A family-centered approach is recommended as best practice in the field of early intervention. However, recent research suggests that some professionals in the field do not always implement family-centered services. This study investigated the content taught to pre-service early intervention/early childhood special education students regarding family-centered services. Eighty-two faculty members from institutions of higher education across the U.S. rated the importance of and the extent to which they taught five categories of content associated with family-centered services. Content associated with Knowledge of Families, IFSP/IEP Skills, and Respecting Diversity were taught significantly more than Communication Skills and Knowledge of Team Work. All five categories of content were taught to at least a moderate degree and each category was rated as moderately important to crucial for students. The categories rated as most important were also taught most extensively.

This article describes an early childhood teacher-preparation program that infuses environmental education and nature experiences into courses, practicum, and student-teaching experiences. Program philosophy, pedagogy, materials, and methods are described and linked to the Early Childhood Environmental Education Programs: Guidelines for Excellence, the Guidelines for the Preparation and Professional Development of Environmental Educators, and state-level early learning guidelines that focus on connecting young children with nature. Preservice teachers build knowledge, skills, and dispositions for effective environmental education beginning from an awareness level and progressing to application and refinement. The value of nature is communicated explicitly and implicitly throughout the program. Preliminary analysis of student outcomes indicated that, over the course of the program, students' ratings of the importance of nature and science experiences and outcomes increased, along with their confidence implementing environmental-education activities. There is growing interest in nature and environmental education (EE) in early childhood. Guidelines for Excellence have been published for early childhood education (North American Association for Environmental Education [NAAEE], 2010a), and the North American Association for Environmental Education has added a "Connecting Kids and Nature" track to the annual conference. Several books have been published on connecting young children with nature (e.g., Davis, 2010; Ward, 2008; Wilson, 2012) and early childhood EE curricula have been developed by Project Learning Tree and Project Wild (Council for Environmental Education, 2009; Project Learning Tree, 2010). A professional development program focusing on discovering nature with young children has been funded by the National Science Foundation (Chalufour & Worth, 2003) and the National Association for the Education of Young Children published a compilation of articles on nature and EE in early childhood (Shillady, 2011). A rating scale designed to assess EE in early childhood has also been published (Bhagwanji, 2011). You know things are getting serious when we start measuring! CONTACT Julia Torquati,

Sharing folktales with young children offers an array of opportunities. These stories have universal appeal, abate fears, support divergent thinking, and connect generations. Eleven newest renditions of classic tales are reviewed and recommended.