About the Authors

Deb Ellsworth and Tina Charney are two preschool teachers with over thirty years combined experience, licensed and degreed in Early Childhood Education and Developmental Psychology.They co-taught a class of three- to five-year-olds for three years at St. David’s Center for Child Development and Family Services in the Minneapolis area. St. David’s is a large and prestigious preschool program that serves typical children, children with special needs, and at-risk families. St. David’s partnered with T. Berry Brazelton in bringing the Touchpoints program to Minnesota. Deb most recently taught in the Spanish Bilingual class at St. David’s. Tina is currently living in Phoenix, where she taught preschoolers at the Summit School of Ahwatukee.

They are also frequent dispensers of parenting advice to the parents of children in their classrooms. They have found that parents were looking to them for advice about all sorts of things beyond the classroom.

“We realized that parents naturally turn to their child’s preschool teachers as experts on young children,” said Deb Ellsworth. “We further realized that much of what we do with the children in the classroom is directly applicable to what parents can do with their children at home.”

Tina and Deb are parents as well, whose own children are now young adults. They bring to this book their perspective both as teachers and parents.