Understanding Schemas and Young Children
From Birth to Three
- Frances Atherton - Chester University, UK
- Cathy Nutbrown - University of Sheffield, UK
'This exciting book will greatly enhance understanding of learning throughout the early years, and reinforces the importance of responsive professionals who understand children's schemas. Atherton and Nutbrown have brought together socio-cultural and cognitive learning theories with ease, and their metaphors are brilliantly evocative'
-Dr Anne Meade, Consultant
'This book is drawn from a study carried out with rigour and contains several gems, such as the 'bike and slide exploration'; the idea of adults engaging in 'a dialogue of conceptual correspondence' with children; and tables outlining 'what the children might have been thinking'. A great read!'
-Dr Cath Arnold, Pen Green Early Years Centre
'This is an exciting and illuminating account of babies and toddlers, following their schema fascinations with determination and competence, as they continually explore and experiment and come to know their world. This book captivated me. It should be in every early childhood education setting'
-Pam Cubey
This is the first book to focus specifically on Schemas and children under three. The authors trace the development of schemas from motor level through to symbolic representation, and show how to use schema theory to understand young children's learning and behaviour.
This accessible and student-friendly book includes:
-activities and discussion points
-links to policy and practice
-descriptive observational material
-a look at the ethics of this kind of research
-numerous photographs and illustrations
-suggestions for follow-up reading
The book is aimed at early childhood professionals and practitioners in ECEC settings, as well as those on initial training courses, teacher education, Early Years courses, and higher degrees.
A very welcomed text. It strengthens and supports findings from research surrounding schematic learning in young children. Excellent pictorial evidence and case studies that demonstrate schematic learning experiences which will strongly support student’s knowledge and understanding. The observations of schematic learning can only enhance the role of the working professional who wants to improve practice when working with the under three age range. Particularly welcomed is the links with theoretical and research knowledge e.g. Rogoff. This book reinforces the need for highly reflexive and responsive early year’s individuals.
This book is filled with wonderful images and descriptive observational material.
Students have found the text accessible and really informative, as it has been cited on frequent occasions by students studying the Developing Child Module.
Fantastic...a highly recommended text. The pictures and descriptions show exactly how schemas work which enables students to look for examples in their own practice. It is such a clear read for people unfamiliar with the concept of schemas and a good text for tutors to refer to in lectures...excellent!
Fascinating insight into developing schemata of young children. Useful for all early childhood and early years education programmes.
Thought provoking book with thorough coverage of schematic behaviourwith plenty of illustrative examples.
This book has very useful case studies which students can explore to deepen their understanding of schemas. It also contains many photographs to illustrate a range of schemas which students will find helpful.
This book is very relevant to our Health Visitor Students when they are considering how young children learn. It does not currently fit into any of our modules directly as it is very specific but I do refer to when discussing practice.
This is a very comprehensive and useful book for our Level 3 students. It is a very accessible read for them and is well laid out. I enjoyed the 'All about Henry'section, which I feel will be very beneficial for students enabling them to understand schema in practice.
The use of images helps to illustrate explanations
Too many cases studies and not enough theory to then relate to practice. (good use of imagery though)
