"This important book is a thorough account of early communication covering bilingualism and specific areas of learning of reading and writing in early years. It is well laid out, informative and supportive with excellent case studies. " - Eva Mikuska, Senior Lecturer at University of Chichester The role of the adult in the development of young children’s communications skills through interaction is vital and this book will help you understand this and improve your practice. Taking a chronological approach there is also a particular interest in the needs of two year olds, including the Progress Check at Age Two and the revised requirements of the early years foundation stage. The book features: · Case studies, points for practice and links to video examples · Coverage of bi or multilingual children · Examples of enabling environments for communication and interaction · Ideas of how to work best with parents. Suitable for all those studying or practising in Early Childhood it will develop the way you think about communication and interaction.

How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

Infants learn to communicate through everyday social interaction with their caregivers in a multisensory world involving sight, hearing, touch and smell. The neural and behavioural underpinnings of caregiver-infant multisensory interaction and communication, however, have remained largely unexplored in research across disciplines. This book highlights this largely uncharted territory to better understand the developmental origins of human multisensory perception and communication. It emphasizes the range and complexity of multisensory infant-caregiver interaction in the real world, and its developmental and neurophysiological characteristics. Furthermore, recent theories of brain development suggest that brain, body and the environment interact with one another on an ongoing basis, influencing each other and are constantly being influenced by each other. This volume aims to elucidate the neurophysiological, behavioural and environmental factors to better understand the nature of multisensory communication as a whole. This book was originally published as a special issue of Developmental Neuropsychology.

Jerome Bruner shows that the basic concepts of science and the humanities can be grasped intuitively at a very early age. Bruner's foundational case for the spiral curriculum has influenced a generation of educators and will continue to be a source of insight into the goals and methods of the educational process.

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.

How can early childhood practitioners best respond to cultural and linguistic diversity and ensure positive interactions with all children and families? Discover the power of Skilled Dialogue, a unique, effective, and field-tested model for interactions that honour the cultural beliefs and values of everyone involved. Going far beyond the fundamentals introduced in the first edition of this book, the fully updated second edition incorporates expanded coverage of today's most critical topics and reflects the real-world feedback of seasoned Skilled Dialogue users. With this proven model for respectful, reciprocal, and responsive communications, pre- and inservice educators and interventionists will: understand culture as a dynamic that shapes the behaviours and beliefs of all people; actively communicate respect for what others believe, think, and value; resolve issues creatively by integrating diverse perspectives from all parties; strengthen inclusive assessment and instruction; reframe differences between practitioners and families as complementary, not contradictory; avoid stereotypes based on culture and ethnicity; and gain critical insight into the effects of trauma and how it interacts with culture. To support professionals as they put Skilled Dialogue into practice, this edition includes explicit guidance, vivid examples, and practical reproducible forms to aid with assessment, instruction, and organization of key family and child information. With this comprehensive guide to a positive, highly effective model, early childhood professionals will establish skillful interactions that honour all cultures and perspectives, leading to stronger working relationships and better outcomes for families.

Learning language and using language to learn is at the core of any educational activity. Bringing together a globally representative team of experts, this volume presents an innovative and empirically robust collection of studies that examine the role of language in education, with a particular emphasis on features of school-relevant language in middle childhood and adolescents, and its precursors in early childhood. It addresses issues such as how children's linguistic and literacy experiences at home prepare them for school, how the classroom functions as a language-mediated learning environment, and how schools can support language minority students in academic attainment. Set in three parts - Early Childhood, Middle Childhood and Adolescence and Learning in Multilingual Contexts - each part features a discussion from experts in the field to stimulate conversation and further routes for research. Its structure will make it useful for anyone interested in ongoing efforts towards building a pedagogically relevant theory of language learning.