Early Literacy in Action: The Language-Focused Curriculum for Preschool - Softcover

Bunce "Ph.D. CCC-SLP", Betty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557669228 ISBN 13: 9781557669223

Publisher: Brookes Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

Enhance young children's language skills with this proven play-focused preschool curriculum, drawn from more than 20 years of field testing and outcomes! This highly adaptable, flexible program is a practical and significantly expanded follow-up to the bestselling Building a Language Focused Curriculum for the Preschool Classroom.

Teachers will get a year's worth of lessons: 40 weeks of curriculum plans, including weekly themes, dramatic play activities, art, suggested story and song selections, and group lesson plans laid out in a week-by-week format. Detailed information on themes, lesson plans, and teaching strategies allow this program to be effectively implemented by educators at any experience level.

With this proven curriculum—selected by ASHA for the Department of Education as a model program for Early Reading First—preschool educators and SLPs will

• implement speech and language intervention in the classroom
• enhance the language skills of all children, including children with language impairments, children from low resource backgrounds, and English language learners
• ensure quality preschool programming with both the Fidelity Checklist, which helps preschools replicate the program accurately, and the Learning Observation Guide for measuring progress
• support cognitive, motor, and social skill development

With these activities, field-tested with more than 500 children in public schools and university training programs, preschool teachers and SLPs will be sure they're providing the best language and literacy programming for all children. And because the activities are fun and engaging, they'll get preschoolers excited about learning and improve children's school readiness.

See how this product helps strengthen Head Start program quality and school readiness.

About this title

About the Author:

Betty H. Bunce, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, was born and raised in a bilingual, bicultural community in southern Colorado. She earned a bachelor of science degree in education from the University of Colorado, a master of arts degree in speech from Temple University, and a doctoral degree in child language from the University of Kansas. She received her certificate of clinical competence in speech-language pathology in 1977. Dr. Bunce has taught kindergarten and preschool-age children and has worked as a school speech-language pathologist. She has also taught coursework at the university level in reading and language arts, early childhood education, and speech-language pathology. Dr. Bunce has written several chapters and articles on preschool education, bilingual and bicultural children, referential communication, and intervention techniques for both preschool- and elementary-age children. She has presented workshops to practitioners in the fields of early childhood education and speech-language pathology and has presented papers at several national and state association conventions. She is the director of the Language Acquisition Preschool at the University of Kansas, where an important part of her job is to train speech-language pathology graduate students in conducting naturalistic language intervention in classroom settings. Dr. Bunce's fields of scientific interest include child language, language intervention therapy and research, preschool education, English as a second language, and relationships between oral language abilities and literacy skills. Her most recent research has focused on naturalistic intervention techniques and their effectiveness.

Laura M. Justice, Ph.D., EHE Distinguished Professor, Teaching and Learning Administration, Executive Director of the Schoenbaum Family Center and the Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, The Ohio State University, 175 E 7th Ave., Columbus, Ohio 43201

Dr. Justice's research primarily focuses on young children who exhibit developmental vulnerabilities in language and literacy acquisition. Much of her research considers the effects of teacher- or parent-implemented interventions on children's learning, including the effective use of storybooks. She is a recipient of the Annie Glenn Leadership Award in Speech-Language Pathology, the Editor's Award (from the American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology), the Early Career Publication Award (from the Division of Research, Council for Exceptional Children), the Erskine Fellowship (from the University of Canterbury), and the Fulbright Scholar Award. Dr. Justice has also received the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (from President G.W. Bush).

Dr. Rice received her doctoral degree from the University of Kansas, where she is University Distinguished Professor of Speech-Language-Hearing and Director of the Child Language Doctoral Program and the Merrill Advanced Studies Center. She has held Visiting Scientist appointments at the Center for Cognitive Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has extensive research and clinical experience with children with specific language impairment (SLI). Early in her career she worked as a speech-language pathologist in public schools. In collaboration with Kim A. Wilcox, she established the demonstration Language Acquisition Preschool (LAP) at the University of Kansas. Her current research addresses several aspects of the condition of SLI: social and academic consequences, morphology, lexical learning, and preschool language intervention. Her publications include the edited volumes The Teachability of Language and Toward a Genetics of Language, as well as numerous journal articles and invited chapters.

Review:

"A nice balance of teacher-led and child-centered activities . . . Implementing these carefully researched materials will positively enhance the literacy instruction and environment of a preschool classroom."

(Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, Ph.D.)

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1557669228
• ISBN 13: 9781557669223
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608