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Professional literature in human development, social foundations, and academic subject area courses function as a major but understudied tool of teacher preparation programs. Through the overlapping lenses of sociocultural and critical theories of child development, this study employs descriptive content analysis to investigate the potential of common course texts to foster early childhood teachers' proleptical identities as practitioners of democratic education. Findings suggest NAEYC's influential texts on anti-bias education, as well as popular texts in child development, children's literature, and social studies, insufficiently address the democratic goal of fully inclusive classrooms. The presentation of same-sex parent families serves as an exemplar of the problem. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

The purpose of this essay is to propose a manifesto of young children's rights in the early childhood classroom based on Vivian Paley's many formal classroom investigations into children's thinking, learning, and social emotional development. Analysis establishes, first, Paley's license to speak for young children by positioning her in the only role to which she lays claim--schoolteacher. The distinguishing characteristic of Paley's teaching and writing, her psychological orientation towards children and teaching, is considered next as the foundation for her work in children's fantasy play, storytelling, and story acting. A focus on the social life of the classroom follows next, notably around the issue of differences among children and the sanctioned exclusion of some from play, friendship, and even teacher attention. Finally, the proposed manifesto encapsulates six rights of young children in school, from the curricular to the psychological, as a manifesto emblematic of Paley's belief in teaching as a moral act.

This essay addresses two types of disasters that can affect early childhood classrooms, which deserve more attention during teacher preparation. The first includes such natural phenomena as earthquakes and hurricanes, as well man-made events, such as fires and, incredibly, school shootings. They are almost always unexpected and happen in real time. Without question, they requires teachers' immediate, direct, and complete commitment. The second type is a disaster that has passed, but requires a focused and specialized curriculum when children return to school. The critically important role of early childhood teachers as "first responders" or "helpers" during and after disaster is discussed, along with best practices related to a "pedagogy of meaning" during these times.

This article reports on three stories of what the author calls "eco-narrative" constructions from the data. These stories are rendered in detail to underscore the obstacles student teachers face regularly in becoming multicultural educators, as well as the various and subtle ways supervisors can help them advance their skills by giving them the opportunity to revisit, rethink, and re-see their day to day failed attempts in the field. The three stories highlight three of the five Banks and Banks' (2010) criteria for preparing multicultural educators at work. These are: grappling with disempowering institutional power structures (see "There Are Cockroaches in the Classroom"), reflecting on personal prejudice and bias (see "Her Mother Doesn't Care"), and evaluating ineffective lesson plans and delivery (see "The Subway Outside the Window Goes There"). Analysis suggests the virtue of engaging student teachers in narrative, story, or eco-narrative construction for the purposes of preparing multicultural educators in that it allows the field supervisor to problematize student teachers' limitations, not as something blameworthy or lamentable, but as something to be expected and, potentially, remediated through scaffolded assistance with everyday challenges. Counter-evidence for the two remaining criteria in Banks and Banks' (2010) typology, content integration and knowledge construction, is also presented. (Contains 1 note.)

The article offers insights into Barbara T. Bowman's perspective on early childhood education, emphasizing the need for teacher education to incorporate family and community contexts in understanding child development. Bowman argues against the prevalence of "half-truths" in early childhood education and discusses the importance of recognizing and respecting the diversity of family and community contexts, especially when it comes to children from diverse backgrounds and low-income families.

This article explores how reading strategy instruction that targets children's literature can unwittingly interfere with the development of a reading life. It compares the use of story-based children's literature for reading strategy instruction with the "untaught" story. It asks: What, if any, role does a read aloud that is unfettered by formal instruction related to comprehension play in early education?

The current study was designed to assess the vocabulary and literacy skills of young children who participated in an authentic literacy practice, i.e., Vivian Paley's "storytelling curriculum," over the course of their respective prekindergarten or kindergarten years. We asked: How do prekindergarten and kindergarten age children, who participate in the storytelling curriculum over the course of the school year, perform on pre- and postmeasures of AGS/Pearson Assessments' "Expressive Vocabulary Test" (EVT), the "Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test" (PPVT) (3rd ed.) "Form IIIA," and Whitehurst's "Get Ready to Read!," as compared to those young children in the same grade with similar backgrounds and in the same or similar school settings who did not participate in the storytelling curriculum? Results show that in comparison to same-age children in like settings, participants in the storytelling curriculum showed significant gains in both vocabulary knowledge and literacy skills. These findings underscore the possibility of supporting both beginning and experienced teachers in using authentic literacy activities to prepare children for literacy learning, while maintaining their service to a wide range of other developmental issues. They also call into question the prevailing trend to abandon such classroom practices in favor of a skills-centered approach to curriculum. (Contains 5 figures.)

Today's emphasis on using children's literature as a tool to teach reading and writing sub-skills distracts teachers' attention from looking to children's books for their historical role in helping children navigate the intellectual, social, and emotional terrains of childhood. This article argues, first, that early childhood educators must remain fluent in the use of literature that supports young children's psychosocial development. Second, teachers must establish criteria for choice. By way of example, it examines two popular books for young children, Sendak's (1963) "Where the Wild Things Are" [New York: HarperCollins Publishers] and Shannon's (1998) "No, David!" [New York: Blue Sky Press] Three theoretical perspectives guide the analysis. The first combines Dewey's (1938/97) [Experience and education. New York:Touchstone] impetus for learning and Vygotsky's (1978) [Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press] theory that learning precedes development through scaffolded social interaction. The second is Erikson's (1950, 1985) [Childhood and society. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.] theory of psychosocial development in light of the 4-6-year-olds' drive towards self-regulation, control, and independence. The third is Rosenblatt's (1978) [The reader, the text, the poem. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English] transactional nature of reading.

Vivian Gussin Paley's "storytelling curriculum" consists of two interdependent activities, dictation and dramatization. It has long been recognized for its impact on young children's psychosocial, language, and narrative development. As a result of the Bush administration's educational policies, holistic, play-based curricula like storytelling are rapidly being replaced in early childhood classrooms across America by curricula aimed at specific sub-skills of the reading and writing process. This article provides a structural analysis of what happens when children dictate and dramatize original stories in the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classroom. It highlights the opportunities for literacy learning around specific literacy sub-skills that are available in this holistic, play-based activity as well as the teacher's role in the process. It also looks at the storytelling curriculum's relationship to the goals of a "balanced" approach to early literacy instruction, including oral language development, narrative form, and word study.