Growing Minds: Building Strong Cognitive Foundations in Early Childhood

P/B • 160 Pages
ISBN 9781928896791

Building Strong Cognitive Foundations in Early Childhood

From the beginning of life, young children’s learning and activities depend on their cognitive capabilities and development. To cope with the environment they live in, children need to learn about their physical and social worlds; acquire language; regulate their bodies, emotions, and thoughts; and gain competence in literacy, mathematics, science, and other knowledge domains. This collection of readings from books and Young Children articles outlines important dimensions of their early cognitive development and describes approaches for promoting it.

The book is divided into two parts:

Part 1 (Cognitive Development from Birth through Age 8) uses chapter excerpts from Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8 and other sources to summarize how young children develop cognitively and in their approaches to learning (“cognitive styles”); it also captures in very broad strokes how early childhood programs promote this development.

Part 11 (Approaches for Promoting Cognitive Development in the Early Childhood Classroom) we take a closer look at pedagogy through ten NAEYC published articles and chapters describing various classroom practices that foster children’s cognitive growth