Children's Talk in Communities and Classrooms

Author: Lynne Vernon-FeagansPublisher: Wiley-BlackwellPaperback:ISBN 10: 1557864837ISBN 13: 978-1557864833Almost all young children around the world come to formal schooling eager to learn even though this new educational milieu will challenge their intellectual, social, and emotional development. These children often come from a variety of cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds that create important differences among them at school entry. These differences have often been used as an excuse by educators for the poor performance of some of these children as they face the demands of school learning. This book traces the transition of a group of poor African-American children in semi-rural North Carolina, who, because of ethnicity and economic circumstances, were at risk for a poor transition to school. Half these children were part of an intensive early daycare intervention program to prepare them for formal schooling and half were not. Through an examination of talk and interviews