Pre-K Stories

Pre-K Stories offers a lively exploration of how one classroom community played with and collaboratively engaged in authorship. Through everyday stories, readers are invited to witness and engage with classroom practices that honor young children’s brilliance and build on their questions, interests, and strengths. Weaving together literacy, language arts, social studies, science, mathematics, and more, the authors illustrate how curriculum can be authentically and meaningfully integrated. They also offer a unique perspective on the development of language and literacy practices by framing children’s play narratives as the foundation from which rich curricula can grow. Pre-K Stories allows readers to experience the rich cadence of a classroom while also coming to understand important theories that undergird early childhood teaching and young children’s learning.

Book Features:

• Rich descriptions and examples of 4-year-old children’s authoring and writing processes.
• Engaging narratives from the perspective of an early childhood teacher and students.
• A unique perspective on the development of language and literacy practices through children’s play.
• A view of young children as powerful and capable of coconstructing curriculum with teachers.
• A dynamic approach that has broad implications for literacy and integrative curriculum practices in early childhood.

Dana Frantz Bentley is a pre-K teacher at Buckingham Browne and Nichols School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and author of Everyday Artists. Mariana Souto-Manning is professor of education and director of the Early Childhood Education and Early Childhood Special Education Programs at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her books include Reading, Writing, and Talk and Multicultural Teaching in the Early Childhood Classroom.

” Pre-K Stories: Playing with Authorship and Integrating Curriculum in Early Childhood is a highly readable and insightful book that presents a lively exploration of the co-constructing process of an integrated, children-centered early literacy curriculum.”

—Journal of Language and Literacy Education

“Bentley and Souto-Manning have crafted a powerful and much-needed text. They explore literacy across content areas as they co-operate—cogenerating, co-designing, and coauthoring texts—to reveal the incredible constellation of thought that informs children’s literacy learning. At a time when testing and arbitrary standards threaten to privilege programs over children, this book brings us back to what matters in education: children, their interests, and their potential. Powerfully honest, this text not only welcomes readers to celebrate amazing teaching, but also serves as a testament to the beauty and anxiety, the nightmares and dreams that accompany the crafting of an emergent curriculum that honors children. You will fall in love with this book!”
—Catherine Compton-Lilly, John C. Hungerpiller Professor, University of South Carolina

“This is an inspiring, heartwarming book. It is for all teachers committed to nurturing children’s growing literacy (e.g., speaking, reading, writing, and critical thinking) as tools for actively engaging with the world around them. Featuring wonderful narratives of the children’s ideas and creative problem-solving abilities and their teacher’s pedagogical interactions with them, along with analysis of the narratives, the book explores an exciting approach to literacy and empowerment. The connection of the goals and process of children’s literacy development to anti-bias education is evident in children’s growing sense of their intelligence, competency, and worth.”
—Louise Derman-Sparks, faculty emerita, Pacific Oaks College, and author of Leading Anti-Bias Early Childhood Programs

“Futures matter. We are indebted to Bentley and Souto-Manning for reminding us of the importance of cultivating and sustaining young children as they build literate identities that are at once affirmations of their now and insights into their futures. One of the many strengths of this book is that it looks at writing and authorship across disciplines. I’d like to get this book into the hands of every early childhood educator.”
—Maisha T. Winn, Chancellor's Leadership Professor and co-founder of the Transformative Justice in Education Center, University of California, Davis

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1
Storying the Pre-K East Classroom 3
The Journey 6

Part I: “How Do Stories Come into Our Class?”: Laying the Foundations 11

1. The Classroom and Its Practices 13
Small Moments and Everyday Stories Lead to Big Curricula 15
Building Blocks for Constructing Literacy Curricula in the Early Childhood Classroom 17
The Classroom and Its Practices: Conclusion 22

2. Storying in Play: Investigating the Purpose of Authoring 24
Making Sense of Play-Based Authorship 25
Understanding Authorship in the Pre-K Classroom 28

3. Investigating the Purposes of Writing and Publishing with Young Children 32
On the Pressure to Read and Write Earlier and Earlier 33
Asking Questions: A Pathway for Investigating and Learning 34
Young Children Speak, Read, and Author with Purpose 37

Part II: “But How Can Our Stories Turn into a Book?”: Planning and Making 43

4. Creative Writing and The Book Project 45
What the Children Already Knew About Books and Stories 47
The Authoring Process: Writing The Whole Pre-K East Book 49
The Book Project: Children as Authors, Play as Authorship 52

5. Investigating the Body of the Book: Unveiling Children’s Knowledge About Books and About Print 57
Honoring Children’s Conceptualization of Publishing 58
Rethinking the Roles of the Teacher and the Curriculum 60
Teachers as Learners, Emergent Curriculum as Meeting Expectations 63

6. Science, Mathematics, and The Book Project 67
Science and Mathematics in Paper Airplane Flying and Story Authoring 68
The Investigation: Reading and Writing Toward Acquiring Information 72
From Experimenting with Paper Airplanes to Authoring “How-To” Books 77

7. Observation, Language, Poetry, and The Book Project 81
On the Importance of Circles 84
Children’s Observations: Reading the World 85
Poetry as a Language Art: Making Meaning and Making Sense Through Art 87
Reflecting on Children’s Language and Literacy Development in and Through Poetry 96

8. Social Studies and The Book Project 98
How Social Studies Comes to Life in the Pre-K Classroom 98
Families at the Heart of the Social Studies Curriculum 102
Authoring Our History as a Community 107
Conclusion of This Chapter and of Part II 115

Part III: Reflecting on The Book Project in the Larger Context of Teaching and Learning 117

9. Perspectives and Insights on Authorship in an Emergent, Child-Centered Classroom 119
Exploring Children’s Development of Traditional Literacy Skills 123
Understanding the Development of a Learning Community 129

10. “Look at Us! We’re All So Different!”: Remembering and Reflecting 3 Years Later 134

References 141

Index 147

About the Authors 153