Pre-K Stories

Playing with Authorship and Integrating Curriculum in Early Childhood

by Dana Frantz Bentley and Mariana Souto-Manning

Published by: Teachers College Press

Series: Early Childhood Education

Imprint: Teachers College Press

168 Pages, 149.00 × 226.00 × 20.00 mm

Paperback
9780807761311
Published: September 2019

£24.99

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Hardcover
9780807761328
Published: September 2019

£77.00

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Description
Contents
Authors

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Storying the Pre-K East Classroom 3
The Journey 6
Part I: “How Do Stories Come into Our Class?”: Laying the Foundations 11
1. The Classroom and Its Practices 13
Small Moments and Everyday Stories Lead to Big Curricula 15
Building Blocks for Constructing Literacy Curricula in the Early Childhood Classroom 17
The Classroom and Its Practices: Conclusion 22
2. Storying in Play: Investigating the Purpose of Authoring 24
Making Sense of Play-Based Authorship 25
Understanding Authorship in the Pre-K Classroom 28
3. Investigating the Purposes of Writing and Publishing with Young Children 32
On the Pressure to Read and Write Earlier and Earlier 33
Asking Questions: A Pathway for Investigating and Learning 34
Young Children Speak, Read, and Author with Purpose 37
Part II: “But How Can Our Stories Turn into a Book?”: Planning and Making 43
4. Creative Writing and The Book Project 45
What the Children Already Knew About Books and Stories 47
The Authoring Process: Writing The Whole Pre-K East Book 49
The Book Project: Children as Authors, Play as Authorship 52
5. Investigating the Body of the Book: Unveiling Children’s Knowledge About Books and About Print 57
Honoring Children’s Conceptualization of Publishing 58
Rethinking the Roles of the Teacher and the Curriculum 60
Teachers as Learners, Emergent Curriculum as Meeting Expectations 63
6. Science, Mathematics, and The Book Project 67
Science and Mathematics in Paper Airplane Flying and Story Authoring 68
The Investigation: Reading and Writing Toward Acquiring Information 72
From Experimenting with Paper Airplanes to Authoring “How-To” Books 77
7. Observation, Language, Poetry, and The Book Project 81
On the Importance of Circles 84
Children’s Observations: Reading the World 85
Poetry as a Language Art: Making Meaning and Making Sense Through Art 87
Reflecting on Children’s Language and Literacy Development in and Through Poetry 96
8. Social Studies and The Book Project 98
How Social Studies Comes to Life in the Pre-K Classroom 98
Families at the Heart of the Social Studies Curriculum 102
Authoring Our History as a Community 107
Conclusion of This Chapter and of Part II 115
Part III: Reflecting on The Book Project in the Larger Context of Teaching and Learning 117
9. Perspectives and Insights on Authorship in an Emergent, Child-Centered Classroom 119
Exploring Children’s Development of Traditional Literacy Skills 123
Understanding the Development of a Learning Community 129
10. “Look at Us! We’re All So Different!”: Remembering and Reflecting 3 Years Later 134
References 141
Index 147
About the Authors 153