

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