The High-Performing Preschool: Story Acting in Head Start Classrooms

The High-Performing Preschool takes readers into the lives of three- and four-year-old Head Start students during their first year of school and focuses on the centerpiece of their school day: story acting. In this activity, students act out stories from high-quality children’s literature as well as stories dictated by their peers. Drawing on a unique pair of thinkers―Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky and renowned American teacher and educational writer Vivian G. Paley―Gillian Dowley McNamee elucidates the ways, and reasons, this activity is so successful. She shows how story acting offers a larger blueprint for curricula that helps ensure all preschools―not just those for society’s well-to-do―are excellent.               McNamee outlines how story acting cultivates children’s oral and written language skills. She shows how it creates a crucial opportunity for teachers to guide children inside the interior logic and premises of an idea, and how it fosters the creation of a literary community. Starting with Vygotsky and Paley, McNamee paints a detailed portrait of high-quality preschool teaching, showing how educators can deliver on the promise of Head Start and provide a setting for all young children to become articulate, thoughtful, and literate learners.  

Education & Teaching

McNamee, Gillian Dowley

Schools & Teaching

University of Chicago Press

The High-Performing Preschool takes readers into the lives of three- and four-year-old Head Start students during their first year of school and focuses on the centerpiece of their school day: story acting. In this activity, students act out stories from high-quality children’s literature as well as stories dictated by their peers. Drawing on a unique pair of thinkers—Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky and renowned American teacher and educational writer Vivian G. Paley—Gillian Dowley McNamee elucidates the ways, and reasons, this activity is so successful. She shows how story acting offers a larger blueprint for curricula that helps ensure all preschools—not just those for society’s well-to-do—are excellent. McNamee outlines how story acting cultivates children’s oral and written language skills. She shows how it creates a crucial opportunity for teachers to guide children inside the interior logic and premises of an idea, and how it fosters the creation of a literary community. Starting with Vygotsky and Paley, McNamee paints a detailed portrait of high-quality preschool teaching, showing how educators can deliver on the promise of Head Start and provide a setting for all young children to become articulate, thoughtful, and literate learners.

Examines the ways young children learn to read and write, looks at how children apply these new skills in their daily lives, and suggests ways parents can help their child improve these skills

Early Literacy (DEVELOPING CHILD)

McLane, Joan Brooks

Parenting & Relationships

Harvard University Press

Effectively assess learning in the most critical years of a child&#8242;s development Young children's learning in preschool and childcare settings sets the foundation for the elementary school years to come. Skills in speaking, listening, reading, math, science, and the arts develop inside everyday instructional routines that teachers and childcare providers make available to children. How can educators be sure of what their children are learning and how to support their progress? Listening to Learning&nbsp;provides pre-service and in-service teachers and childcare providers working with young learners with an innovative and practical way to assess children's learning while they are engaged in daily instructional routines. This book offers: <ul> <li>Methods for observing, documenting, and analyzing what and how young children are learning</li> <li>Strategies for monitoring children&#8242;s progress across various areas, including sciences, arts, mathematics, language arts, and play</li> <li>Approaches for making informed instructional adaptations that address the developmental needs of young learners from diverse home and community settings</li> <li>A framework that shows how instructional routine activities can be used to bridge classroom assessment with the teaching and learning process</li> </ul> With years of expertise and a thorough analysis of assessment techniques, the authors effectively showcase the power of instructional routines as a tool for understanding and enhancing student learning in these most formative years of development.

Listening to Learning: Assessing and Teaching Young Children

Chen, Jie-Qi

Corwin

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McNamee, Gillian Dowley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by McNamee, Gillian Dowley

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by McNamee, Gillian Dowley. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The High-Performing Preschool: Story Acting in Head Start Classrooms

The High-Performing Preschool: Story Acting in Head Start Classrooms

Early Literacy (DEVELOPING CHILD)

Listening to Learning: Assessing and Teaching Young Children