Observing Development of the Young Child, 8th edition

• Learn how to become an avid observer of children in early learning environments. The text will prepare pre-service teachers with the necessary steps to successfully observe and critically analyze, including: how to get started, the best times to observe their students, an adequate length of observation, what to look for in children, and the best modes of recording observations.
• Investigate alternative approaches to child assessment—for both children and overall early childhood programs—such as visual documentations (art, photos, videos), and using documentation panels.
• Gain a deeper understanding of the importance of self-esteem in young children, and the reasons why a child should develop a secure attachment relationship with a teacher to set the stage for a child’s success in and out of the classroom environment.
• In support of new research, discover how to promote physical exercise for children to not only improve their physical development, but for an increase in brain synapses that are shown to improve permanent memory development, even by clapping hands!
• Delve into the importance of oral storytelling for children, for the promotion of high-level thinking such as planning and reminiscing, and setting the foundation for children’s school achievement.
• To foster the first writing opportunities that promotes the first level of reading moments, learn how to encourage “drawing stories” with young children and setting the stage for the earliest of literacy skills.
• Learn to be attuned to children’s knowledge, feelings, and abilities by the importance of observing children’s dramatic play. Keen observations in these precious moments will make visible children’s way of thinking in a way no other observations do.

Streamlined from previous editions, with fewer chapters (12 instead of 14) and more boxed strategies and ideas, this best-selling text on observing the young child has preserved many of its original features while adapting them to new circumstances.. Its unique core feature, an observation tool, the Child Development Checklist, remains but has been updated and restructured for this edition with six instead of eight indicators under each of the 11 child development domains. What emerges is the most current observation text on the market, modernized to reach today’s early childhood students.

• Learn about the potential problems related to some standardized tests used as tools for child assessment, and how they compare with observational tools. See Chapter 1, Observing to Assess Children’s Development.
• Gain a deeper understanding of children’s “emotional competence,” its several aspects, and how children can develop it. The importance of learning how to observe children and how to help young children cope with their emotional outbursts is explored in Chapter 4, Emotional Competence.
• Readers will discover new information on brain scan evidence, its linkages between brain development and children’s play, and how careful observation can reveal information about children’s development. Find this information in Chapter 5, Social Competence.
• Learn to observe levels of physical development in children by using a rating scale and setting-up developmentally appropriate activities for them. See Chapter 6, Physical Development.
• Become “brain-imaging literate” with new information in Chapter 7 on Cognitive Development, getting everyone involved for the betterment of every child, and emphasizing the importance for students and children to understand how the more high quality experiences children have, the more potential there is for dendrite growth.
• Gather new knowledge on dual language learners being comfortable in using both their home language and English, and learn how to best apply this knowledge in the early childhood classroom. See Chapter 8, Spoken Language.
• Understand the importance of observing and assessing children’s writing skills with a new checklist and rubric in Chapter 9, Emergent Writing and Reading Skills.
• Acquire skills necessary for observing children’s varied levels of creativity and how to apply this knowledge in the classroom. Seek out this new information in Chapter 10, Art, Music, and Dance Skills.
• Gather new avenues for dramatic play skills in Chapter 11, such as ideas on using books with character cut-outs to promote dramatic play, and observing the different types of pretending with paper dolls that emerges when young children engage in this type of imaginative play.