Starting with Their Strengths: Using the Project Approach in Early Childhood Special Education. Early Childhood Education Series

This book provides a comprehensive and practical guide to using the project approach when teaching young children with special needs. While focusing on children's individual strengths, which include their interests, intelligences, and unique styles of learning, this resource demonstrates teaching strategies that address multiple areas of development. Using scenarios from their own practice, the authors examine the process of accessing children's strengths to facilitate social, emotional, cognitive, and motor development, including concepts and skills. The authors provide tools to determine, organize, and plan with children's strengths and demonstrate the use of documentation as an authentic assessment of children's skills and goals. Teachers will use this book to create learning environments that enrich learning for all children. This book features: (1) Classroom vignettes that demonstrate the project approach in action; (2) Examples of children's work and photos of projects; (3) Approaches to both determine the sources of behavior challenges and support positive behavior; (4) Sample lesson plans that reflect children's interests and developmental needs; (5) Forms for data collection, communicating with parents, identifying sensory challenges, behavior analysis, and more; and (6) A strength-based Individualized Education Plan (IEP) guide.