商品簡介
An eye-opening look inside pre-K in America and what it will take to give all children the best start in school possible.
The Most Important Year is the story of preschool in America, told through the voices of parents, children, teachers, and education leaders. Thanks to cutting-edge research, the importance of early childhood education has become a rare instance of public consensus, and politicians across the political spectrum have allocated billions of dollars in funding for it. But preschool, or pre-K, is also a source of tremendous anxiety for parents, because millions still can't find spots for their children, or their preschoolers attend programs that are of poor quality. The Most Important Year describes how and why early childhood education has come to be an essential part of a child's development and a national priority. At the heart of the book are two questions: What do our young children need in the earliest years of school, and how do we ensure that they all get it?
The Most Important Year looks inside some of the country's best pre-K classrooms to reveal the sometimes surprising ingredients that make them work—and to understand why some programs are doing the opposite of what is best for children. It also chronicles the stories of families and teachers from many backgrounds as they struggle to give their children a good start in school, and examines why we still don't have high-quality pre-K opportunities for everyone. The book is a call to arms when we are at a crucial moment, and perhaps on the verge of a missed opportunity: We now have the means and the will to have universal pre-kindergarten, but we are also in grave danger of not getting it right.
作者簡介
Suzanne Bouffard is a writer with a background in child development and education. She received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Duke University and has spent the past ten years conducting and writing about education research at Harvard University. Bouffard’s articles have appeared in The New York Times, Parents magazine online, Educational Leadership magazine, and The Harvard Education Letter, and she is the coauthor of Ready, Willing, and Able. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two children.
