Full Description
In this newly revised edition of Understanding Research in Early Education, Margaret Clark demonstrates the continuing relevance of research in the homes of young children and in preschool units.
Through rigorous yet understandable language, the text stresses the importance of research, acknowledging how easy it can be, amidst the change and flood of documents on early education and care, to overlook the insights to be gained from past research. The author draws on her own studies, and those of others, to illustrate how to avoid common pitfalls, ask the right questions to inform students' research projects, and critically apply findings in the classroom or nursery. The book is one of the few texts for students to bring research alive, analysing key research to consider its limitations and the extent to which results are relevant to policy and practice.
Without requiring any prior expertise in research and research methodologies, the third edition will prove invaluable for undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses in early years' education, and practitioners undertaking continuing professional development. New content includes: fully revised chapters, an updated reference list, and a new chapter discussing current research on baseline assessment.
Contents
About the author Acknowledgments Preface 1. Introduction Part I Language and the homes of young children 2. The language of young children: the continuing relevance of the issues from the 1970s 3. Research evidence on language and the homes of young children: look back and looking forward Part II Research in preschool units: what lessons can we learn? 4. Researches in early education set in context 5. Studies of preschool education in Scotland: lessons from the past 6. Language and interaction in preschool units in England: looking back and looking forward Part III Continuity, communication and learning in early education 7. Research studies on transition and continuity in early education: lessons from the past 8. Communication in the early education of children from different ethnic backgrounds: part I of a DES-funded study 9. Reception classrooms as contexts for learning: part II of a DES-funded study 10. Baseline and readiness assessments of young children on starting primary school: where now? Part IV Two contrasting researches on learning to read: different aims so different designs 11. Reading and learning to read: setting the scene 12. Children wtih difficulties and young fluent readers: two contrasting research approaches 13. Better beginnings
