Reggio Books
In Dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, Researching and Learning (Contesting Early Childhood)
by Carlina Rinaldi
The early childhood programme of Reggio Emilia in Italy is acclaimed as one of the best education systems in the world and this book offers the unique insight of Carlina Rinaldi, the former director of the municipal early childhood centres in Reggio Emilia and successor to Loris Malaguzzi, one of the twentieth century’s leading pedagogical thinkers.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0415345040 / Routledge (September 15, 2005) / 192pp / Paperback
Rinaldi has an enviable international reputation for her contribution to the Reggio approach and has given talks on the topic around the world.
A collection of Rinaldi’s most important works, this book is organized thematically with a full introduction contextualising each piece. It closes with an interview by series editors Peter Moss and Gunilla Dahlberg, looking at Rinaldi’s current work and reflections on Reggio's past, present and future.
Much of this material is previously unpublished and focuses on a number of questions:
What were the ideas and legacy of Loris Malaguzzi?
What is unique about Reggio Emilia?
What are the issues in education today and what does it mean to be a teacher?
How can educators most effectively make use of creativity?
The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Experience in Transformation, 3rd Edition
by Carolyn Edwards, Lella Gandini, George Forman
Why does the city of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy feature one of the best public systems of early education in the world? This book documents the comprehensive and innovative approach that utilizes the "hundred languages of children" to support their well-being and foster their intellectual development.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0313359811 / Publisher: Praeger; 3 edition (Dec 13 2011) / 411pp / Paperback
Educators in Reggio Emilia, Italy, use a distinctive innovative approach that supports children's well-being and fosters their intellectual development through a systematic focus on symbolic representation. From birth through age six, young children are encouraged to explore their environment and express their understanding through many modes of expression or "languages," including verbal communication, movement, drawing, painting, sculpture, shadow play, collage, and music. This organic strategy has been shown to be highly effective, as the children in Reggio Emilia display surprising examples of symbolic skill and creativity.
This book describes how the world-renowned preschool services and accompanying practical strategies for children under six in Reggio Emilia have evolved in response to the community's demographic and political transformations, and to generational changes in both the educators and the parents of the children. The authors provide the reader with a comprehensive introduction to the Reggio Emilia experience, and address three of the most important central themes of the work in Reggio in detail: teaching and learning through relationships; the hundred languages of children, and how this concept has evolved; and integrating documentation into the process of observing, reflecting, and communicating.
Art and Creativity in Reggio Emilia: Exploring the Role and Potential of Ateliers in Early Childhood Education -1st Edition
by Vea Vecchi
This book explores the contribution of and art and creativity to early education, and examines the role of the atelier (an arts workshop in a school) and atelierista (an educator with an arts background) in the pioneering pre-schools of Reggio Emilia. It does so through the unique experience of Vea Vecchi, one of the first atelieristas to be appointed in Reggio Emilia in 1970.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0415468787 / Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (April 16, 2010) / 224pp / Paperback
Part memoir, part conversation and part reflection, the book provides a unique insider perspective on the pedagogical work of this extraordinary local project, which continues to be a source of inspiration to early childhood practitioners and policy makers worldwide.
Vea’s writing, full of beautiful examples, draws the reader in as she explains the history of the atelier and the evolving role of the atelierista. Key themes of the book include:
processes of learning and knowledge construction
the theory of the hundred languages of childhood and the role of poetic languages
the importance of organisation, ways of working and tools, in particular pedagogical documentation
the vital contribution of the physical environment
the relationship between the atelier, the atelierista, the school and its teachers
This enlightening book is essential reading for students, practitioners, policy makers and researchers in early childhood education, and also for all those in other fields of education interested in the relationship between the arts and learning.
Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education
by Louise Boyd Cadwell (Author), Leslie R. Williams (Series Editor)
Bringing Reggio Emilia Home is the first book to integrate the experiences of one American teacher on a year-long internship in the preschools of Reggio, with a four-year adaptation effort in one American school. The lively text includes many "mini-stories" of preschool and kindergarten-age children, teachers, and parents who embark on journeys of learning together.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0807736609 / Publisher: Teachers College Press; 1st (first) edition (Sept. 19 1997) / 176pp / Paperback
These journeys take shape in language, in drawings, in tempera paint and clay, in outdoor excursions, and in the imaginations of both the children and adults. This informative and accessible work features photographs of the children (both in Italy and the United States) and samples of the children's work, including some in full color.
During the past 10 years there has been a tremendous interest among early childhood educators and parents in the innovative approaches to teaching pioneered in the preschools of Reggio Emilia, Italy. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the Reggio Approach! Teachers, especially those in early childhood, teacher educators, policy makers, administrators, and parents will find it invaluable.
Selected topics: The Fundamentals of the Reggio Approach; The Pleasure and Power of Playing with Materials; Plants in Relationships; Children and Spoken Language; Transforming Space, Time, and Relations?;Turning the Preschool Classroom into a Greenhouse; Taking the Plant Project to Kindergarten
We Are All Explorers
by Daniel R. Scheinfeld, Karen M. Haigh, Sandra J. P. Scheinfeld
This is the first book to systematically examine a program-wide, multisite implementation of the Reggio Approach in the United States. The authors provide a thoughtful, well-documented description and analysis of an entire early child development program serving low-income Latino and African American children and their families in the Chicago Commons Schools.
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Amazon.com: ISBN: 978-0807749081 / Teachers College Press:2008 / 224pp / Paperback
While focusing on the application, meaning, and value of Reggio Emilia principles in preschool classrooms, the authors describe how those same principles and processes pervade relationships with parents, teacher professional development, and the overall organization of the program. Offering a powerful combination of theory and practice, this comprehensive model: includes classroom examples, dialogues, and questions that can be adapted to both pre- and in-service teacher education, considers standards-based curriculum by describing literacy, math, and other school-readiness components of the program, provides suggestions for educational leaders who are considering using Reggio Emilia principles in their own context, and offers many rich examples of teachers' documentation and children's work from the 10-year Chicago Commons Study.
''Here is an approach to teaching that embraces children as the sparks of meaning-making energy that they really are. These pages invite teachers to pay closer attention, be regularly astonished, and re-think the basics of how we organize school at every level.'' William Ayers, University of Illinois at Chicago, author of To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher
''This unique book is invaluable to a wide range of educators who aspire to understand the depth of study when embarking on the journey to understand the principles of the Reggio Emilia approach.'' Eileen Hughes, Woodring College of Education, Western Washington University
Experiencing Reggio Emilia: Implications for Pre-School Provision
by Lesley Abbott, Cathy Nutbrown
Early Education, internationally, is the focus of much challenge and debate. Various approaches to teaching young children are being developed and advocated, but the focus is often on curriculum content with the processes of learning as a secondary issue. The most important consideration in early education is the way in which young children learn.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0335207039 / Publisher: Open University Press; 1 edition (July 16 2001) / 182pp / Paperback
Their transferable skills of communication, collaboration and investigation can underpin all aspects of learning. These elements form the main focus of work in a group of pre-schools in an area of Northern Italy which has earned an international reputation for innovative practice and pedagogy.
The experience of Reggio Emilia, in providing challenges to accepted approaches to early childhood education in many countries, is widely acknowledged. Since 1963, when the Italian municipality of Reggio Emilia began setting up its network of educational services for 0-6 year olds, the 'Reggio Approach' has gained worldwide recognition. Numerous visitors have been impressed by the acknowledgement given to the potential of children, the organisation and quality of the environments created, the promotion of collegiality and a climate of co-participation of families in the educational project.
This book reflects the impressions and experiences of the Reggio Emilia approach gained by a range of early childhood educators following a study visit to the region. It focusses on key issues such as staffing, training, working with parents, play, learning, the culture of early childhood, and special educational needs, from a variety of perspectives and will provide a welcome challenge to thinking for both practitioners and policy makers.
Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools
by Mara Krechevsky, Ben Mardell, Melissa Rivard, Daniel Wilson
A progressive, research-based approach for making learning visible. Based on the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, Visible Learners highlights learning through interpreting objects and artifacts, group learning, and documentation to make students' learning evident to teachers.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-1118345696 / Publisher: Jossey-Bass; Illustrated edition (May 20 2013) / 208pp / Paperback
Visible classrooms are committed to five key principles: that learning is purposeful, social, emotional, empowering, and representational. The book includes visual essays, key practices, classroom and examples.
Show how to make learning happen in relation to others, spark emotional connections, give students power over their learning, and express ideas in multiple ways
Illustrate Reggio-inspired principles and approaches via quotes, photos, student and teacher reflections, and examples of student work
Offer a new way to enhance learning using progressive, research-based practices for increasing collaboration and critical thinking in and outside the classroom
Visible Learners asks that teachers look beyond surface-level to understand who students are, what they come to know, and how they come to know it.
First Steps Toward Teaching the Reggio Way - 1st Edition
This is a good book for teachers and soon-to-be teachers who are interested in the Reggio approach. In chapter two, Lella Gandini, discussing the foundation of the approach, notes, “All children have preparedness, potential, curiosity, and interest in engaging in social interaction, establishing relationships, constructing their learning, and negotiating with everything the environment brings to them.”
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0134373027 / Publisher: Pearson; 1 edition (July 22, 1997) / 253pp / Paperback
For teachers of deaf and hard of hearing children, this may mean putting aside the belief that “our deaf children have no language.” They don’t have “no language.” They have more than 100!
According to Hendrick, many American preschool teachers still “interpret care as being the sort of mothering
that actually robs youngsters of their independence—for example, handing them something when they could reach it themselves, buttoning their sweaters, and answering for children instead of giving them time to respond on their own.” Hendrick gives a good table of comparisons between American and Reggian schools that is helpful to those who want to understand the differences in philosophy.
Authentic Childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the Classroom
by Susan Fraser
In Authentic Childhood, Fraser and Gestwicki explain the guiding principles of the Reggio Emilia approach, including the “image of the child” as a competent, strong, inventive learner who has “rights” instead of “needs,” and who experiences the learning environment as a “third teacher.”
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-0766825444 / Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing; 1 edition (July 20, 2001) / 256pp / Paperback
For teachers who are interested in applying Reggio Emilia, the authors suggest approaching old activities in new ways, exploring the 100 languages, involving parents, reconsidering time, planning for emergent curriculum, and persevering in collaboration with others.
According to Malaguzzi, “The children have a hundred languages (and a hundred, hundred, hundred more) but they steal ninety-nine. The school and the culture separate the head from the body.” Using Reggio Emilia, preschool programs help to keep childhood authentic, the way it should be.
Working in the Reggio Way: A Beginner's Guide for American Teachers
by Julianne P. Wurm (Author), Celia Genishi (Foreword)
Working in the Reggio Way helps teachers of young children bring the innovative practices of the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy, to American classrooms.
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Amazon.com: ISBN-13: 978-1929610648/ Publisher: Redleaf Press; unknown edition (June 1, 2005) / 240pp / Paperback
Written by an educator who observed and worked in the world-famous schools, this groundbreaking resource presents the key tools that will allow teachers to transform their classrooms, including these:
Organization of time and space
Documentation of children’s work
Observation and questioning
Attention to children’s environments
This workbook also contains interactive activities for individual or group reflection.