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Developing Quality Care for Young Children

How to Turn Early Care Settings Into Magical Places

By: Nettie Becker, Paul Becker

Foreword by Rebecca Shahmoon Shanok

A guide to creating and sustaining a high-quality, successful early child care program!

This resource illustrates how to build a successful child care program, handle the inevitable challenges, and achieve and sustain positive results. By examining the basic principles of high-quality early child care within a real-life setting, the authors demonstrate how to:

Create environments that foster healthy relationships for children and adults
Build on children's sense of wonder and joy for learning in preparation for later academic experiences
Use families' ethnic and cultural diversity as a teaching tool
Maintain professional standards for administration and staff

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Product Details

Grade Level: PreK-K
ISBN: 9781412965668
Published By: Corwin
Year: 2008
Page Count: 200
Publication date: September 26, 2008

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Description

"Ask yourself the questions posed in this book, whether you are searching for child care or wondering why our smallest and most important citizens don't have more quality early education programs available in a more equitable manner. This is a great teacher's guide for those entering the field and a great staff development idea for ECE centers."
—Denise Humphries, Preschool Principal
John F. Kennedy American School, Queretaro, Mexico

"I cannot think of anything pertaining to high-quality child care programs that isn't covered in this book. The organization is clear, consistent, and easy to follow."
—Diane Salverson, Inclusion Specialist
Early Childhood Direction Center, Buffalo, NY

A guide to creating and sustaining a high-quality, successful early child care program!

With most families today needing at least two sources of income, there is a critical need for quality, affordable child care throughout our country. This book discusses the qualities of an effective early child care program and the need to provide children with experiences that will prepare them for future emotional, social, and academic success.

By examining high-quality early care within a real-life setting, this resource illustrates how to build a successful program, handle the inevitable challenges, and achieve and sustain positive results. Using their experience in child development and child therapy, the authors demonstrate how to:

Create environments that foster healthy relationships for children and adults
Build on children's sense of wonder and joy for learning in preparation for later academic experiences
Use families' ethnic and cultural diversity as a teaching tool
Maintain professional standards for administration and staff

Developing Quality Care for Young Children is invaluable not only for early childhood educators, administrators, and trainers, but also for anyone striving to make a difference in the lives of our youngest learners.

Key features

Most of the resources written about this topic are either solely theoretical or entirely practical. This book is unique because it presents both theory and practice in the context of a real setting and with real people.
The state of child care in the United States is a very real, very big problem. This book gives teachers and administrators strategies for improving their practice.
The addition of chapter synopses and discussion questions will make it ideal for pre-service work.

Author(s)

Nettie Becker

Nettie Becker has devoted her entire professional life to working with young people, first as a teacher and counselor of high school students, and for the past 20 years in the field of infant and early child care. She has designed, set up, and implemented a movement program of adaptive physical education at a school for special children and has worked as a child development consultant for day care programs in New York City. She has also taught parenting classes in the continuing education department at Molloy College in New York.

She currently conducts workshops in child development and movement through play for parents and their children in community library programs in Nassau County, New York. She has also introduced a community program for the parents of infants to help them engage with their babies through motor, sensory, and emotional stimulation in their first year of life.

Becker is a fellow emeritus in early childhood group therapy at the Child Development Center of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services and was part of the program’s continuing education committee that served as a consulting group for child care professionals.

She is the coauthor of A Comprehensive Guide for Caregivers in Day Care Settings (1999). Becker holds a master’s degree in professional studies, majoring in dance/movement therapy that combined movement and psychology in the development of young children. She is a full member of the Academy of Dance Therapists Registered and has also been trained in the Kestenberg movement profile analysis that evaluates movement patterns and personality.

Paul Becker

Paul Becker, a high school teacher for many years, is now a writer and editor. He is the author of many articles and has edited a number of publications in the field of education and public policy. Along with Nettie Becker, he is the coauthor of A Comprehensive Guide for Caregivers in Day Care Settings. For several years, he was the editor of Between the Lines, a newsletter for writers in New York and currently is the editor of a monthly newsletter on American industry for an economic research firm in New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Rebecca Shahmoon Shanok

About the Authors

Authors' Note

Acknowledgments

Prologue to a Dream that Came to Be

Introduction

The Critical Need for Quality Early Child Care

1. The Little House on Village Avenue: What Makes a Good Child Care Center

Quality Care Is Not Just Day Care: How a Good Early Child Care Program Prepares Children for Life

The Toddler Classroom: Where a Skilled Child Care Professional Can Open Up the World to Children

Translating Principles Into Practice in a Good Child Care Program

High-Quality Child Care: Some Other Basics

2. The First Task of Early Child Care: Building a Trusting Relationship Between Caregiver, Child, and Family

Attachment, the First Basic Need of All Children

Creating a Stimulating and Nurturing Atmosphere in the Classroom

How Can a Teacher Handle Aggression in Children?

Flexibility and the Adult-Child Relationship: Why Rules and Schedules Need to Be Adapted

Building Human Relationships in Every Classroom

The Underlying Class Theme: We Are All People and I Am Somebody

Making Parents Welcome: An Essential Component of the Relationship Between Caregiver and Child

How Does Your Child Care Center Build Relationships Between Caregiver, Child, and Family?

3. The Second Task: Developing Wholesome Peer Relationships Among Children

Why Building Peer Relationships Is a Necessity Among Children

The Stages of Play

Teaching Children to Resolve Conflicts: An Essential Task of Early Childhood Educators

4. The Role of Curriculum and Staff Development in Early Child Care

The Importance of a Well-Planned, Appropriate Curriculum

Building the Important S-A-Ts in Children: Separation, Autonomy, Trust

Learning by Hands-On Experience

Staff Development Is an Ongoing Process

5. The School as a Reflection of Our Diverse Heritage

Diversity as a Natural Part of the Curriculum

Handling Ethnic Stereotypes Among Children

Cultural Diversity and Differing Expectations

Working With Children of Different Cultural Backgrounds: Some Helpful Hints

How Does Your Child Care Program Take Advantage of America?s Richly Diverse Cultural Heritage?

6. High-Quality Child Care as a Learning Experience

Learning as a Natural Process

Play Is the Work of the Child

The Learning Centers

The Daily Schedule

All the Things They Were Learning

Epilogue

Appendix A: Rosa Lee Young Curriculum Outline

Prekindergarten and Kindergarten

Activities and Learning Experiences Throughout the Day

Toddler Activities and Learning Experiences Throughout the Day

Appendix B: Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children From Birth Through Age 8 (National Association for the Education of Young Children)

Appendix C: Reggio Emilia

Reggio Emilia and the Hundred Languages of Children

The Nine Baisc Principles of Reggio Emilia

Notes

Index

Reviews

“Ask yourself the questions posed in this book, whether you are searching for child care or wondering why our smallest and most important citizens don’t have more quality early education programs available in a more equitable manner. This is a great teacher’s guide for those entering the field and a great staff development idea for ECE centers.”

Denise Humphries, Preschool Principal
John F. Kennedy American School, Queretaro, Mexico

“The book is well connected to literature, the author’s own research and perspective, and an eye toward the future with tools for creating places for child care that are good for kids. If only we could bottle up Rosa Lee Young and give it to all children.”

Kerry Williams, Learning Community Facilitator
Wayne State College

"I cannot think of anything pertaining to high-quality child care programs that isn't covered in this book. The organization is clear, consistent, and easy to follow."

Diane Salverson, Inclusion Specialist
Early Childhood Direction Center, Buffalo, NY

"The book’s power is in its details which utilize nuance from the ‘small places,’ here a child care center. With detail of everyday moments in everyday lives, they breathe life into principles gathered from the study of many fields over decades. The Beckers provide the light of substance for child care workers, directors, teachers, graduate and undergraduate educators, policy makers, and children alike."

From the Foreword by Rebecca Shahmoon Shanok

Other Titles in: Classroom Management & Student Behavior | Administration & Leadership | Learning Styles

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