Creating Family-Community Partnerships to Meet the Diverse Needs of Young Children

Consider the following scenario:

You are a teacher in a preschool classroom for 4-year-old children. Lucy, who turned four in September, has been in your classroom for two months. She cries for the first 30 minutes of each day and refuses to engage in whole group activities, such as circle time or story time. Lucy says that she hates school and wants to be at home with her mom and baby sister. Last week she began hitting other children during outside play time and filling her backpack with toys and books from the classroom centers to take home. Her parents speak Mandarin Chinese and very little English.

As Kostelnik, Soderman, Whiren, and Rupiper (2015) describe, the guidance strategies that early childhood professionals use when children are young, influence the attitudes and dispositions children carry with them into later life. Practitioners and family members who work together create a strong foundation for developmentally appropriate programs for young children. Using the family engagement techniques outlined in Chapter 8 and the child guidance strategies outlined in Chapter 6: