ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Early Childhood Education

Thesis Statement

Accreditation is valid for three years, so regular cycles of re-accreditation are required.

Introduction

Early Childhood Education is spreading all over the world, particularly in advanced nations. In the United States, with its varied educational system, there are continuous efforts at the official and public levels to improve the concept and application of early childhood education.

A child learns what he lives with. The childhood learning plays the most important part in the development of a child's character. Mothers pay first attention to teach all the good things to a child only as soon as he starts talking. The difference between good and bad is made clear so that the child should be able to choose the right thing for himself. However the atmosphere in which the child lives plays the crucial part in the making of his personality.

Early childhood years are most important in any body's live. Children who live in smaller communities tend to be more social than the children who live in larger cities. According to the research by Holloway and Reichhart-Erickson (1988) and Howes, Phillips and Whitebook (1992), it is proven that, “Smaller class sizes are beneficial for early childhood years, especially up until the third grade. Small classes have a positive short and long term effect on the development of young children, especially in the area of academic development.” From the early childhood years children are made to follow things that are acceptable and are forbidden to do what are supposed to be taboos. How ever children will not follow instructions unless their parents or guardian follow the things that they are telling children to do. Preaching what adults does not practice themselves create the bad impression and finally result in the lack of respect for parents and adults.

Analysis

In spite of its diverse interpretations, ECE has become a focal point of educational research in the United States. Since the 1980s, tremendous changes and growth in the knowledge base of child development in ECE programs and population, and an increasing enrollment in such programs have all drawn wide attention among educators and the public (Evans, 2001; Feng, 1994). Table 1 (in Appendix) is a summary of the growth of early childhood education in the United States.

Early childhood education in the United States serves more than five million children. It operates within a mixed market of private, public, profit, and nonprofit programs. According to a number of studies, there is a crisis in the quality of many ECE programs in this nation (Bredekamp & Glowacki, 1996: General Accounting Office, 1993; Hayes & Zaslow, 1990; Jorde, 1986). The Panel on Child Care Policy, in its review of issues concerning child care policies and programs in 1989, found that:

Existing child care services in the U.S. are inadequate to meet the needs of children, parents, and society. For some families, child care services are not available or, if they are available, are not affordable or fail to meet basic standards of ...