This is a down-to-earth, heart-to-heart book about what it takes to be an exceptional early childhood teacher. The author uses her experience as a classroom observer and a developmental psychologist to create a rationale for best practice--the reasoning behind the best (worst and average) classroom practice. Cindy Rzasa Bess examines a variety of…

The assumptions about children's development are challenged by recent research findings that show learning begins at an earlier age and proceeds at a different pace than expected. Sometimes researchers find that they have misunderstood children's cognitive, social, and physical development due to errors in measurement (faulty tests or tools),…

This article surveys existing research on the role of humor in early childhood. Babies and toddlers use humor to develop, apply, and expand their understanding of existing concepts; define themselves; and establish relationships with peers and caregivers. Humor helps young children view stressful situations in a nonthreatening way. As soon as…

In this study, I gave a group of six to eight very young Chinese Singaporean children (between 2 and 4 years of age) three identical digital video cameras, plus tripods, and tracked their development in moviemaking over a 2-year period. The children were allowed to explore the cameras freely, though the investigators offered advice and support as…

This study investigates young children's humourous activity as a form of play and considers the implications on their cognitive development and learning. The study was conducted in an infant room of a university based group child care center and multiple qualitative data collection methods were used. The findings of this study suggest that during…