Don’t Leave the Story in the Book: Using Literature to Guide Inquiry in Early Childhood Classrooms (Early Childhood Education)

Drawing from 30 years of teaching and professional development experience, the author offers a roadmap for using children’s literature to provide authentic learning. Featuring a “storyteller’s voice,” each chapter includes a case study about how a particular fiction or nonfiction work can be used in an early childhood classroom; a series of open-ended questions to help readers construct their own inquiry units; and a bibliography of children’s literature. This book provides a unique synthesis of ideas based on constructivist approaches to learning, including the importance of positive dispositions and learning communities, the nature of higher-order thinking, and the relationship between methods such as guided inquiry in the sciences and balanced literacy.