Reviewed by Denni Morrison, lecturer in psychology and child development at Hertford Regional College
Beware. This book will make you incredibly boring at parties! Or scintillating, depending on the company you keep! After reading this book, I seemed to start all my sentences with, 'Did you know thatI' and 'According to recent researchI' It's that sort of book.
It describes work developed in a range of early years settings and contexts, in England, Scotland, Cyprus, Trinidad and Tobago and the United Arab Emirates.
The book is divided into two sections, Teaching, Learning and Assessment in the Foundation Stage and Working With Difference and Diversity in Pre-school Settings. Each chapter discusses a small-scale research study undertaken by the contributor.
It took me ages to get through this book. Not because it is difficult - in fact it is simply written and easy to understand. It's just that every time I read something it set me off searching for more information. For example, Debbie Critchley's chapter on children's assessment of their own learning discusses Feuerstein's Mediated Learning Experience - to find out more I searched the Internet. Once I'd done that it was back to the book to read Gill Farmer on using persona dolls with early years students. As we are just about to buy three of these dolls for our students, I was interested to find out how they had been used. One lesson plan later, it was back to the book.
This book will be fabulous for anyone teaching, or studying, the research unit on BTec National Diploma Early Years, or any other research unit for that matter.
