Introduction to Early Childhood Education: A Developmental Perspective

Covers Birth to Age Eight. This new, concise introductory text helps pre-service teachers to first understand the basics of developmental domains  and then understand how to engage in intentional, developmentally appropriate interactions with young children, create environments, and implement curricular practices that will help young children to learn and thrive. Taking a developmental approach, this first edition text with integrated technology explores both time-honored theories of early childhood development and current models and modern research in the field.

Part One of the text discusses the career options of early childhood professionals, the history of the field, and theories of childhood development. Part Two discusses how teachers support children’s emotional, social, cognitive, and physical development. The final section of the book explains how to use assessment and guidance to support children and how to implement developmentally appropriate curriculum in the classroom.

This text is supplemented with a number of features and ancillaries that make learning easier for students and teaching easier for instructors. Students will benefit from the engaging boxed features Teach Intentionally and Check Your Understanding, as well as by the online features contained in MyEducationLab: videos with accompanying assignable questions and Building Teaching Skills exercises and other resources to explore. Teachers may take advantage of the online instructors’ guide, online test bank, numerous integrated videos, PowerPoint slides, TestGen, and test banks in Blackboard and WebCT.  

PART I: A Developmental Approach to Early Childhood Education

            1: Early Childhood Professionals: Committed to the Whole Child

            2: Foundations and Programs

            3: Working with Diverse Families

PART II: Understanding Development

            4: Supporting Children’s Emotional Development

            5: Supporting Children’s Social Development

            6: Supporting Children’s Cognitive Development

            7: Supporting Children’s Physical Development

PART III: Using the Developmental Approach to Early Childhood Education

              8: Using Assessment to Support Children and Families

              9: Supporting Children with Guidance

            10: Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum

            11: Early Childhood Environments

            12: Early Childhood Teachers: Lifelong Learners

Appendix: NAEYC Code of Ethical Conduct

References

Author Index

Subject Index

• Emphasizes the importance of understanding a child's development in order to be an effective teacher. Four chapters focus on the developmental domains. Consequently, many examples of Developmentally Appropriate Practice are woven through this text.
• Alignment with NAEYC standards gives the book an organizing structure and gives early childhood students a thorough introduction to the field. Chapter openers list the standards on which the chapter is based, while all five Professional Preparation standards are printed on the inside front cover of the text for students’ and professors’ reference.
•  “Teach Intentionally” boxed features focus on the intentionality that effective early childhood teachers employ. Intentionality has been a focus of NAEYC and this feature familiarizes students with their responsibility to be deliberate and intentional in their practices.
• MyEducationLab prompts throughout the textbook’s margins remind students to explore this online resource and take advantage of the extra features and learning tools therein, such as videos, artifacts, and accompanying assignable homework in Applications and Activities and in Building Teaching Skills.
• Chapters open with guiding questions and vignettes that are aligned with the major lessons of the chapter and that focus readers’ attention on what they are about to learn. These openers give students looks into real classroom scenarios and help bring the material they are about to read to life.
• “Check Your Understanding” boxed features lend students the opportunity to solidify their understanding of a major concept within a chapter before they go on to another section.
• Key term marginal definitions allows students to review chapters efficiently and to identify the most important vocabulary words and concepts in each chapter. An alphabetized list of key terms and their definitions appears at the end of each chapter.
• Three reoccurring case studies pepper the text with real-life examples from actual teachers leading three different learning environments. These examples liven the text and illustrate how teaching experiences differ with regards to age groups (infant/toddler, preschool and primary), diversity issues, and setting.
• MyEducationLab! To package this text with the course-specific version of MyEdLab use this ISBN: 0-136-10126-7

Marian Marion is a professor of early childhood education at Governors State University in Illinois. She is the author of two other textbooks: the widely used Guidance of Young Children (Merrill/Pearson, 2006), and Using Observation in Early Childhood Education (Merrill/Pearson, 2006).