Integrating Children's Literature in the Classroom: Insights for the Primary and Early Years Educator


Book Description

Teachers can have a profound influence on children’s reading behaviour and attitudes to literature. Whether it’s to broaden children’s knowledge and understanding, or encourage reading for pleasure, reading in the classroom is becoming an increasing priority. This book looks at a wide range of children’s literature from picture books to classics to poetry. A diverse array of books is recommended for teachers to use in a broad variety of contexts to enhance learning across the curriculum, featuring beloved authors such as Michael Morpurgo, Tove Jansson and Kenneth Grahame, as well as introducing some who may be new to teachers. This book: •Recognises the key role of children’s literature within the curriculum and learning development •Explores examples through case studies of classroom practice and highlights children’s literature’s role in Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education •Celebrates the range of voices and contexts that literature can represent in the classroom •Includes a ‘For your bookshelf’ section in each chapter which summarises key titles •Dedicates a chapter to the importance of creating children’s literature with and for children The authors place emphasis on creating a literate environment in which children’s literature is a central feature. This is a must-read for teachers at all levels, as well as anyone who volunteers in schools to support readers. “Read on to enrich your practice right across the curriculum and find diverse books to engage and inspire children. Enjoy!” Professor Teresa Cremin, The Open University, UK “How do we make sure children today recognise the value of reading for pleasure when so many other mediums are competing for their attention? The answer lies within this excellent text.” Megan Stephenson, PGCE Primary ITT Lead, Leeds Trinity University, UK “It is an essential book for the primary school – needed now more than ever before.” Adam Bushnell, Author of Modelling Exciting Writing and Descriptosaurus: Story Writing Rosemary Waugh is a retired teacher who has written extensively on children’s literature, spelling, punctuation and grammar. She is an avid collector of children’s literature. She works with David to lead workshops for reading volunteers in schools for the Open University, UK, and the charity Coram Beanstalk. David Waugh is a former deputy headteacher, education adviser and head of department, who is currently a professor at Durham University, School of Education, UK. He has written more than sixty books on primary English as well as six children’s novels, two of which were written with groups of children.







Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8


Book Description

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.




Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves


Book Description

Anti-bias education begins with you! Become a skilled anti-bias teacher with this practical guidance to confronting and eliminating barriers.




Funds of Knowledge


Book Description

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.




Cutting School


Book Description

2018 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award (Nonfiction) Finalist A timely indictment of the corporate takeover of education and the privatization—and profitability—of separate and unequal schools, published at a critical time in the dismantling of public education in America "An astounding look at America’s segregated school system, weaving together historical dynamics of race, class, and growing inequality into one concise and commanding story. Cutting School puts our schools at the center of the fight for a new commons." —Naomi Klein, author of No Is Not Enough and This Changes Everything Public schools are among America’s greatest achievements in modern history, yet from the earliest days of tax-supported education—today a sector with an estimated budget of over half a billion dollars—there have been intractable tensions tied to race and poverty. Now, in an era characterized by levels of school segregation the country has not seen since the mid-twentieth century, cultural critic and American studies professor Noliwe Rooks provides a trenchant analysis of our separate and unequal schools and argues that profiting from our nation’s failure to provide a high-quality education to all children has become a very big business. Cutting School deftly traces the financing of segregated education in America, from reconstruction through Brown v. Board of Education up to the current controversies around school choice, teacher quality, the school-to-prison pipeline, and more, to elucidate the course we are on today: the wholesale privatization of our schools. Rooks’s incisive critique breaks down the fraught landscape of “segrenomics,” showing how experimental solutions to the so-called achievement gaps—including charters, vouchers, and cyber schools—rely on, profit from, and ultimately exacerbate disturbingly high levels of racial and economic segregation under the guise of providing equal opportunity. Rooks chronicles the making and unmaking of public education and the disastrous impact of funneling public dollars to private for-profit and nonprofit operations. As the infrastructure crumbles, a number of major U.S. cities are poised to permanently dismantle their public school systems—the very foundation of our multicultural democracy. Yet Rooks finds hope and promise in the inspired individuals and powerful movements fighting to save urban schools. A comprehensive, compelling account of what’s truly at stake in the relentless push to deregulate and privatize, Cutting School is a cri de coeur for all of us to resist educational apartheid in America.







British Qualifications 2017


Book Description

Now in its 47th edition, British Qualifications 2017 is the definitive one-volume guide to every qualification on offer in the United Kingdom. With an equal focus on vocational studies, this essential guide has full details of all institutions and organizations involved in the provision of further and higher education and is an essential reference source for careers advisors, students and employers. It also includes a comprehensive and up-to-date description of the structure of further and higher education in the UK. The book includes information on awards provided by over 350 professional institutions and accrediting bodies, details of academic universities and colleges and a full description of the current framework of academic and vocational education. It is compiled and checked annually to ensure accuracy of information.




ENC Focus


Book Description




Statistics in Early Childhood and Primary Education


Book Description

This compilation focuses on the theory and conceptualisation of statistics and probability in the early years and the development of young children’s (ages 3-10) understanding of data and chance. It provides a comprehensive overview of cutting-edge international research on the development of young learners’ reasoning about data and chance in formal, informal, and non-formal educational contexts. The authors share insights into young children’s statistical and probabilistic reasoning and provide early childhood educators and researchers with a wealth of illustrative examples, suggestions, and practical strategies on how to address the challenges arising from the introduction of statistical and probabilistic concepts in pre-school and school curricula. This collection will inform practices in research and teaching by providing a detailed account of current best practices, challenges, and issues, and of future trends and directions in early statistical and probabilistic learning worldwide. Further, it will contribute to future research and theory building by addressing theoretical, epistemological, and methodological considerations regarding the design of probability and statistics learning environments for young children.