All About Child Care And Early Education: A Comprehensive Resource for Child Care Professionals

All About Child Care and Early Education is a must-have resource for child care practitioners–including teachers, care givers, family child care providers, administrators, and directors.  It provides practical suggestions for setting up classrooms, for developing curricula for infants, toddlers and preschoolers, for meeting children’s social-emotional needs, and for working effectively with parents and staff. Child Development Associate candidates and other students preparing for roles as early childhood educators can use All About Child Care and Early Education as a primary text.

The book provides a brief history of child care and early education and sketches future challenges for the field. It also describes developmentally appropriate indoor and outdoor learning environments and covers the CDA competency areas SAFE, HEALTH, and LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. Broad developmental overviews of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers are included. Each of the CDA competency areas PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT, COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT, COMMUNICATION, and CREATIVE is covered in a chapter. Section IV focuses on emotional and social development. It covers the CDA competency areas SELF, SOCIAL, and GUIDANCE. The book explains the behind-the-scenes relationships and practices of adults that generate good outcomes for children. It also includes the CDA functional areas PROGRAM MANAGEMENT, FAMILIES, and PROFESSIONALISM.

Marilyn Segal, Betty Bardige, M. Kori Bardige, Lorraine Breffni, and Mary Jean Woika

All About Child Care and Early Education: A Comprehensive Resource for Child Care Professionals, 2/e

All About Child Care and Early Education, 2/e is a comprehensive resource that provides a plethora of practical suggestions for setting up classrooms; developing curricula for infants, toddlers and preschoolers; for meeting children’s social-emotional needs, and for working effectively with parents and staff. This manual is used by thousands of Child Development Associate (CDA) candidates and similar students preparing for roles as educators of children ages 0-5.

This newly revised edition covers the basics of early education and care: providing safe, healthy, and appropriately stimulating learning environments; child development and developmentally appropriate practices and curricula in all domains (physical, cognitive, language, social-emotional, and creativity), positive guidance strategies, partnering with families, child assessment and program management, and professionalism.

“This is the best book I’ve seen to use in conjunction with the requirements of the national Child Development Associate. I plan to continue to use this book with our vocational online national CDA program. With slight adjustments, I can continue to use the book to develop other specializations, such as Preschool, Family Childcare Home, and Infant/Toddler. "   

 – Dianne Waller, Seminole State College of Florida  

“Overall this is a great book! It is clearly written and easy to understand; students like it and it leads to many good class discussions. The vignettes throughout the book are easy for students to identify with.”                  

– Jane Rowe, Brookhaven College, Dallas, Texas

Marilyn Segal, Ph.D., a noted developmental psychologist, educator, and researcher specializing in early childhood education, founded the Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies at Nova Southeastern University in the early 1970s.  Dr. Segal has developed and implemented training programs for Head Start teachers, infant/toddler caregivers, family support workers, and Child Development Associate (CDA) candidates. She has also created three comprehensive early childhood curricula and is the author or co-author of sixteen books on early childhood development, including the popular Your Child at Play series.  

Betty Bardige, Ed.D., is an early childhood policy and program consultant and an expert on early language and literacy. As chair of a national early childhood foundation, she focused on strengthening programs for young children and their families and enhancing policies and systems to support the early care and education workforce.  Dr. Bardige pioneered the development of educational software for preschoolers and developed related reading and math curricula. She has written numerous books and articles for parents, early childhood professionals, and the general public related to language and literacy development, early education policy, and the characteristics of high quality programs for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association for Family Child Care, and holds a doctorate in education from Harvard University.

M. Kori Bardige, MS. Ed. is an early childhood special education consultant for the Learning Resource Center-South, a grant project of the New Jersey Department of Education, Office of Special Programs. Ms. Bardige works with school districts and early childhood centers to develop inclusive preschool programs that meet all children's needs. She also provides training and individual consultation to professionals and families working with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, and regularly presents at local, state, and national conferences. She has worked extensively with children who have autism spectrum disorders or related developmental disabilities and taught for more than 10 years in a variety of early childhood settings, including public schools, inclusive classrooms and child care centers. She holds a MS.Ed. in severe special needs from Simmons College and is currently completing a doctorate in special education.

Lorraine Breffni, Ed.D., is the Director of Early Childhood at the Mailman Segal Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Nova Southeastern University. She oversees the operation of four early childhood programs serving children aged 6 weeks through 5 years and works in collaboration with a range of local and national leaders to advance early childhood public policy. Lorraine is an instructor for early childhood courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate level. She develops and implements training on topics as diverse as best practices in emergent literacy, leadership, and early childhood curriculum. She also offers technical assistance to preschool teachers and administrators as they strive to enhance classroom practice and provides consultation to agencies working to promote quality community-based opportunities for young children.

Mary Jean Woika, M.Ed. is an instructor and course designer for early childhood practitioners in online and onsite courses leading to bachelor and associate degrees, CDA training, and a Director Credential. She has served as advisor for National CDA candidates. Ms. Woika serves on several state and local committees that make decisions regarding training of early childhood practitioners. She draws upon her teaching experience as a mentor, behavior consultant, child care director, as well as her work with children with special needs in inclusive settings. Ms. Woika holds a master’s degree in newborn, infants, and preschool special education from Pennsylvania State University and is currently a doctoral student in educational leadership with a minor in adult education.