Covering all the key topics and concepts of early childhood, this book teaches students to think critically and encourages questioning and evaluation.

Part I: Developing Critical Reflection - Michael Reed and Rosie Walker
Chapter 1: The Undergraduate Journey - Michael Reed, Linda Tyler and Rosie Walker
Chapter 2: Reflective Practice - Karen Hanson and Karen Appleby
Chapter 3: The Ethical Practitioner with Children and Families - Sue Callan
Chapter 4: Critical Thinking - Jennifer Worsley and Catherine Lamond
Chapter 5: ICT and Learning for Students: A New Way of Thinking - Michelle Rogers
Part II: The Developing Child - Michael Reed and Rosie Walker
Chapter 6: Deliberating on Practices with Young Children in the United States - Mary Benson McMullen
Chapter 7: ¿Vygotsky Rocks!¿ An Argument That Helps Use Lev Vygotsky¿s Ideas in Early Years Practice - Anna Popova
Chapter 8: The Developing Child: Some Critical Perspectives - Jackie Musgrave
Chapter 9: Play and Creativity: How Important Is This in Terms of the Developing Child? - Frances Brett
Chapter 10: Repositioning Developmentalism - Anna Kilderry
Part III: Taking a Holistic View - Michael Reed and Rosie Walker
Chapter 11: Security and Attachment - Robin Balbernie
Chapter 12: Developing Child in Society: Making Transitions - Aline Wendy Dunlop
Chapter 13: Taking a Holistic View: Critically Examining Complex Professional Issues - Claire M Richards
Chapter 14: The Language of Special Educational Needs: Learning from the Past to Build the Future - Caroline Jones
Chapter 15: Supporting Children with Complex Health Needs and Life-Limiting Conditions and Their Families - Erica Brown
Part IV: Policy and Practice - Michael Reed and Rosie Walker
Chapter 16: Whose Curriculum Is It Anyway? - Derval Carey-Jenkins
Chapter 17: Approaches to the Early Years Curriculum: A Critical View from Wales - Sian Wyn Siencyn
Chapter 18: Parental Involvement and Partnership with Parents: "T¿ain¿t What You Do (It¿s the Way That You Do It)" - Martin Needham and Dianne Jackson
Chapter 19: Supporting Parents - Josephine Bleach
Chapter 20: Policy into Practice: Implementing the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia from a Western Australian Perspective - Sandra Hesterman
Part V: Professional Roles and Responsibilities - Michael Reed and Rosie Walker
Chapter 21: Professional Roles and Responsibilities: Professional Practice and Early Childhood Today - Michael Gasper
Chapter 22: Integrated Working in Practice: Why Don¿t Professionals Talk to Each Other? - Alison Nicholls
Chapter 23: Children¿s Developing Identity - Victoria Cooper
Chapter 24: Assessment: A Critical Companion to Early Childhood Pedagogy - Alma Fleet
Chapter 25: The Responsibility of the Practice-Based Researcher - Carla Solvason

Michael Reed is an ordinary man in all respects. Average height, average looks (even though his wife tells him different) average intelligence - that's him, alright. Except that from the birth of his first son in 1984 to the birth of his youngest son in 2016 he has taken all of his children to the local library once every week for almost three decades. This makes him - far less average. He has read many thousands of books to them and all seven of his children look forward to bedtime because of the stories he would read to them. There's the thing: the good books were always read again and again and the bad ones only read once. So Michael Reed is an apt name, don't you think? He knows what children like to read and listen to. Hence his own series of short stories.