Let's Be Friends

This book describes methods of support and intervention teachers can use to create social inclusion in preschool and primary grades. Combining current knowledge of general early childhood education and early childhood special education, this unique volume:

• Employs actual classroom observations to illustrate recommended teaching strategies designed to be used in the inclusionary classroom.
• Explains a wide variety of strategies ranging from environmental arrangement, on-the-spot teaching, and cooperative learning, to more intensive, individually targeted interventions.
• Describes common needs and interventions for children experiencing particular challenges and disabilities, such as shyness, aggressive behavior, visual and hearing impairment, and autism.
• Portrays reflective teaching and professional collaboration as frameworks for teachers’ decision making about intervention.
• Provides “Food for Thought” exercises at the end of each chapter to help readers reflect on and apply what they have read.

Kristen Mary Kemple is an Associate Professor at the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida.

“This is a book richly populated with young children, their words, their concerns, and a host of collaborative strategies for promoting peer affirmation….How I wish that all young children would have had the benefit of teachers who read, understood, and implemented the ideas in this book.”
—From the Foreword by Mary Renck Jalongo, Editor-in-Chief, Early Childhood Education Journal

“ Let's Be Friends addresses critical questions about how early childhood programs can help all young children, including those at-risk, to develop competent social interaction skills….an invaluable contribution in its translation of research results to practical interventions.”
— Karen E. Diamond, Director, Child Development Laboratory School, Purdue University