Good Day/Bad Day: The Child's Experience of Child Care

"Did you have a good day?" is a question thousands of parents ask of their pre-schoolers at the end of a child care day. But as the children are too young to adequately describe their experiences, they are unable to tell their parents what they really want or need to know. This book helps to do just that by examining the issue of quality in child care from a child's point of view.;The author introduces a group of fictional pre-school-age children and contrasts their experiences through a hypothetical day in each of two very different child care situations. Although fictional, the characters and incidents described are based on real observations of children and teachers in poor and good quality child care environments. The events and interactions described are interpreted for the reader in annotated sections that provide extensive references to current research regarding each area discussed.;"Good Day/Bad Day" represents an attempt to consider the growing body of research on child care quality in a new light. In this book, Beardsley has synthesized her own observation of children in a variety of child care situations with those research findings that are vitally relevant to recognizing and promoting quality early programmes.;This book should be of interest for teachers teacher educators, administrators, policymakers, advocates or social science researchers, as well as parents curious to discover what actually goes on in their child's day.