Synopses & Reviews
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 childrenand#8217;s literature as well as stories dictated by their peers. Drawing on a unique pair of thinkersand#151;Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky and renowned American teacher and educational writer Vivian G. Paleyand#151;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 preschoolsand#151;not just those for societyand#8217;s well-to-doand#151;are excellent.
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McNamee outlines how story acting cultivates childrenand#8217;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. and#160;
Review
andldquo;In the efforts to expand formal educational opportunities for young children, one critical question looms: what kind of experiences should they have in preschool? This question is particularly important for those who need preschool the most: children from low-income families and children whose first language is not English. Compelling and clear, with a rich and lively interplay of theory and practice,and#160;The High-Performing Preschooland#160;goes a long way toward answering that question.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Through her imaginary conversations with Vivian Paley and Lev Vygotsky, two path breakers in the field of education, McNamee illuminates the social nature of learning, some of the pitfalls of recent educational reform, and the pathways to human creativity. The High-Performing Preschool is a must-read not only for every educator, policy maker, and parent ready to change the direction of education in the United States today, but also for anyone who seeks to lay the groundwork in young children for empathy, innovation, and leadership.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;This is a telling book. The participatory pedagogy it offers builds on childrenandrsquo;s enactments or dramatizations of their imagined stories and on extended discussions and interpretations of stories found in childrenandrsquo;s literature. These activities provide the context for children to develop special ways of using words and narrative forms of discourse, central to future success in school. As McNamee demonstrates in detail, a classroom is never simply a setting: by engaging what is already thereandmdash;the studentsandrsquo; ideas, imaginations, experiences, stories, relations, and conversationsandmdash;it becomes a powerful source of development.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Teacher and author Vivian Paley is highly regarded by parents, educators, and other professionals for her original insights into such seemingly everyday issues as play, story, gender, and how young children think. In
The Classrooms All Young Children Need, Patricia M. Cooper takes a synoptic view of Paleys many books and articles, charting the evolution of Paleys thinking while revealing the seminal characteristics of her teaching philosophy. This careful analysis leads Cooper to identify a pedagogical model organized around two complementary principles: a curriculum that promotes play and imagination, and the idea of classrooms as fair places where young children of every color, ability, and disposition are welcome.
With timely attention paid to debates about the reduction in time for play in the early childhood classroom, the role of race in education, and No Child Left Behind, The Classrooms All Young Children Need will be embraced by anyone tasked with teaching our youngest pupils.
About the Author
Patricia M. Cooper is assistant professor of early childhood education and literacy at New York Universitys Steinhardt School of Education and the author of numerous articles on teaching and learning in early childhood education and When Stories Come to School: Telling, Writing, and Performing Stories in the Early Childhood Classroom.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue: An “N of 1”
Introduction: Why Interpret the Clear?
Part One Curricular Matters: A Pedagogy of Meaning
Chapter One Early Literacy, Play, and a Teaching Philosophy
Chapter Two Fantasy Play and Young Childrens Search for Meaning
Chapter Three Storytelling and Story Acting: Meaning Extended
Part Two Relational Matters: A Pedagogy of Fairness
Chapter Four Teaching as a Moral Act, Classrooms as Democratic Spaces
Chapter Five Race, Pedagogy, and the Search for Fairness
Chapter Six Fairness Extended: Superheroes, Helicopters, and the Unchosen
Epilogue: The Classrooms Young Children Need—an “N of Many”
Appendix A: Guide to Implementation of Paleys Storytelling Curriculum
Appendix B: Sample Stories
Appendix C: Sample Transcript of Child Dictation
Appendix D: Becoming a Teacher of Stories
Notes
References
Index