The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Reggio Emilia is a city of 130,000 people in the prosperous and progressive Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy. Its municipal early childhood system has been recognized and acclaimed as one of the best systems of education in the world (Newsweek, December 2, 1991). Over the past 30 years, the system has evolved a distinctive and innovative set of philosophical assumptions, curriculum and pedagogy; method of school organization; and design environments which, taken as a unified whole, is called the Reggio Emilia approach. This approach fosters children's intellectual development through systematic focus on symbolic representation, as children are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through words, movement, drawing, painting, playing, and other natural modes of expression. The Hundred Languages of Children offers a comprehensive exploration of the Reggio Emilia approach. It provides a unique forum in which noted Italian and North American educators and administrators who are involved in or studying the program examine its origins, explain its rationale and practice, and demonstrate how its principles can be applied in American classrooms. This volume deserves careful reading, for it dispels the prevailing view of Reggio as an art-education curriculum and casts it as a comprehensive child development program. a comfortable, stimulating thought journey ... -Carol Brunson Phillips, Executive Director, Council for Early Childhood Professional Recognition, Washington, D.C. a remarkable collection of essays which provide the reader with a much more thorough understanding of this approach to the education of young children If American educators read only one book on early childhood education this year, let it be this one. -Dimensions of Early Childhood. this book makes a unique and important contribution to early childhood education. It no doubt will be considered a valuable resource by early childhood educators everywhere -Holistic Education, Carol Seefeldt, Institute of Child Study, University of Maryland a rich resource a comfort and a challenge to anyone in the Expeditionary Learning Community -Outward Bound, newsletter of Expeditionary Learning, Leah Rugen,

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