The Yew Chung Approach to Early Childhood Education

This volume details the Yew Chung Approach and the Twelve Values that exemplify the approach as a unique contribution to the field of early childhood education. The Yew Chung Education Foundation (YCEF) in Hong Kong is a nonprofit organization and a high-quality early childhood program that promotes a global lens and multilingualism through an emergent curriculum. This book explores the Twelve Values that exemplify the approach, including relationships, the emergent curriculum, inquiry-based pedagogy, and the multilingual and multicultural approach. Grounding these values in daily classroom practice and the broader sociocultural context of Hong Kong, it shows how the Yew Chung Approach effectively supports additional language learning through a progressive emergent curriculum with a high degree of child agency. It also explores the unique history of Hong Kong as an incubator and setting for the Yew Chung Approach and considers the relationships between the colonial history of the city, Hong Kong's current status as a global city, and the mission of Yew Chung to provide children with a global lens. An important study which exemplifies and investigates a unique program and perspective within the field, this book will benefit scholarly and practitioner audiences within the global early childhood community, as well as appealing to academics, researchers and postgraduates working within early childhood education, comparative education, and bilingual education.

Stephanie C. Sanders-Smith is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Yew Chung - Bernard Spodek Scholar in Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Sylvia Ya-Hsuan Yang is a Yew Chung Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. Kutasha Bryan-Silva is a Yew Chung Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA.

1. Exploring the Yew Chung Approach Part I: The Evolution of the Yew Chung Approach to Early Childhood Education 2. The History of Yew Chung 3. The Twelve Values Part II: Foundational Values 4. Views of Children 5. Relationships Part III: Centering the Child in the Curriculum 6. Emergence and Inquiry 7. A Multilingual Approach 8. Problem Solving and Academic Learning Part IV: The Yew Chung Approach, Today and Tomorrow 9. A Day in Yew Chung 10. Creating a Society for the Future