Developmentally Appropriate Practice In Early Childhood Programs

The long-awaited new edition of NAEYC's book Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs is here, fully revised and updated! Since the first edition in 1987, it has been an essential resource for the early childhood education field. Early childhood educators have a professional responsibility to plan and implement intentional, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that promote the social and emotional development, physical development and health, cognitive development, and general learning competencies of each child served. But what is developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)? DAP is a framework designed to promote young children's optimal learning and development through a strengths-based approach to joyful, engaged learning. As educators make decisions to support each child's learning and development, they consider what they know about (1) commonality in children's development and learning, (2) each child as an individual (within the context of their family and community), and (3) everything discernible about the social and cultural contexts for each child, each educator, and the program as a whole. This latest edition of the book is fully revised to underscore the critical role social and cultural contexts play in child development and learning, including new research about implicit bias and teachers' own context and consideration of advances in neuroscience. Educators implement developmentally appropriate practice by recognizing the many assets all young children bring to the early learning program as individuals and as members of families and communities. They also develop an awareness of their own context. Building on each child's strengths, educators design and implement learning settings to help each child achieve their full potential across all domains of development and across all content areas.

This volume spells out more fully the principles undergirding developmentally appropriate practice and guidelines for making decisions in the classroom for young children.

This book represents the early childhood profession's consensus definition of developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. It is intended for use by teachers, administrators, parents and policy makers.

This volume combines research and practice on integrated developmentally appropriate curriculum in a manner that will help theorists, researchers, parents, school administrators, and teachers understand how to match early childhood teaching practices to the integrated manner that young children naturally think and learn. The book features specialists in each of the traditional curriculum areas (e.g., math, science, literacy) who share their expertise on how to accomplish this in practical and meaningful ways based on NAEYC and other professional organization guidelines. What an integrated curriculum means for assessment, children with disabilities, guidance, parenting, social development, and multicultural perspectives in early childhood education is also covered.

"Questions such as these are typically asked by early childhood professionals-in-training as well as by seasoned practitioners in the field. Our work with students and increasing numbers of educators probing for answers indicated the need for a comprehensive guide to support the exploration, planning, and implementation of developmentally appropriate programs for young children. Thus, our goal in writing Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum: Effective Practices in Early Childhood Education is to bring together the best information currently available for developing an integrated approach to curriculum and instruction in the early years. We also hope to bridge the worlds of childcare and early education, as well as those of preprimary and early primary programs. This book addresses early childhood professionals-in training and professionals working in formal group settings with young children from 3 to 8 years old"--

The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.

Popular author Ann Lewin-Benham draws on her experience with the Reggio Approach to present 12 "best practices" inspired not only by Reggio, but also by play-based and Montessori approaches to early childhood education. These practices are demonstrated, one per chapter, with scenarios from classrooms, dialogues of children and teachers, and work samples showing the outcome of using each practice. This resource includes a self-assessment tool to assist you in examining your practices and those of your school.

This book represents the early childhood profession's consensus definition of developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs. It is intended for use by teachers, administrators, parents and policy makers.