The High-Performing Preschool

This book arises in part from the many visits Gillian McNamee paid to Mrs. Miller’s class in Chicago, helping to write down children’s dictated stories as part of a carefully planned curricular intervention for this Head Start classroom. As McNamee explains, the blueprint for the work with Mrs. Miller and her colleagues derives from L.S. Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist of the early 20th century, and fames kindergarten teacher and Press author Vivian G. Paley. Vygotsky and Paley’s ideas guide McNamee’s discussion of the most urgent educational issue for our nation’s youngest public school children: how can classroom teachers enhance the oral language foundations of children who are growing up in communities experiencing economic hardship, and who often come from diverse language and dialect backgrounds? What curricular approach will initiate them into active verbal participation in a community of learners ready for the full breadth of educational opportunities school has to offer?

McNamee explores the part of teaching in which learning depends and thrives on what children are learning from their teacher and from each other.  She shows how and why other children, whether rich or poor, are an essential part of each child’s learning in school; and what the teacher’s role is in organizing the class so that the collective provides the strength and resources for each child to achieve their potential every day of the school year.