What Is New in Early Childhood Education?
by Dr. Lorraine McCune

In a January column in Education Update I drew on a chapter written with Mary Zanes, a preschool educator, regarding the use of play strategies within the school environment. The newly published book, Psychological Perspectives on Early Education: Reframing Dilemmas in Research and Practice includes the entire chapter and provides exciting new information for educators and policy designers on a variety of topics. This volume, edited by Dr. Susan Golbeck of Rutgers University, follows from a conference of the same title presented as part of the annual Rutgers Invitational Symposium on Education. The book takes a very long view, as Golbeck examines research findings from comparative studies of Head Start Programs beginning in the 1960’s, reporting recent longitudinal outcomes from follow-up studies, and interpreting the entire complex through the lens of current curricular debates in early education. For example, in examining the “Back to Basics” approach with its emphasis on quick academic progress, in comparison with “Developmentally Appropriate Practice” as defined by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, Golbeck reviews findings regarding instructional practices and child stress, motivation, and affective development. This book is a call for educators to develop new instructional models that draw on past experience in a coherent way.

Contributors to the volume include the late Robbie Case, a major cognitive theorist, who here examines socioeconomic differences in children’s cognitive development and school readiness. In the process he provides a beautiful analysis of early steps in mathematics learning with approaches to guiding all children’s early mathematical learning and suggestions for using this model approach across additional curricular areas. Deborah Stipek of Stanford University takes up the topic of motivation, harking back to Robert White’s seminal work on achievement motivation, which places the development of motivation for mastery clearly in the earliest years. Stipek recommends enhancing motivation through specific educational strategies.

Liben and Downs find that most preschoolers have a general notion of the representational nature of maps, and curiosity about their place in the real spatial world.

My four-year-old granddaughter indicated the world map on my kitchen wall the other day, and asked me to point out where her gymnastics class was held. A teaching opportunity, but we had to use a New Jersey map. Liben and Downs demonstrate the interest of this content area as a basis for teaching about space and graphic representation in an exciting and well-documented framework.

These are only tidbits. The book as a whole is a rich resource for teachers and planners designing the ideal instructional approaches for now and the future.

Dr. McCune is an associate professor at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education and serves as advisor to toy company, General Creation. She can be reached at www.generalcreation.com in the “Ask Dr. McCune” section.

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