Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education: Building a Foundation Paperback - 2016

Dr. Sue Bredekamp is an early childhood education specialist from the Washington, DC area who serves as a consultant on developmentally appropriate practice, curriculum, teaching, and teacher education for state and national organizations such as NAEYC, Head Start, the Council for Professional Recognition, and Sesame Street. From 1981 to 1998, she was Director of Accreditation and Professional Development for NAEYC where she developed and directed their national accreditation system for early childhood centers and schools. Dr. Bredekamp is the editor of NAEYC's best-selling, highly influential publication, Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs.

Dr. Bredekamp is Chair of the Board of the HighScope Educational Research Foundation. She was a member of the National Research Council's (NRC) Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics which produced a landmark report, Mathematics in Early Childhood: Paths toward Excellence and Equity. Dr. Bredekamp serves on several advisory boards and is a frequent keynote speaker and author of numerous books and articles related to standards for professional practice and teacher education. She has been a visiting lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia; Monash University in Melbourne; University of Alaska; and University of Hawaii. She holds a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Maryland. The McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership at National Louis University recognized Dr. Bredekamp with their Visionary Leadership Award in 2014. For 45 years, Dr. Sue Bredekamp has worked for and with young children toward the goal of improving the quality and effectiveness of early childhood education programs.

About the contributor

Dr. Kathleen (Kate) Cranley Gallagher is an educational psychologist and Scientist at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Education at UNC, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate early childhood professionals. Dr. Gallagher has herself been an early childhood professional for over 30 years; she has taught in and administered diverse programs for children birth -8 years of age, with and without disabilities. Dr. Gallagher's publications and applied work focus on developing, implementing and evaluating evidence-based interventions to support social-emotional well-being and development for young children, their families and early childhood professionals. Dr. Gallagher has served on state advisory panels, developing standards and assessments for early childhood education and health and is a founding member of the North Carolina Infant Mental Health Association. She developed Be Well to Teach Well, a program designed to support the well-being and of early childhood professionals. Dr. Gallagher is an accomplished teacher and frequently invited speaker nationally, and presented a keynote address at the International Preschool Teachers' Conference in Hangzhou, China as a guest of Zhejiang Normal University. She delivered a TEDx talk, entitled, The Healthy Child: Assembly Required in which Dr. Gallagher argued that the single most important feat of construction that our society undertakes is the assembly required to build physically, emotionally, cognitively, and socially healthy children. She lives in Carrboro, North Carolina with her husband, John, and enjoys time with her two adult children, Jack and Bridget.