Evaluation and Assessment of Learning and ProgramsLearni

Evaluation and Assessment
of Learning and Programs
Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you will be able to:
1. Explain the concept of developmentally appropriate
assessment.
2. Describe different types of formal and informal assessments
teachers use with children.
3. Describe how teachers manage and use assessment
information.
4. Identify and explain processes used to evaluate curriculum.
5. Describe developmentally appropriate considerations for
using technology with children.
6. Describe important considerations for lifelong professional
learning.
12
Pretest
1. Teachers don’t need to plan for assessment
because the curriculum includes all the
materials they need. T/F
2. Standardized tests are the best tools to use

to assess young children. T/F
3. Teachers use assessment information and
analyses to adapt curriculum. T/F
4. Program evaluations provide valuable
information for teachers about how to
strengthen their practices. T/F
5. It is possible to use technologies with young
children in developmentally appropriate
ways. T/F
6. Once teachers have experience, they no lon-
ger need to prioritize intentional reflection
about their work. T/F
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Developmentally Appropriate Assessment Chapter 12
Well here you are, on your way to understanding the intricacies
of early childhood curriculum
and the balancing act that a developmentally appropriate
approach requires. Your classroom
is a happy, busy place. Friendships are forming, children are
playing, and you are using your
understanding of the developmental emphasis in the early
learning standards and content
focus of K–12 academic standards to plan and implement

engaging and challenging activities.
You’ve also begun to notice the individual characteristics,
strengths, and needs of your chil-
dren and are beginning to think about ways of adapting the
curriculum to meet their needs.
Your sense is that everything is going well, but how do you
know for sure that you are meet-
ing the goals and expectations of your curriculum? Throughout
this book, we’ve addressed
this question in part by discussing the need to observe children
in order to scaffold their devel-
opment. But what specific things can you do to determine your
children’s individual needs
and chart their progress? How do you identify children who
might have special needs? How
do you know whether your curriculum is working as intended?
What should you do to con-
tinue developing your own curriculum knowledge? In view of
increasing use and awareness
of technologies, what are the most effective ways to use these
technologies for curriculum
and/or assessment?
In this chapter, we examine the concepts of student assessment
and ongoing evaluation for
continuous improvement of the curriculum. We also address the
emerging and changing role
of technology as a tool for curriculum implementation and
assessment.
12.1 Developmentally Appropriate Assessment
The primary goal of a developmentally appropriate approach to
assessment is to inform your
practices so that the curriculum you implement matches the
developmental needs and inter-

ests of the children in your care or classroom (Gullo, 2006;
NAEYC/NAECS/SDE, 2003). As you
continue to think about theory as part of the “why” behind
curriculum decisions, assessment
of your students and your program also provides practical,
ongoing information to guide what
you choose to do. For example, setting up your classroom using
sound principles of design
should theoretically provide children with opportunities to
engage with materials, explore
their ideas and imagination, and promote socialization. Your
assessment of how children actu-
ally use the environment, however, may reveal that some areas
need more or fewer materials
to balance movement and activity levels.
Similarly, while you observe daily that Anna Bess is a highly
verbal child, with a large vocabu-
lary and sophisticated sense of story structure, you may learn
through assessment that she
needs a great deal of support to identify the sounds in words to
help her progress in reading
and writing.
Creating an Assessment Plan
Planning for the assessment of groups and individual children
should reflect a systematic,
comprehensive approach (NAEYC, 2005). Assessment of young
children is most effective
when it is curriculum-based—that is, aligned with learning
standards as well as the goals and
content of the curriculum and used to modify activities and
practices to advance the develop-
ment of each child (Gullo, 2006). In general, assessments are
categorized either as formative

if they document ongoing development and progress, or
summative if they are administered
at intervals, such as end-of-year reports used to confer with a
child’s family.
Some widely used programs, such as Creative Curriculum and
High Scope, offer integrated,
curriculum-based assessment systems with tools, schedules, and
guidance for teachers that
are also aligned with state early learning standards. In
elementary schools, assessment sys-
tems are driven by national and state standards and typically
include a balance of formative
and summative assessments (often standardized tests) that
measure overall achievement at
the end of a school year. Independent or private early childhood
programs may design their
own assessment systems, such as the one displayed in Table
12.1, designed by an NAEYC-
accredited program to meet the standard for assessment. This
example of an assessment
system for a preschool program provides a timetable that
indicates when and how assessment
information is collected, communicated, organized, and applied.
Table 12.1: Sample Assessment System
Time Line Activity Instruments Product Follow-up

At enrollment Developmental
screening
Ages/Stages
Questionnaire (ASQ)
for appropriate age
and Social Emotional
Questionnaire (ASQ/
SE) if indicated
Formal report for
child file
Referral to BabyNet or Child Find and
process via school district if warranted
or follow up with additional question-
naires for more data
August Teacher–teacher
conference
Child file Draft Goals Form
(GF) for home visit
Confer with prior teacher if more
information needed
August Home visits Home Information
Form (HIF), goals
form photo
Family/child profile
Initiate or revise
existing goals

Regular informal communications;
referrals if needed
September New family orien-
tation (evening
session about
assessment
system)
All assessment
system documents
Present/discuss
assessment
system
Q&A as indicated; ongoing informal
communications
Ongoing Home/school
communication
Celebrations and
Concerns form (CCF)
Completed form Conversation, conferences if
requested; information used to inform
curricular decisions
Fall term,
monthly:
August,
September,
October

Observation,
recording
anecdotal
evidence
Anecdotal record Updated goals Individualizing instruction and
adjusting curriculum
Fall term,
monthly:
August,
September,
October
Work sample
collection
Portfolio Photo, video/
audio recording,
artifact
Used to inform curricular decisions
and evidence of growth; shared
during parent/teacher conference
(continued)
https://teachingstrategies.com/solutions/teach/
https://highscope.org/

The NAEYC recommends that a well-developed assessment
system should focus on identifying
children’s needs and interests, describing and reporting their
progress accurately, and using
assessment information to make curriculum decisions (National
Association for the Education
of Young Children, 2005). As described in the 2003
NAEYC/NAECS/SDE position statement,
an effective assessment system is characterized by:
• Ethical practices
• Fidelity between assessment practices and their intended uses
• Age, developmental, and cultural appropriateness
• Reliable and valid methods and instruments
• Alignment with desired outcomes that are educationally
significant
• Application of results that improves learning and outcomes for
children
Time Line Activity Instruments Product Follow-up
Fall
Conference
Day
Parent/teacher
conference;
compile informa-
tion from various

sources used
throughout the
term
Goals Form (GF)
Celebrations and
Concerns Forms (CCF)
Work samples
Early Learning
Standards (ELS)
checklist
Performance
assessments
Early Learning
Standards Report
(ELS) and work
samples
Revised goals
Referrals to BabyNet or Child Find
if warranted; entry signed by both
parent and teacher on goals form;
recommendations for future curricular
decisions and individualization
Spring Term
monthly:
January,
February,
March

Work sample
collection
Portfolio Updated portfo-
lios with photos
and artifacts
Individualizing instruction and
adjusting curriculum
By
February 15
Quarterly commu-
nication: Verbal or
written updates
as indicated/
needed per fall
conferences
Conference and/
or written narrative
progress report
Celebrations and
Concerns Forms (CCF)
Update goals Conversation or formal conference if
parent/teacher requests
April
Conference
Day
Parent/teacher

conference;
compile informa-
tion from various
sources used
throughout the
term
Goals Form
Celebration and
Concerns Forms
Work samples
Early Learning
Standards checklist
Performance
assessments
Early Learning
Standards Report
(ELS) and work
samples
Revised Goals
Referrals to BabyNet or Child Find if
warranted
April
Conference
Day
“Paper Day”—
Update family

information
Home Information
Form (HIF)
Health and
Emergency Forms
Completed form Compile list of students with allergies,
inform teacher for involving parents
and children in family and culturally
sensitive ways, planning curriculum
• Concrete evidence collected in real-world contexts
• Conclusions based on multiple sources of evidence gathered
over time
• Follow-through as needed to provide referrals or other needed
services
• Limited use of standardized tests
• Collaboration between teachers, programs, and families
These principles make sense because they focus on acquiring
information that is used to
improve teaching and learning and identify children who may
need interventions. Practices

consistent with these principles promote access to services,
efficient use of resources, and
confidence in determinations and decisions made on behalf of
young children. NAEYC and
NAECS/SDE assessment guidelines are based on professional
standards established by the
American Educational Research Association, the American
Psychological Association, and the
National Center for Measurement in Education
(NAEYC/NAECS/SDE, 2003).
The Importance of Objectivity
Critical to the use of any assessment strategy or method is
objectivity. Teachers must learn
to separate the accounting of what they observe or measure in
children from interpretation,
which should be done separately in the context of analyzing
multiple sources of data (Jablon,
Dombro & Dichtelmiller, 2007). In other words, teachers strive
to separate facts from opinions.
Consider the two sample anecdotal entries below recorded by a
teacher of a 4-year-old class:
1. Jamison stepped on a line of blocks that Camden was
arranging on the floor in the
block area. Camden looked at Jamison and said, “Stop it, you
are wrecking my road.”
Jamison stepped on the blocks again and then kicked two of
them out of the line.
Camden started to cry and Jamison said, “You are just a big
baby, I don’t want to play
with you anyways.” Jamison backed away from the block center
and stood off to the
side with his fists clenched and tears in his eyes as Anya came

and sat down next to
Camden.
2. Camden wanted to work alone and was minding his own
business arranging blocks in
a line to make a road; Jamison intruded and stepped on them.
Camden felt frustrated
and when he said “Stop it, you are wrecking my road,” Jamison
kicked the blocks and
in typically mean fashion said, “You are just a big baby, I don’t
want to play with you
anyways.” Anya came over to make Camden feel better and
Jamison just sulked and
pouted over in the corner.
The first record preserves the events as they occurred with
matter-of-fact language, while the
second clearly assigns protagonist/antagonist roles to Jamison
and Camden and assumes moti-
vations for the behavior that occurred for all three children. The
first note, compared with other
narratives, can be analyzed for behavior trends over time for
any of the children. Perhaps this
episode is consistent with a pattern of aggressive (Jamison) or
passive (Camden) or empathetic
(Anya) behaviors, but it could just as easily represent a
departure from any of the children’s usual
interactions. The second entry clearly indicates that the teacher
has already made a judgment
about each of the children, and its usefulness for gleaning
insights is limited.
Similarly, suppose four times a year a teacher conducted a fi ne
motor assessment by asking
each child to cut out a paper circle with scissors. Table 12.2
displays two records of this task

on separate occasions as it might be recorded by different
teachers.
Identifying Children’s Needs and Interests Chapter 12
Table 12.2: Two Accounts of Cutting
Teacher A Teacher B
9/14: Does not hold scissors
properly. Can’t cut.
9/14: Holds scissors in right hand sideways with thumb in one
hole and index
finger in the other. Holds paper in left hand at 12 o’clock
position. Attempting
to cut in counterclockwise motion, starting at 6 o’clock, but
paper slides through
scissors.
11/15: Good grip; still can’t
cut very well.
11/15: Right-hand grip now includes thumb and first two fingers
with thumb up.
Holds paper with left hand at 9 o’clock position. Cuts
counterclockwise from 3 to
12 o’clock and stops.
Teacher A uses subjective labeling (“properly,” “good”) and
language indicating an opinion

about the child’s performance on each occasion, while teacher B
records information that can
be interpreted to describe progress in measurable terms.
Another way teachers ensure objectivity is by using scoring
tools, or rubrics, that rely on
criterion referencing based on observable behaviors or
performance rather than subjective
judgments. A criterion is similar to a standard or benchmark—a
statement or descriptor that
conveys an expected outcome or level of performance. If a
criterion describes an action or
behavior that is observable, it is more likely that anyone who
performs the assessment will
score it objectively, as the behavior will either be observed or it
won’t.
For example, suppose you are assessing self-help skills. Using
criteria such as “not indepen-
dent, working on independence, independent” is subjective; if
two teachers rated the same
child they might each have a very different idea about what
“working on . . .” means or what
criterion must be met to be rated “independent.” A scoring tool
that lists criteria such as “ties
shoes, zips, cleans up without being asked, puts nap items away
unassisted, asks for help
when needed” is objective because the assessor must see the
child perform each task in order
to check it off.
12.2 Identifying Children’s Needs and Interests
Assessment methods can be formal or informal. Formal
assessments include standardized
measures that are norm-referenced; that is, they score an
individual child’s performance

against the average, or mean, scores of a larger population of
children. The larger popula-
tion is selected to be representative of the smaller samples of
children to whom the test is
administered.
Informal assessments are not normed, may be narratively
expressed, and can be obtained
commercially or teacher-designed. Informal assessments are
implemented in the classroom or
care setting to document learning, skills, and/or behavior. These
measures contribute valuable
information that provides a holistic, context-specific view of
growth over time.
Other measures, either formal or informal, are criterion-
referenced, or designed to assess
each individual child or group of children with respect to
specific goals or desired outcomes
expressed in curriculum materials, state early learning and
academic standards, or individual-
ized learning plans for children with special needs, such as the
Individual Educational Plan (IEP)
or Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP).
Formal Assessments
Normed standardized instruments generally fall into one of
three categories: screens, achieve-

ment tests, or intelligence tests. The purpose of a screening tool
such as the Denver II
(Denver Developmental Materials, 2012) or the Brigance Early
Childhood series (Curriculum
Associates, 2011) is usually to obtain a general picture of
development or behavior to deter-
mine if a more detailed assessment or evaluation is warranted.
Screens can be administered by
trained professionals, but instructions are typically easy for
educators to follow. Some screens,
such as the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (2012), are
specifically designed for parents.
Achievement tests are intended to assess what a child knows or
can do and are the types
of tests administered annually to elementary and high school
students to measure progress
toward meeting state academic standards and curriculum
outcomes. A battery of several
subtests is typically administered over several days. Use of a
single achievement test to make
high-stakes decisions, such as a child’s readiness for school, is
considered inadequate and
developmentally inappropriate (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009).
Intelligence tests are designed to deter-
mine a person’s aptitude and capacities
for learning in comparison to all others
in the population from which the norms
are derived. The Binet-Simon Intelligence
Test, developed by Alfred Binet and
Lewis Simon in 1905, was the first to be
introduced. In 1916, Lewis Terman, at
Stanford University, adapted the scales for
American use as the Stanford-Binet Scales
(Levine & Munsch, 2011). The test score

was expressed as an intelligence quo-
tient (IQ) or ratio of mental to chrono-
logical age.
The Wechsler Intelligence Scales, intro-
duced by psychologist David Wechsler in
1955, are also widely used and adapted the IQ concept to an
intelligence deviation score,
basing norms on a distribution of scores across the normal
curve. These tests are reliable only
when they are administered by trained professionals, usually
psychologists, and typically not
before age 6.
Concerns about cultural bias in the norming processes first
expressed by Alfred Binet (Siegler,
1992) persist today, since many believe that the heavy reliance
on language in these tests
compromises results for children with limited English
proficiency (Levine & Munsch, 2011).
Widespread implementation of standardized testing with
children under the age of 8, espe-
cially if not balanced with the holistic data that informal
assessments provide, is considered
developmentally inappropriate (NAEYC/NAECS/SDE, 2003).
Such tests offer only a “snapshot”
of what the child can do, don’t allow for modification to
accommodate individual differences,
don’t accurately reflect a child’s real-life experience, may be
linguistically or culturally biased,
and focus only on what rather than how a child learns
(Anderson, Moffat, & Shapiro, 2006;
Branscombe, Castle, Dorsey & Taylor, 2003; Gullo, 2006).
While teachers need to understand

© iStockphoto / Thinkstock
Early childhood educators and researchers exercise cau-
tion in using standardized test for a variety of reasons.
how formal measures such as standardized tests are developed
and used, their administra-
tion should be limited to instances where it is clear that the
results may benefit children in a
specific way, such as identifying a child with special needs who
would be entitled to support
services (NAEYC/NAECS/SDE, 2003).
Informal Assessments
Programs and teachers that apply developmentally appropriate
principles to assessment make
extensive use of informal assessments, also known as
alternative or authentic methods.
Informal assessments match curriculum goals, actively involve
children and families, focus
on change and growth over time, and occur in real time in the
classroom or care setting
(Branscombe, Castle, Dorsey & Taylor, 2003; Gullo, 2006;
Jablon, Dombro, & Dichtelmiller,
2007; Wortham, 2011). Often, authentic assessments focus on
recording observations of
individual children during play (Beaty, 2009; Bodrova & Leong,
2007; Flagler, 1996; Gullo,

2006; Jablon, Dombro, & Dichtelmiller, 2007) or daily routines,
interactions with family mem-
bers, and in group interaction (Jablon, Dombro & Dichtelmiller,
2007).
Teachers also design per-
formance or skills assess-
ments and collect and
analyze learning artifacts to
evaluate growth and identify
needed curriculum modifica-
tions. Authentic assessments
don’t require that the teacher
“prep” children, in contrast
to the coaching that teach-
ers sometimes provide to
prepare children for a paper-
and-pencil standardized test.
Rather than offering the
child a preselected group of
available responses that may
not necessarily match what
the child knows, authentic
assessments record behavior
and performance in the precise terms or actions displayed by the
child (Anderson, Moffat, &
Shapiro, 2006; Gullo, 2006).
Observational Strategies and Tools
Assessment information obtained via the direct observation of
children can provide valuable
data over time, in multiple contexts, in the words of the teacher
or child, and during many
kinds of activities (Jablon, Dombro, & Dichtelmiller, p. 42). For
example, a teacher might

observe a child during indoor or outdoor play, at lunchtime, or
during transitions. Tools for
observation can be premade, obtained from various resources, or
constructed by the teacher.
Observations should always be dated and the observer noted if
multiple people are assessing
the same group of children. Types of observational assessments
include those described in
Table 12.3.
Authentic assessments take place in the learning setting, with
familiar
materials and adults that children know and trust.
Table 12.3: Observation-Based Assessments
Type of
Observation
Description and Uses Formats/Tools
Anecdotal
record
Descriptive narratives that record details of events, behaviors,
or
notes about children’s activities, accomplishments, or needs.

Index cards, notebook
paper, bound journal,
adhesive mailing labels,
sticky notes, calendar.
Running record Real-time recording of activity, conversation, or
behavior, often
time-stamped as observation proceeds (akin to a video
recording,
but with words rather than a camera).
Index cards, notebook
paper, journal.
Daily log Records observations over the course of a day, in sync
with
different time or activity blocks.
Clipboard with
preprinted daily schedule
and blanks for recording
what child does at
different times.
Checklists While observing, the teacher checks for presence or
absence of
targeted outcomes, behaviors, or language on a preprinted list;
this may be used to track whether child completed sequence of
activities; teacher checks off or records date target is achieved.
Used to track growth of skills or development over time.
Clipboard and pre-
printed forms or online
lists of skills or behaviors
used with laptop, tablet,

or other portable device
for use in the classroom.
Time/event
sampling
Often used together to discern the frequency or cause of
problem
behaviors; the teacher may use a tally sheet to record the
number
of times a particular behavior (such as hitting or crying) is
observed
over a predetermined time period such as an hour or day; event
sampling records what activity or behavior directly preceded or
followed a behavior being tracked to look for patterns or cause/
effect. Can also be used to track how many times a child visits
a particular center, the rest room, or how much time is
spent there.
Clipboard with tally
sheet; notebook paper
or index cards.
Diagrams/
sketches
Track movement of children around the room; can be helpful for
identifying interaction patterns, and children’s interests.
Preprinted floor plan.
Interest
inventories
Can be used to gain information from children and families
about

what children like and dislike; helps in planning and selecting
activities and materials.
Checklist or question-
naires; sign-up sheets
for activities.
Child interviews Conducted any time first-hand information
about children’s needs,
problems, interests, or reasoning would be helpful for
assessment,
conflict resolution, behavior management, or planning.
Audio- or videotape;
written transcriptions.
Rating scales Records a qualitative assessment using
predetermined indicators of
achievement (e.g., emergent, developing, mastered) or
frequency
(e.g., never, sometimes, always).
Preprinted forms that
list activity or skills being
observed with blank
space for recording
assessment.
Matrices/grids Preprinted chart that records activity of a group
of children or for
observing multifaceted activity, such as both social interactions
and language during play. Usually represented on a chart with
both vertical and horizontal axes. With a group of children,
names
are listed on one axis and targeted behavior or skills on the
other.

With an individual child, one type of behavior is noted on each
axis.
Clipboard and
preprinted sheets.
What the teacher does while observing varies by the purpose,
timing, and characteristics
of the observational tool being used. For instance, an anecdotal
record or note is an “after-
the-fact” narrative; a teacher might make entries during
planning time, at the end of a day
or week while memory is fresh and events can be recalled
accurately. A running record or
time/event sampling is recorded in real time as behavior is
occurring. A teacher might use a
checklist to observe and assess a child or group of children for
vocabulary and social interac-
tion skills while interacting with them during lunchtime or he or
she might record the same
kind of data while standing or sitting off to the side as children
build with blocks or engage
in dramatic play.
Performance-Based Assessments and Developmental Checklists
Teachers sometimes conduct assessments with individual
children in face-to-face interactions
to determine their level of mastery of particular skills.
Performance assessments provide infor-

mation about what a child knows or does. The teacher may ask a
child to perform an action,
such as scissor-cutting to assess motor skills. Or the teacher
might ask a child to complete a
task to assess the extent to which a child has attained a
cognitive skill such as one-to-one
correspondence. She could select items from the classroom math
or manipulative center, set
them up in a line on the table, and ask the child to point to each
item while counting, repeat-
ing the assessment as many times as necessary to determine for
sure what the child can do.
Further, to document a child’s reasoning ability, a
teacher may ask the child to demonstrate how he or
she might solve a problem, such as dividing a set of
objects into two equivalent sets, and record informa-
tion about the child’s ability to do so.
The main advantage of this type of assessment is the
opportunity to use materials familiar to the child in a
context where you can also ask questions and invite
the child to explain his or her thinking or reasoning.
As discussed in earlier chapters, many of the state
standards documents provide examples of things
you should be observing as indicators that each cri-
terion is being met. These “snapshots” can be very
helpful as suggestions for skills assessments.
Some teachers do performance assessments on a
predetermined schedule, such as two children per
week for a particular set of skills; others do so on
an as-needed basis for compiling conferencing
reports or completing comprehensive developmental
checklists.

Artifacts and Work Sampling
An artifact is a concrete sample of work produced
by a child, such as a journal page, painting, pho-
tograph of a block construction, or recording of a
child speaking or reading. Artifacts provide direct
evidence of what a child can do, and a collection of
artifacts contributes to the teacher’s understanding
of growth and learning.
© Monkey Business / Thinkstock
Teachers create anecdotal records by making
notes about each child, either on a regularly
scheduled basis or as needed to document
behavior and observations. The narrative
record about learning that builds over time
may be used for many purposes.
Teachers employ work sampling by
selectively choosing and saving artifacts
that reflect curriculum goals and develop-
mental benchmarks. The Work Sampling
System developed by Samuel J. Meisels
and colleagues (2012) is used by many
early childhood programs, including a ver-
sion specifically designed for Head Start.
Self-Assessment
Even very young children can provide

information about what they know and
what they can do through self- assessment,
which helps teachers document their
growth and learning. Sometimes self-
assessment occurs naturally through
conversation or verbal interactions. For
instance, a 3-year-old might say “My
jacket is wrong” as he tries to close the
snaps before going outside. The teacher observes that he has
fastened some snaps but that
they are not matched correctly. Therefore she knows that he
does indeed have the fine motor
skill needed to press the two pieces of a snap closure together
and that he realizes they also
need to be matched properly.
A kindergarten child may come to the teacher with his writing
journal and state, “I know the
word “papa” starts with “p” but I don’t know what letter comes
next, “o” or “a.” This state-
ment reveals that the child has already narrowed down the
sound that follows p to two viable
alternatives, one that represents the sound he hears and the
other perhaps an indication of
emerging knowledge that words aren’t always spelled the way
they sound.
In other instances, teachers intentionally engage children in
self-assessment in a short inter-
view or conference. For example, upon completion of a study of
birds, the teacher might ask
each child, “What birds do you know about now that you didn’t
before? Can you tell me
some things you learned about them?" Or, after a child has
spent several days building an
airport in the block center, the teacher could show the child

several pictures of the structure
in progress and ask, “What was the hardest part of building the
airport? I see that you made
a parking garage with a ramp, can you tell me how you figured
out a way to make the roof?
How did you decide when the airport was finished?”
Writing conferences with children allow for a child to isolate
specific problems encountered or
challenges overcome, such as circling words in the draft of a
story that might be misspelled or
underlining words the child is confident about.
Similarly, a teacher can engage a child in making evaluative
judgments. For instance, she could
ask the child to look at two different paintings and choose the
one that represents his best
effort and to explain why he thinks so. Or she could give him
two different highlighters with
which to identify his best examples of written letters and ones
he needs to practice more.
The value of self-assessment is that it gives voice to a child’s
ideas about her own strengths
and weaknesses and contributes to constructing an image of
herself as a partner in the
learning process. The child’s observations may be congruent
with the teacher’s independent
© Digital Vision / Thinkstock
Teachers selectively choose learning artifacts, such as a
child’s artwork, to represent evidence of growth and
change over time.

evaluations, identify misperceptions the child might have about
her skills, or provide addi-
tional factors for the teacher to consider.
Identifying Children with Special Needs
Each state is required to provide a process for referring,
evaluating, and implementing early
intervention services for young children as needed under the
federal Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2012). Part C of
IDEA focuses on children from
birth through age 2, and Part B covers individuals aged 3
through 21.
Providing support for children with disabilities is a
collaborative process, and part of your role
in assessment is noting and sharing observations with families
when you see indications of
a developmental delay or atypical behavior. Your concerns
should be noted with a high level
of sensitivity, as parents often feel anxious or confused and may
need help with initiating a
referral request.
As an early childhood educator or caregiver, you will be part of
an assessment team that
determines the possible existence of delays or disabilities that
constitute eligibility for services
and, second, ensures that your curriculum and assessment

strategies support those children
who do need extra help (Division for Early Childhood of the
Council for Exceptional Children,
2007). If a child in your care is determined to be eligible for
services, you will also participate
in documenting the child’s progress toward goals that are
established and periodically revised
in the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or Individualized
Family Service Plan (IFSP). The kinds
of authentic assessment strategies and tools described in this
chapter are preferred:
Because the participants or informants for
most criterion- or curriculum-based assess-
ments are teachers and care providers who
know the child best, these assessments [e.g.,
anecdotal records, performance assessments,
work sampling, etc.] may be more efficient and
may also facilitate the development of collabor-
ative partnerships. Results also provide a direct
and functional link to IFSP/IEP development,
curriculum planning, and implementation. The
information collected can easily be translated
for use in instruction. (DEC, 2007 p. 14)
Children who may not qualify for the specialized
education outlined in an IEP or ISFP but who have a
disability such as an illness, injury, or chronic condi-
tion such as asthma or allergies are also protected
under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and
the Americans with Disabilities Act. This provision
declares that all children with disabilities are entitled
to accommodations so that they may fully partici-
pate in public school activities. A “504” plan might
include such things as a wheelchair ramp, peanut-free
environment, or keeping an inhaler at school (U.S.

Department of Education, 2012).
Teachers play an integral role in the support
system for children and families with special
needs.
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Describing Children’s Progress and Adapting the Curriculum
Chapter 12
12.3 Describing Children’s Progress and Adapting
the Curriculum
As assessment data are collected, they must also be organized
and stored so that this informa-
tion will be available for interpretation, analysis, and repor ting
purposes. Because assessment
products can represent a variety of materials, there are also
different kinds of organizational
systems. Programs with integrated online assessment systems
will have a means to enter and
store data and generate reports.
Organizing Data
The most common means for organizing early childhood
assessment data is the portfolio,
which may include examples of any or all of the assessments

described above. The window of
time a portfolio represents can vary considerably. For example,
you might assemble a portfolio
of artifacts to document one thematic or emergent group
project, individual portfolios for
one area of focus such as writing, or a comprehensive portfolio
that tracks a child’s general
progress for an entire year.
Portfolios provide powerful holistic evi-
dence of learning because they include
documentation of both process and
products and demonstrate growth,
change, and potential. Teachers have
multiple sources of information to deter-
mine how the curriculum is working as
they make planning decisions. Most of
the samples in a portfolio are selected
by the teacher. However, allowing and
even encouraging children to choose
some of their own samples is another
means for children to be involved in the
process and can reveal useful insights
about their thinking. Families can also
be included in the construction of a
portfolio, since they may be able to
provide examples of things children do
at home to supplement those collected
at school.
For instance, Ms. Mary was having difficulty collecting art
samples from a child who routinely
preferred the block and math centers or doing things that
involved high levels of physical
activity and the opportunity to interact with friends. In
conversation with the child’s mother,

she learned that at home, as an only child in a neighborhood
without many other children
to play with, he often did spend a great deal of time drawing
and coloring. She was able to
contribute samples of artwork that provided his teacher w ith
important information.
The amount of material included in a portfolio, particularly one
assembled over a year, will
vary, and storing the file can be a challenge. Teachers often use
expanding files or a crate
with file folders. Fortunately the increasing availability of
technologies provides options for
scanning and digital data storage that don’t require the physical
space of traditional folios.
© Exactostock / SuperStock
Early childhood educators commonly organize assessment
information and artifacts in an individual portfolio for each
child.
Chapter 12
Portfolios intended to be kept for multiple years typically
require selecting a few artifacts that
best represent progress, such as a drawing from the beginning
and end of the year or a piece
of writing that represents the highest technical quality achieved
by a child.

Interpreting and Analyzing Data
Your interpretation and analysis of the assessment data you
collect will be purposely targeted
to match curriculum and developmental goals. Many programs
use a comprehensive develop-
mental checklist to provide families with an overall picture of
the child’s growth over time in
multiple domains and specific information about strengths or
needs.
Since early learning standards based on the National Education
Goals Panel (NEGP) recom-
mendations are developmentally based and organized by
domain, the indicators in these
documents can be very helpful in the absence of commercially
produced assessments that
may accompany a curriculum. For instance, in one program
teachers converted the criteria in
the state’s early learning standards to a master checklist, as
Figure 12.1 illustrates.
Figure 12.1: Excerpt from South Carolina Early Learning
Standards Checklist for 2-Year-Olds
In this example, developmental indicators from the state’s early
learning standards have been con-
verted to a format that can be used as a checklist.
Date Example/Evidence Developmental Indicators
Developmental Indicators
Calls to caregiver to watch activities; very proud to show off

abilities to special adults.
Tells caregiver about experiences; details increase with age.
Calls to caregiver for help when frustrated.
Tests limits, particularly with trusted adults, to see what
response will be given.
Seeks adult help to get something another child has (around
24 months).
Works with caregiver to solve problems (around 30 months).
SELF-AWARENESS
Date Example/Evidence
Comments on hair color, skin color, clothing or language dif-
ferent from own.
Knows first and last name.
Wants to do things by self.
Seeks adult attention; Says, “Look at me!” to show skills.
Demonstrates strong opinions about likes and dislikes.
Repeats words provided by caregiver.
Labels feelings: “I am happy.” “I am mad.”
Wants to do many things on own.
EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

GOAL: The child will develop trusting relationships with
important adults, express a
confident sense of self, and learn to control self.
BUILDING TRUST
STANDARD: The child demonstrates strong, secure
relationships with adults who
love and care for them.
STANDARD: The child demonstrates growing awareness of
personal preferences and abilities.
Chapter 12
As you review observation data, anecdotal records, work
samples, skills assessments, and so forth, you are look-
ing for evidence that allows you to document that a goal
has been met or a developmental benchmark achieved.
Sometimes teachers develop a coding system that pro-
vides a kind of shorthand for noting evidence. For exam-
ple, you might refer to anecdotal records as “AR1, AR2,”
or dated drawings as “D11/3, D3/4.” These abbreviations
can then be entered in different places on a global devel -
opmental assessment. One assessment artifact might
provide evidence for multiple indicators, or you might
need multiple artifacts to document a single criterion.
Summarized data from individual child checklists or pro-
files can be aggregated to a profile for the group, helpful

for seeing interests, strengths, and needs and for plan-
ning adaptations to the curriculum.
Reporting and Sharing Results
Teachers have many ways of reporting and sharing
assessment results that may be predetermined by pro-
gram or school policies or established independently by
each teacher. Written reports that summarize assessment
results for a given period of time are often distributed to
families. The best way to share and explain assessment
results, discuss a child’s development and learning, and
encourage parent participation in setting goals or identifying
needs is to schedule a face-to-
face meeting with the family members.
However, parent-teacher conferences held once or twice a year
should not be the only means
of communication. As discussed in Chapter 5, establishing and
maintaining respectful ongo-
ing relationships with each of your families is a critical
component of an effective assessment
system.
Adapting the Curriculum
As teachers compile and analyze assessment data, they make
decisions about how to adapt or
modify the curriculum and choose materials and strategies to
diversify activities and instruc-
tion to meet identified needs and interests. In the broadest
sense, this might mean, for exam-
ple, rotating materials out of activity areas that you observe
children are no longer interested
in and replacing them with different ones that complement new
inquiry themes, general

advancement of skill levels, or materials specifically requested
by children.
More specifically, you will use assessment information to pl an
adaptations for individual chil-
dren. Strategies for doing so and representative examples
include:
• Planning small-group activities for children with similar skill
levels (e.g., Anna Bess,
Mario, and Katie will play a word game that requires
identification of beginning letter
sounds “p”, “k”, and “g”; Camden, Catherine, Adi, and Holland
will use knowledge
of beginning letter sounds to match all consonants with
corresponding picture cards;
© Comstock Images / Thinkstock
Face-to-face interactions such as a
parent-teacher conference give teachers
the opportunity to include families in a
long-term conversation about the growth
and learning of each child.
Curriculum and Program Evaluation Chapter 12
Timmy and Noah will continue working on dictating dialogue
for play they have been
working on all week).

• Providing options within an activity to accommodate different
skill or interest lev-
els (e.g., 3-year-olds have multiple materials for the
construction of collages with
fall theme; children can cut, tear, use hole punchers, glue sticks,
papers of different
weights, precut shapes, stamps, etc.; the light table in toddler
class has colored straws
for three children to sort; water beads in a bowl for four others,
and shaving cream
inside Zip-Loc bags for two others who are resistant to working
with squishy things
that are wet).
• Individualized directed instruction (e.g., working with Blake
on scissor cutting).
• Providing opportunities for independent work (e.g.,
designating Charlie and Rosie to
set up the balance scale, find materials of equivalent weight,
and record their results
on the observation chart).
12.4 Curriculum and Program Evaluation
Insights gained from the assessment of individual children will
tell you a lot about how the
curriculum is working. One of the problems, from a
developmentally appropriate perspective,
with standardized testing in public schools and programs is that
they often result in limiting
curriculum opportunities in favor of “teaching to the test”
(Branscombe, 2003; Gullo, 2006;
Lambert, Abbott-Shim, & Sibley, 2006). There are however,
systems for the global assess-
ment of an early childhood curriculum that are consistent with
developmentally appropriate

principles. These processes include licensing and regulatory
structures, program accreditation,
and environmental assessments.
Licensing and Regulatory Structures
Each state has child-care licensing regulations that describe
what is minimally acceptable in a
curriculum (Lambert, Abbott-Shim, & Sibley, 2006). Typically
regulations require that teachers
provide a safe and healthy environment, planned daily program
of developmentally appropri-
ate activities, balance of indoor and outdoor activities, quiet
and active times, and limited use
of media such as TV and computers.
Increasingly, states are engaging in the national Quality Rating
and Improvement Systems
(QRIS) initiative, which is supported with resources provided
by various organizations, includ-
ing NAEYC (2005). NAEYC reports in their QRIS Toolkit,
published in 2010, that more than
twenty-one states had established QRIS systems with at least
twenty-two more in the pro-
cess of doing so. As part of a comprehensive approach to
providing standards, account-
ability, outreach, financial incentives, and consumer education,
states establish requirements
for curricula that are much more specific than those found in
older versions of child-care
regulations.
While each state is free to develop its own vision of assessment
or measurement, options
presently include program standards, state-level approval of
specific curriculum models (see

the feature box in Chapter 2), use of environmental rating
scales, and multitiered rating
systems, which reward programs that complete an accreditation
process. If you work in a
state that currently has or is developing a QRIS, you will have
access to specific tools to moni-
tor and continue to improve the quality of your curriculum.
Early Education Program Standards
Program standards are different from early learning stan-
dards in that they apply to all dimensions of the program,
including curriculum, whereas early learning standards
are written as expectations for individual children. States
that provide program standards will include a set of global
indicators for curriculum. For example, the Massachusetts
Standards for 3- and 4-Year-Old Programs include a sec-
tion on curriculum with multiple criteria for each of the
following:
• Opportunities for curriculum planning
• Curriculum based on information about children
• Educational goals that promote concrete learning
• Adapting goals to meet individual needs
• Adapting curriculum based on the assessment of

individual children
• Flexible structure
• Flexible and predictable daily routines
• Smooth, unregimented transitions between activities
• Quiet activities
• Opportunities to develop self-help skills
• Parental input about curriculum (Massachusetts
Department of Education, 2003, pp. 9–12)
Accreditation
The NAEYC Academy was established in 1985 to provide the
first comprehensive volun-
tary accreditation process, which was most recently revised in
2005. Subsequently, accredi-
tation processes have been developed by other organizations
including the National Early
Childhood Program Accreditation and the National
Accreditation Commission for Early Care
and Education Programs.
Accreditation is a fee-based multistage long-term process
focused on the self-study of pro-
gram and teacher practices. The program personnel document
and report staff qualifications
and produce evidence about how their curriculum, teaching
practices, and other dimensions
such as relationships with families, meet the accreditation
standards. A trained professional
visits the site to verify the accuracy of the program report.

Typically teachers are most involved
in documenting how they meet criteria related to curriculum,
assessment, environments, and
working with families.
Accreditation is designed to promote ongoing improvement
through a multiyear renewal
cycle. Standards are research-based. They are written so that the
process of documenting
how all parts of the program meet each standard provides
information and opportunities for
teachers to closely examine and strengthen their curriculum and
practices. Figure 12.2 pro-
vides an example of how teachers of three different age groups
answered the same sample
NAEYC accreditation criteria.
State regulations for child-care pro-
grams always include regular facility
inspections to ensure that the chil-
dren’s environment is safe and healthy
and that it has a developmentally
appropriate curriculum.
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Figure 12.2: Examples from an NAEYC Accreditation Folio
The NAEYC Standard 2 Curriculum includes many criteria that
the teacher documents by providing a narra-
tive explanation and supporting evidence in the form of images
or artifacts.
1.C.: Helping Children Make Friends
1.C.03: Teaching staff support children as they practice social
skills and build friendships by
helping them enter into, sustain, and enhance play.
Age Group Narrative Response Evidence
Toddler Class Great effort is made to support children as
they build friendships and negotiate play
relationships. This is done through a variety
of methods including the following: 1) Large
Group Time—We often have discussions about
what being a good friend looks like, how to
initiate play with another child and how to, in a
nice way, say that you don't want to play. The
children take turns role-playing these different
scenarios; 2) Modeling—Often times when
we see children struggling with friends we will
assist by demonstrating appropriate language
and behavior necessary for play. 3) Literature
Models—We read books to the children which
demonstrate good friendships.
The teacher
leads the children
in a game of
ring-around-the-

rosey while on
our playground.
3-Year-Old
Class
Each day during our Free Choice time in the
classroom and on the playground, the teachers
interact and play with the children to help
them stay on task, to encourage socialization
between classmates and teachers, and to help
solve problems.
The teacher
assists a group of
children working
on a floor puzzle
together.
4/5K Class Great effort is made to support children as
they build friendships and negotiate play
relationships. This is done through a variety
of ways including the following: 1) Morning
Meetings—We read books and have discus-
sions about what being a good friend looks like,
how to initiate play with another child and how
to, in a nice way, say that you don't want to
play. The children take turns role-playing these
different scenarios: 2) Matching—With some
children who are new to the program or just
have not been successful in developing friend-
ships we will try to pair that particular child
with someone who has common interests or
someone who might serve as a mentor or act
as a protégé: 3) Modeling—Often times when
we see children struggling with friends we will

assist by joining in play and demonstrating
appropriate language and behavior necessary
for play; and 4) Literature Models—We read
books to the children which demonstrate good
friendships.
This example of a filled-out form identifies that a
particular child is having trouble cooperating with his
peers. It identifies our plan for the next week to help
him in this area.
Technology in the Curriculum Chapter 12
Environmental Rating Scales
Prior to the launch of the 1985 NAEYC accreditation process,
Thelma Harms and Richard
Clifford of the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) Frank
Porter Graham Child Development
Institute developed the Early Childhood Environment Rating
Scale (ECERS). This was expanded
to a series of Environment Rating Scales (ERSs) that have since
been revised. They include the
ECERS-R (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005) and versions for
infants and toddlers (Harms, Cryer,
& Clifford, 2006), family child care (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford,
2007), and school-aged children
(Harms, Jacobs, & White, 1995). Each scale has between thirty-
eight and forty-nine items
arranged in subscales that address different parts of the
environment, including curriculum.

One of the distinguishing features of the ERS is that each
criterion is scored on a rating scale
of 1 to 7, ranging from inadequate (1), minimal (3), and good
(5) to excellent (7). Narrative
descriptions for each of the scoring indicators are unique to the
item. The language is so pre-
cise that it provides both self-correcting information and a high
level of interrater reliabil-
ity, ensuring that observational ratings will be consistent even
when different people conduct
the assessment (Lambert, Abbot-Shim, & Sibley, 2006). For
example, the “good” statement
for greeting in the ECERS-R reads, “Each child is greeted
individually (e.g., staff say ‘hello’ and
use child’s name; use child’s primary language spoken at home
to say ‘hello’)” (Harms, Clifford
& Cryer, 2005, p. 22). The ERS is available in Spanish and
widely used across the United States
as a relatively quick and reliable means for gaining a measure
of quality and information that
can be used for improvement.
The format of the ERS is so popular and user-friendly that other
educators have devel-
oped similar scales to assess different age groups or particular
aspects of the environment
or curriculum. These include the Assessment of Practices in
Early Elementary Classrooms
(APEEC) by Hemmeter, Maxwell, Ault, and Schuster (2001),
the Rating Observation Scale for
Inspiring Environments (Deviney, Duncan, Harris, Rody, &
Rosenberry, 2010), and POEMS:
Preschool Outdoor Environment Measurement Scale (Hestenes,
DeBord, Moore, Cosco, &
McGinnis, 2005).

12.5 Technology in the Curriculum
Technology today represents societal transition to an age driven
by access to information and
products, social networking, and an increasing array of devices,
integrated systems, and plat-
forms for delivery of technological processes and activities.
Your ability to interact with this
text in Ebook format is evidence of this phenomenon.
The term technology is also relative. For example, when the
forerunners of today’s copy
machines, the mimeograph and ditto, were first introduced and
used in schools in the mid-
twentieth century, the ability to easily reproduce printed copy in
classrooms produced dra-
matic changes. These machines enabled teachers to create a
worksheet or handout on a
single stencil or ditto-master that could then be duplicated via
an inked drum to print multiple
copies; thus the generic term dittos. Teachers prior to that time
laboriously printed spelling
words, math problems, and other seat work each day on the
blackboard for children to copy
by hand on their own papers.
With this one technological advance, curriculum materials
changed significantly to include
preprinted masters for teachers to copy and distribute. Thus
teacher time once spent creating
board work became available for other activities, and teachers
could arrange desks (which

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previously had to be aligned so that all desks faced the board)
and other classroom furniture
in different ways. Classrooms now feature wipe-off whiteboards
and, increasingly, electronic
smart boards not as the central means for instruction but one of
many kinds of resources
for teaching.
As yet we have no way of knowing the full impact of modern
technologies on the future of
education and specifically early childhood education,
curriculum, and assessment practices.
But we do know that technology is the focus of a great deal of
research and dialogue about
its potential effects and challenges.
Using Technology with Children
In 2012 NAEYC and the Fred Rogers Center (FRC) for Early
Learning and Children’s Media at
Saint Vincent College released a revised position statement on
using technology with young
children. The statement reflected the views, research, and
experiences of experts and early
childhood practitioners. While, before the advent of interactive
technologies, the NAEYC has
always promoted a developmentally appropriate stance, there
were concerns among many
early childhood educators who felt pressured to use software-
based programs with young
children. These programs, the educators pointed out, promoted

rote learning and passive
skill/drill activity in place of the active, play-based concrete
experiences supported in devel-
opmental research.
The potential applications of current technologies greatly
expand the options teachers have
to enhance rather than replace elements of the curriculum (Bers
& Horn, 2010; Linder, 2012;
McManis & Gunnewig, 2012; Parnell & Bartlett, 2012; Shifflet,
Toledo, & Mattoon, 2012; U.S.
Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology,
2017). A divide continues to
exist between children who grow up as digital natives—that is,
those who have had ready
access to and experience with technologies
(Rosen, 2006; Yelland, 2010)—and those
with limited or no access to twenty-first-
century technology. Classrooms are a logi-
cal context for providing equitable access
and helping all children develop the tech-
nological proficiencies they will need to be
successful in American society today (Wang,
2010; U.S. Department of Education, Office
of Educational Technology, 2017). Further,
the challenge of promoting digital liter-
acy (National Institute for Literacy, 2008) is
complicated when early childhood educa-
tors also face issues or a lack of resources
affecting their access to technology.
Developmentally appropriate technology
use (DATU) involves “the use of tools and
strategies in ways that capitalize on chil-
dren’s natural desire to actively, collabora-

tively construct knowledge, respecting the
The use of emerging technologies by young children
can be developmentally appropriate.
unique challenges presented by children’s levels of development
across all developmental
domains” (Rosen & Jaruszewicz, 2009, p. 164). The new
position statement emphasizes the
important role of adults in making appropriate decisions; it also
places stress on active rather
than passive involvement and on teacher education and
professional development. Planning
activities with technology must also be adapted to support
children with linguistic challenges
and special needs (Connecticut Office of Early Childhood,
2016; NAEYC/FRC, 2012; Simon &
Nemeth, 2012). An ethical framework that protects children
from potential exposure to online
abuse (Beach, 2010; Croll & Kunze, 2010) should also be kept
in mind.
The NAEYC/FRC (2012) and others recommend that teachers
and caregivers follow the
American Academy of Pediatrics 2010 guidelines, which
prohibit the use of passive devices
for children younger than age 2; they also recommend that early

childhood educators con-
sider the amount of screen time at school or care in the context
of additional time spent with
television or computers elsewhere, particularly at home (Hill,
n.d.; Simon & Nemeth, 2012).
In addition to the assessment of learning in other domains,
teachers should also document
children’s emerging digital competencies (Rosen &
Jaruszewicz, 2009).
Technology for Teachers
The range of technology tools that teachers can use to support,
enhance, and document the
curriculum and learning is increasingly broad, although they
may continue to use older tech-
nologies as well. For instance, a teacher may be reluctant to
give up an overhead projector
because she uses it to enlarge images on the wall for tracing, or
children make extensive use
of it for pantomime, shadow pictures, and as a makeshift light
table. Similarly, while an MP3
player is readily available, she might continue to provide a
pushbutton cassette tape recorder
that children can use independently to make audiotapes of
themselves reading, which she
later uses for assessment purposes.
Since many kinds of computers are no longer restricted to
desktops, the increasing array of
portable laptops, tablets, iPads, and Ereaders as wel l as mobile
communications devices such
as smartphones, offer opportunities to work on computers with
children in any location. For
example, an iPad can go on a field trip to document or search
online for information about

fish species seen at the aquarium, or a teacher might use a built-
in camera to record inter-
views with children about a performance they have attended or
send a message from children
to families from an off-site location.
An increasing number of schools and classrooms have installed
interactive whiteboards
that provide computer capability for software and online access
in a vertical format for
both teachers and children to use. Digital cameras and uploaded
software make it possible
to document daily activities, videotape children for assessment
purposes, translate images
into products such as books or digital stories, and share images
with families. Scanners,
digital copiers, online access, and electronic communications
make it possible to stream-
line data management, lesson or activity planning, and share
information with families
and others.
As the ditto and mimeograph machines freed teachers from the
front of the room and the
chalkboard, modern technology offers teachers the opportunity
to reenvision their programs
as schools without walls.
Growing as a Curriculum Decision Maker Chapter 12
12.6 Growing as a Curriculum Decision Maker

This text has focused on five elements key to developing an
integrated teaching philosophy:
1. The purpose of early childhood education
2. How young children learn
3. The role of those who participate in the education of young
children
4. The characteristics and content of curriculum
5. How to implement curriculum effectively
We have also emphasized the importance of continual
intentional reflection about these fac-
tors. You know that your work will be shaped and influenced by
the context in which you
teach or care for children, the needs and interests of your
children and families, and evolving
public policy and sociocultural factors. The classroom or care
setting is not just a place where
children will develop and learn: it’s also a laboratory for your
continued learning and develop-
ment. Several ideas can guide you in this journey:
• The way you approach teaching emerges from the way you
experienced learning but is
not bound by it.
• Others have informed early childhood education in the past,
but you have a role in
conceptualizing the curriculum of the future.
• Reflecting on your experiences should provoke more questions
than answers.

• Planning for curriculum should be informed by insights about
how the curriculum is
experienced by children.
• Continual examination of your assumptions about learners,
your role, and curriculum is
at the core of intentional reflection about your teaching.
Finally, your influence on the children, families, and colleagues
you work with will extend
beyond any curriculum you develop or implement. Teaching is
unique among the professions;
you will remember children long after they have left your
classroom or care and they will
remember you as someone who has played an important role in
their lives. You will learn as
much from them as they do from you. Teaching gives those of
us who choose it the opportu-
nity for a professional life that is both challenging and
fulfilling.
Teachers are patient; they realize that the return on their efforts
is often not realized for years
or decades. As Rachel Carson stated in The Sense of Wonder
(1965), the last book she wrote:
If I had influence with the good fairy, who is supposed to
preside over the christen-
ing of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the
world be a sense of
wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an
unfailing antidote
against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the
sterile preoccupation
with things that are artificial, the alienation from sources of our

strength. If a child
is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such
gift from the fairies, he
needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it,
rediscovering with
him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
Posttest Chapter 12
Chapter Summary
• A developmentally appropriate approach to assessment is
comprehensive, systematic,
and focused on learning and development.
• Objectivity is critically important to ensure assessment
information is reliable and
accurate.
• Research has documented the limitations of using standardized
testing with young
children, although norm-referenced measures can be useful
sources of information
when combined with other more authentic measures and
strategies.
• Teachers rely on many tools, such as anecdotal and running
records, checklists, skills
assessments, and tallies to record their observations of children
in the classroom or
care setting.

• Teachers use data from observational tools, interviews with
children, and analysis of
artifacts to construct a picture of what each individual child
knows and can do and
communicate effectively with families about their strengths and
needs.
• Teachers play an important role in the identification, referral,
and support of children
with special needs and their families, and they use assessment
information to adapt
the curriculum for individual children.
• Global measures such as state program standards,
accreditation processes, and envi-
ronmental rating scales are increasingly being applied in early
childhood across the
United States to assess program quality.
• Curriculum evaluation processes offer a valuable professional
development opportu-
nity for teachers to document and strengthen their practices.
• An important consideration for teachers as they continue to
assess and reflect on their
practices is access to and the role of technology in the
curriculum of the future.
• Technologies can be used in developmentally appropriate ways
to expand learning
opportunities for young children and teachers.
• Ongoing reflection about the purpose of early childhood
education, how children
learn, the roles of teachers and families, curriculum content,

and strategies provides a
cohesive framework for the continued development of a
teaching philosophy.
Posttest
1. The primary goal of a developmentally appropriate approach
to assessment is:
a. To know what your children need to do to master the
curriculum.
b. To inform your practices so that the curriculum matches the
needs and interests of
the children.
c. To report standardized test scores to the state.
d. To meet the accountability requirements of your position or
job.
2. Which of the following statements is an example of objective
language in an anecdotal
record?
a. Jamison jumped off the climber.
b. Susie isn’t very good at eating with a spoon yet.
c. Mikey snapped the top three of the four snaps on his jacket.

Posttest Chapter 12
d. Tessa played well today.
3. Standardized tests are norm-referenced, which means:
a. Individual scores are compared to the scores of the group of
children who are being
tested.
b. Each score compares to a desired goal, or criterion.
c. Individual scores reflect a comparison to the mean or average
score of a larger pop-
ulation similar to the group being tested.
d. Individual scores are graded on a curve.
4. Which of the following is not an example of “real-time”
authentic assessment?
a. Anecdotal record.
b. Running record.
c. Tally.
d. Performance assessment.
5. One of the advantages of a portfolio for assessment purposes
is that it provides:
a. Portability.
b. Holistic information.

c. A snapshot in time.
d. An alternative to authentic assessment.
6. The preferred means for communicating assessment results to
families is:
a. A face-to-face conference.
b. Email the test scores.
c. Send a comprehensive written report in the mail.
d. Scan all original assessment documents and keep them in the
school archives so
families can come in and view any time.
7. Licensing regulations for child-care programs often consist
of:
a. Rigorous standards to ensure the best possible program.
b. Playground safety to reduce liability risk.
c. Assessment and accountability systems.
d. Minimally acceptable standards for health, safety, and
curriculum.
8. Accreditation standards typically follow a multistep process
focused primarily on:
a. Screening out low-quality programs so parents will know
which ones to choose.
b. Providing programs and teachers an opportunity to examine

and strengthen their
practices.
c. Allowing teachers the chance to use emerging technologies to
document their
curriculum.
d. Creating a national accountability system for child-care
programs.
9. Using technology with young children is appropriate when
characterized by:
a. Designated amounts of screen time each day for all children.
Answers and Rejoinders to Pretest Chapter 12
b. A technology curriculum that makes sure all children have
access to electronic
games, smart boards, and keyboarding experience.
c. Active engagement in activities that enhance but do not
replace other elements of
the curriculum.
d. Never using technology with children as it is harmful to their
cognitive development
before the age of 5.
10. Continued reflection on practices is helpful because:

a. Teaching is a legacy passed on from one teacher to another.
b. Since the field is driven by the “big thinkers” of the past,
your role is to apply their
ideas in the best possible way.
c. Reflecting on your experiences should answer all your
questions.
d. Planning for curriculum should be informed by insights about
how the curriculum is
experienced by both you and your students.
Answers: 1 (b); 2 (c); 3 (c); 4 (a); 5 (b); 6 (a); 7 (d); 8 (b); 9
(c); 10 (d)
Discussion Questions
1. You know that early childhood educators are wary of using
standardized tests with
young children; how can early childhood teachers further the
conversation about this
issue?
2. Imagine you have strong assessment evidence that one of
your students needs further
evaluation for autism spectrum. You are pretty sure the family
will be resistant to the
idea of referral. What kind of approach would you take to make
sure the child gets
appropriate supports?
3. Now that we are at the end of this book, how have your ideas
about your role as an
early childhood educator changed or grown over time?

Answers and Rejoinders to Pretest
1. False. The teacher is critical to the process of planning and
implementing any kind of
assessment system.
2. False. Standardized tests are considered developmentally
inappropriate in most instances
for children in the early childhood years.
3. True. Assessment information guides teacher decision making
so the curriculum can
respond to the needs and interests of children.
4. True. Program evaluations provide information about how the
curriculum is working
and opportunities for teachers to examine their practices.
5. True. While technologies should not be indiscriminately used
with young children, there
are many ways they can be implemented or applied effectively.
6. False. Reflection should be a lifelong dimension of a
teacher’s professional life.
Key Terms Chapter 12
Key Terms
Achievement test Norm-referenced test that measures what a
person knows

Accreditation Process involving self-study and documentation
about how a program
meets comprehensive quality standards
Artifact Concrete product generated by a child such as a
drawing or writing sample, or
photograph of concrete product such as block construction,
saved by teacher to use for
assessment purposes
Authentic assessment Assessments that occur in natural settings
with tools that are not
norm-referenced
Coding Using a notation system to organize assessment artifacts
Criterion referencing Measuring a child’s performance against
specific outcomes or
objectives rather than comparison to a larger population of
children
DATU Acronym for developmentally appropriate technology
use, an extension of the
principles of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) to
using technologies with young
children
Digital literacy Development of skills, paralleling those of early
literacy, that demonstrate
awareness of communication with digital devices
Digital natives Term that refers to children who grow up with
access to technologies
Environmental rating scale An assessment that uses a sliding

numerical scale to denote
performance or achievement
Formal assessment A test that expresses performance in terms
of norm-referenced scores
and administration according to a strict, uniform protocol
Formative assessment Ongoing evaluation
Informal assessment Use of authentic or alternative tools and
strategies
Intelligence deviation Expressing an intelligence test score in
comparison with others
who took the same test
Intelligence quotient Expressing an intelligence test score in
terms of mental age com-
pared with chronological age
Intelligence test A standardized measure that assesses learning
capacity and mental
ability
Interrater reliability The probability that consistent results will
be achieved regardless of
who conducts an environmental assessment
Learning artifacts Samples of actual work produced by children
Norm-referenced Referring to a test designed to report
individual scores in comparison
with a larger population selected to be representative of all
those who will take the test

References Chapter 12
Objectivity Recording, reporting, or assessing without bias
Observation Assessment data obtained through close attention
to children as they work
and play
Portfolio A collection of artifacts and assessment results
intended to provide evaluation
based on multiple sources of data
Program standards A set of criteria intended for the
comprehensive evaluation of all ele-
ments of a program, including curriculum
Rubric A scoring tool that includes criteria based on observable
behaviors
Screen A standardized measure that provides evidence of
possible deviations from normal
development or behavior
Skills assessment Direct observation of specific skills during
either normal activity or con-
structed situations
Standardized tests Norm-referenced assessments/tests
Summative assessment An evaluation that provides a report of
cumulative achievement
for a particular period of time, such as the end of a teaching

unit or a school year
Work sampling The process of collecting individual learning
artifacts over time
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Information Age.
Curriculum as a Collaboration
with Families and the Community

Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Explain the importance of a collaborative approach to
working with families.
2. Summarize accepted principles, effective strategies, and
typical challenges for under-
standing and working with families.
3. Explain how teachers can help families understand the
current standards-driven
environment.
4. Describe ways in which teachers can help families understand
the curriculum.
5. Describe how the community can be incorporated as a
resource for your curriculum.
5
Pretest
1. Collaboration with families and finding
ways to involve them in the curriculum is an
important goal in early childhood education
today. T/F
2. Teachers don’t need to learn about
students’ families in order to have an
effective curriculum. T/F
3. Offering them information about learning
standards helps families understand how
the curriculum works. T/F

4. Documenting and displaying what children
do conveys a message that their work is
important. T/F
5. It is worth the effort to invite families and
members of the business and neighborhood
communities to serve as volunteers. T/F
Answers can be found at end of the chapter.
© Yellow Dog Productions / Getty Images
What Is a Collaborative Approach and Why Is It Important?
Chapter 5
After completing your home visits, you realize that you now
have a lot of additional informa-
tion about the families of the children who will be in your class.
You know which children
have a single parent as the household head and have some
information about family occupa-
tions and work schedules. You now know who lives with
siblings and/or an extended family
and which children have pets. You have also identified the
parents and children with limited
English proficiency, and you have some information about what
steps have been taken to sup-
port the two children with special needs.
But you also have many remaining ques-
tions about how the families will respond

to you as the teacher and how to create
and sustain productive and satisfying rela-
tionships. You want the families to feel
like partners in the adventure of early
childhood education, but you also realize
that there may be many factors that could
complicate your efforts.
What can you do to learn more about the
values, traditions, hopes, and wishes of
your families? What strategies to include
them in their children’s school lives will be
most successful? How will you help them
understand the curriculum as partners in
their children’s learning? How will you
make connections between the school,
your families, and the local community?
In this chapter, we will address the very important challenge of
how to construct meaning-
ful and mutually beneficial relationships with families and the
community, particularly with
respect to curriculum. (Note: In this chapter, all references to
interactions and communications
with families are made on the assumption that they would be
conducted in or translated to
the home language as needed.)
5.1 What Is a Collaborative Approach and Why Is It
Important?
An expanding number of households have both parents working
outside the home. As of
2010, the number of women in the workforce is 58.6 percent or
72 million; women are pro-
jected to account for 51 percent of the increase in total growth
in the labor force between

2008 and 2018 (United States Department of Labor, n.d.).
Therefore it can be challenging to
effect a significant representation of families in the affairs of
programs and schools. In one
survey, approximately 58 percent of parents with students in
grades K-12 did not volunteer or
serve on a committee at their child's school; 26 percent did not
attend a school or class event
(Noel, Stark, Redford, & Zukerberg, 2016).
The National Association for the Education of Young Children
(NAEYC) states that there is
no single formula for collaboration between programs and
families. However, as part of their
© Banana Stock / Thinkstock
There are many ways for early childhood educators to
connect with families and the community, as we will dis-
cuss in this chapter.
Chapter 5
recent Engaging Diverse Families project, they have outlined
six principles that focus on com-
munication, engagement, and decision making. The principles
suggest that:
1. Teachers and programs engage families in two-way
communication

2. Programs implement a comprehensive program-level system
of family engagement
3. Programs and teachers engage families in ways that are truly
reciprocal
4. Programs provide learning activities for the home and in the
community
5. Programs invite families to participate in program-level
decisions and wider advocacy
efforts
6. Programs invite families to participate in decision making
and goal setting for their chil-
dren (National Association for the Education of Young
Children, 2012)
Many years of research and well over one hundred studies on
initiatives connecting families,
schools, and communities overwhelmingly attest to the value
and benefits of strong, positive
connections (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006), not just for the
children but for the parents
and teachers as well. When families are actively involved in the
daily lives of their children
in school or care and they know what their children are doing
during the day, children feel
more secure, have a higher sense of self-worth, and learn better.
Parents can benefit from
feelings of affirmation, increased knowledge about early
education and child development,
and higher self-esteem. Teachers feel supported and gain
additional, relevant knowledge and
resources from working closely with families (Gestwicki, 2004).

These kinds of positive correlations with student achievement
are most closely associated with
programs that feature:
• Support and respect for family values and expectations
• Attention to and observation of parent behaviors and
interactions
• Promotion of parent and family participation in school
activities and affairs
• Inclusion of parents in decision-
making processes that affect their
children (Weiss, Krieder, Lopez, &
Chatman, 2005)
Early Collaboration: Parent-
Teacher Associations
Like other aspects of early childhood edu-
cation, the characteristics of parent/fam-
ily involvement in schools have evolved
over a long period of time (Olsen & Fuller,
2008). In the 1800s, when schools were
primarily isolated and rural, the men in a
community typically had control over all
school matters. As more schools were
built to accommodate the population
growth that occurred with large-scale immigration, schools were
located increasingly in urban
areas.
© Candace Jaruszewicz

In the days of mostly rural schools, the community shared
all responsibility for the education of its children. This
photo documents the author’s great grandfather using
his tractor in 1918 to move the local one-room “Liberty”
school across the prairie to its new location.
http://www.naeyc.org/familyengagement/about
https://www.naeyc.org/resources/topics/family-
engagement/principles
Chapter 5
In response to growing concerns about social issues and the
welfare of children, women—
who did not yet have the right to vote—began to organize and
advocate. Alice McLellan
Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst established the National
Parent-Teacher Association
(PTA) in 1897. The goals established at that time (and
subsequently achieved over the follow-
ing century) were:
• The creation of kindergarten classes
• Child labor laws
• A public health service
• Hot-lunch programs
• A juvenile justice system

• Mandatory immunization
By the 1950s, parent involvement in elementary schools through
PTA membership had swelled
to more than 6 million members. As many women returned to
homemaking after World War
II, they became increasingly involved in their children’s schools
in both volunteer support and
PTA leadership roles. Today, the PTA (https://www.pta.org/)
continues as a national organiza-
tion, with the mission to “make every child’s potential a reality
by engaging and empowering
families and communities to advocate for all children.”
In addition, local parent-teacher organizations, loosely referred
to as PTOs, have established
a parallel network of independent groups. Most recently, federal
funding for Title 1 schools
through the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act mandates that
schools receiving funding should
establish parental involvement policies that focus on:
• Assisting their child’s learning
• Being actively involved in their child’s education at school
• Serving as full partners in their child’s education and being
included, as appropriate,
in decision making and on advisory committees to assist in the
education of their child
(National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education, 2012)
In child care centers, no such national grassroots effort took
place. Public funding for child
care began during the Great Depression through the Works

Progress Administration (WPA)
and with the Lanham Act of 1940, which established child care
for the many women working
in factories to support the war effort (Cohen, 1996). These
programs were temporary, ending
with the crises that spurred their establishment. However,
federal funding for early education,
starting with Head Start, expanded the missions of programs to
include a focus on families.
The Goals of a Collaborative Approach
According to the NAEYC, the goals of a collaborative approach
to home/school/community
involvement should be to increase learning and reduce the
achievement gap that still persists
in our society (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). One of the core
considerations of DAP is the
need to understand sociocultural family contexts as essential to
developing curriculum and
experiences that are meaningful and relevant. Curriculum
should be “clearly defined for, com-
municated to, and understood by all stakeholders, including
families” (Copple & Bredekamp,
2009, p. 20).
Engaging the entire family, particularly fathers, is a very high
priority today. As Glenn Olsen
and Mary Lou Fuller (2008, p. 11) have stated, “Educators are
experts in . . . the education
https://www.pta.org/

Understanding and Collaborating with Families Chapter 5
of children, and parents are the experts on their children.
However, because past experiences
have given either parents or teachers disproportionate power in
the relationship, both now
have to learn to work as a team.”
5.2 Understanding and Collaborating with Families
Many collaboration approaches have been devised,
implemented, and studied over the past
half-century. With shifts in priorities and technological
advances, the details about how early
care and education programs connect with families continue to
change and evolve. But in
general the emphasis and goals have been to promote mutually
inclusive, collaborative, and
productive relationships (Gestwicki, 2004). When teachers
understand the cultural context
and dynamics of families, they can use that knowledge to create
opportunities and encourage
family involvement in their children’s learning.
Children with Special Needs
While all children, families, and teachers benefit from high-
quality, ongoing interactions, this
dynamic might be considered absolutely essential for children
with special needs. In a recent
study of nine child-care centers that serve children with
disabilities (Bradley & Kibera, 2007),
the researchers learned that understanding and attention to
family culture was the key to suc-
cessful inclusion. The provision of an individualized approach,
ongoing communication, and

the flexibility needed to adapt to different needs depended on
understanding family values
and beliefs, sociohistorical influences, and attitudes about
seeking help. Therefore taking a
collaborative approach to curriculum will naturally fit in with
the needs of families with chil-
dren who have special needs.
Understanding Families
Two theories in particular are helpful to teachers for
understanding the families with which
they work: Uri Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological theory
(introduced in Chapter 1) and fam-
ily systems theory (FST), used widely in family therapy settings
(Christian, 2007; Fiese,
Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006; Grant & Ray, 2010; Hill, Stremmel,
& Fu, 2007; Weiss, Kreider,
Lopez, & Chatman, 2005). Taking a family-centered approach
departs from older, more tra-
ditional parent involvement models by shifting emphasis from
the program to the families
(Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2007). Further, a family-centered
approach respects families as decision
makers and culture bearers and assumes that all members of the
family should benefit from
home-school collaboration.
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory
Bronfenbrenner’s theory makes particular sense as a foundation
for thinking about home/
school/community relationships because it represents the child’s
experience in the context of
interrelated influences. When teachers understand and apply
these influences to the particu-
lar community environments in which they teach, they can use

this knowledge to customize
their strategies for the development of relationships with
families. Table 5.1 lists the priorities,
suggested by ecological theory, for educators who want to
develop family involvement in
their programs (Weiss, Kreider, Lopez, & Chatman, 2005).
Family Systems Theory
Family systems theory describes family dynamics and provides
insights about family structures.
Teachers and programs can apply their understanding of family
systems to develop productive
and collaborative relationships. From a family systems
perspective, educators recognize that
while the families they serve today are increasingly diverse, all
have elements in common that
may be represented and operate in different ways (Christian,
2007; Grant & Ray, 2010).
Table 5.1: How Ecological Theory Plays Out in Family
Involvement Programs
Sphere of Influence System Features Family Involvement
Program Features
Microsystem Home and immediate
surroundings
• Developfamily-focusedservices

• Tailordifferentkindsofsupportformomsvs.dads
• Provideteacherprofessionaldevelopmentfocusingon
family systems
Mesosystem Relationships among
immediate contexts
• Reducebarrierstofamilyparticipation
• Cultivatewelcomingsettings
• Communicateeffectively
• Promotedecision-makingskills
• Helpnavigateprogramactivities
Exosystem Links between contexts
that do and do not
include the child
• Focusonfamilystrengths
• Identifythesocialsupportsfamiliesneed
• Promotecivicengagement
• Celebratefamilycultures
Macrosystem Links among other
systems
• Ensurethatclassroomcultureisinformedbythe
community

• Encouragefamiliaritywithchildren’slivesathome
• Providebalanceofindividual/largergroupinteractions
• Embedfamilyvaluesandcultureinclassroomactivities,
goals and expectations
• Self-awarenessofteachervalues/biases
Source: Weiss, Kreider, Lopez, & Chatman, 2005.
When teachers use strategies such as home visits, child
interviews, or questionnaires, they
can acquire information for six specific areas of focus within
FST about how families establish
and maintain:
1. Boundaries: Across families, the desired level of involvement
with schools varies, as
families have different ideas about the lines that should be
drawn between home and
school. Understanding why a family might or might not want to
be involved in school
activities can help teachers make decisions about how to
encourage involvement.
2. Roles: Children’s behavior and interactions at school reflect
what they know about and
how they experience roles they inhabit at home. Children may
emulate these roles at
school, as helpers, caretakers, peacemakers, problem solvers,
or, conversely, victims or
even bullies. Teachers who work to identify positive role
models among their families
can offer opportunities at school where family members can

apply these skills in roles
that are already familiar to them.
3. Rules: Both families and programs have explicit
and unspoken rules that children have to inte-
grate. This will be harder when a rule at school is
very different from one at home—for example, a
child who is allowed to fight with siblings at home
but clearly not with other children in the care or
educational setting. When these discrepancies are
identified, communications can be focused on bal-
ancing what the child understands about expecta-
tions and interactions.
4. Hierarchies: The ways families make decisions, who
makes them, and who holds and wields power is
greatly influenced by diversity and circumstances.
Teachers learn, for example, which family member
assumes responsibility as primary contact.
5. Climate: Physical and emotional environments
vary widely across families and can change with
circumstances, as in the loss of a job or a signifi-
cant illness in the family. Teachers can convey sen-
sitivity and respect for a family’s need for privacy
or assistance when they identify and understand
the stresses families experience.
6. Equilibrium: Rituals, customs, and traditions pro-

vide consistency, security, and balance. Gaining
insights into the importance of these things can
be helpful to a teacher for planning activities that
represent the diversity among students’ families.
Involving Families at School
Family involvement models and approaches today aim to
achieve what the Reggio Emilia edu-
cators call an “amiable school,” envisioning programs that
welcome, incorporate, and reflect
everyone’s ideas—those of children, families, teachers, and
community (Edwards, Gandini,
& Forman, 1998; Hill, Stremmel, & Fu, 2007). Teachers and
families might take a grassroots
approach, constructing their own vision and strategies for how
to promote collaboration and
involvement. Or, planning for family involvement might be
done within the framework of an
established model if the teacher works in a program that
uses one.
Grassroots Approach
Frameworks for collaboration with families typically include
some or all of the six types of
parent involvement proposed by Joyce Epstein (2001) for the
National Network of Partnership
Schools initiative:
1. Parent education: Providing information or training about
topics important to parents in
structured or informal ways.
2. Communication: Understanding the ways in which parents
and teachers interact with
one another and share information.

Understanding the rules that exist in a
child’s home, such as those about interact-
ing with siblings, can help a care provider
to teach the child the rules in the care
setting.
3. Volunteering: Inviting family participation at the educational
setting including social
events, classroom support, clerical work, and so on.
4. Learning at home: Finding ways to involve parents in
activities that support their learn-
ing at school.
5. Decision making: Inviting parent participation in all levels of
decisions, from those related
to individual children to advisory councils or committees that
participate in establishing
and enacting policies and initiatives.
6. Collaborating with the community: Inviting families to help
the program establish
relationships with merchants, organizations, and public services
such as libraries or
health centers.

Teachers and programs seek input from families about what
kinds of involvement would
best serve their needs, recruit parents who might be interested
in leadership roles, and work
together to develop and implement plans.
Family Involvement Models
Some programs, especially those funded by the state or federal
government, or grants, estab-
lish and operate comprehensive family involvement programs
with different kinds of features.
If you work in a Head Start program, for example, there are
clearly defined policies about
how teachers and the program will collaborate with families. In
a pilot or experimental pro-
gram such as Leaps and Bounds, the framework might be more
open-ended as the program
is developed.
Table 5.2 displays a range of examples of family involvement
models with a short description
of each (Gestwicki, 2004; Lim, 2008; Narvaez, Feldman, &
Theriot, 2007; Rhodes, Enz, &
LaCount, 2007).
Table 5.2: Examples of Family Involvement Models
Program Description
Even Start Federally funded Title I home-based program that
promotes family
literacy; GED programs, and workforce skills development
(over
800 sites).
No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Among mandated activities are

annual informative meetings for
parents; involvement in planning, review, and improvement of
schools;
opportunities for parent input/suggestions.
Head Start (3-to 5-year olds) Includes parents directly in
program decision making; provides
opportunities to work with child as volunteer with career-ladder
support; planned parent activities; ongoing communication;
leadership
via parent committees and policy council.
Early Head Start (infant/toddlers) Similar to Head Start but with
home-based services.
Minnesota Early Childhood Family
Education Program (ECFE)
Started in the Minneapolis Public Schools in 1974 with classes
and
activities for parents of children from birth to 5 years of age.
Expanded
statewide and used as a model for other states to establish
parent
education programs.
(continued)
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/evenstartformula/ind ex.html
http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/overview/intro/parents/parentfacts.htm
l
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/
http://www.ecfe.info/

http://www.ecfe.info/
https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/programs/article/head-start-
programs
Helping Families Understand Curriculum, Goals, and
Expectations Chapter 5
AVANCE Private nonprofit organization started by Gloria
Rodriguez and the Zale
Foundation in 1973 to serve primarily Hispanic families in San
Antonio;
programs as of 2012 in Texas, New Mexico, and California with
part-
nerships in several other states around the country; focuses on
parent
education.
PBS KIDS Lab A partnership with Chicago public schools and
PBS KIDS that provide
virtual resources for children ages 3–8. Includes free online
resources
developed by master teachers in English and Spanish and
modeling of
high-quality activities parents can do with their children.
Barriers and Challenges
There is widespread agreement that home/school/community
programs succeed only when
mutual trust is well established among those involved (Dombro
& Lerner, 2005; Fiese, Eckert,
& Spagnola, 2006; Sciarra & Dorsey, 2007). Other factors are
important as well. Parent edu-
cation efforts, especially literacy-focused programs, require that
educators appreciate and
respect many “ways of knowing” and the life experiences of

parents—a sociocultural per-
spective that doesn’t regard teachers as the only authentic
source of knowledge or informa-
tion (Grant & Ray, 2010; Ordonez-Jasis & Ortiz, 2007).
Involvement programs that establish
clear goals (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006; Ordonez-Jasis &
Ortiz, 2007) and boundaries
(Christian, 2007; Sciarra & Dorsey, 2007) help create a climate
for partnership and define
vision and purpose.
Educators have also learned many lessons over time about
pitfalls—the factors that can chal-
lenge those working to establish relationships and create
practical and meaningful family
and community-friendly activities and processes. Memories of
past experiences with school,
particularly negative ones, are powerful disincentives,
especially for those who might feel
marginalized to begin with by limited education or language
proficiency (Gestwicki, 2004;
Grant & Ray, 2010).
Some parents who might otherwise be very interested in
participating in their child’s class-
room might be limited by logistical considerations, such as
access to transportation or work
schedules (Gestwicki, 2004; Grant & Ray, 2010). Other factors,
such as a lack of self-confi-
dence, self-consciousness about family structures or alternative
lifestyles, perceptions parents
may have about teachers’ “turf,” or cultural norms and
expectations may also be present but
are even more difficult to acknowledge or recognize (Clay,
2007; Gestwicki, 2004; Grant &
Ray, 2010).

5.3 Helping Families Understand Curriculum, Goals,
and Expectations
If we want families and the community to be more involved in
our children’s early education,
we need to help them understand the nature and purpose of
learning standards and how they
affect the curriculum as well as the systems in place for
achieving accountability to the stan-
dards. For instance, we need to explain that a curriculum
standard is a statement that reflects
society’s current values about what children should know and
be able to do. Families also
need to know that standards do not dictate the specific
curriculum a program or school uses
but that school districts, child care, and preschool programs
choose or design a curriculum
Program Description
http://www.avance.org/
http://pbskids.org/lab
that will address and meet learning standards. Finally, families
deserve to know how their
children’s growth and progress are documented with respect to
standards.
Aligning (Mapping) Curriculum with Standards

Standards are written to allow educators to make decisions on
behalf of each individual
child. At the local/site/classroom level, teachers should share
the ways in which they interpret
the standards. Sometimes teachers do this by identifying how
the curriculum connects with
specific standards or desired learning and development
outcomes—a process called align-
ment or mapping. Commercially produced curricula for early
childhood may include written
documentation of this process. For example, the Creative
Curriculum includes documents
that connect the objectives, dimensions, and performance
indicators of the program with the
specific domains and domain elements that Head Start programs
are mandated to meet. Table
5.3 provides a selected example.
Table 5.3: Creative Curriculum Alignment (for 3-Year-Olds)
Head Start
Domain Element
Examples of Objectives and
Dimensions from the Creative
Curriculum for Preschool
Examples from the Creative
Curriculum for Preschool
Receptive language:
the ability to
comprehend
or understand
language

8. Listens to and understands increasingly
complex language
8a. Comprehends language
8b. Follows directions
• Mightyminute73“AreYouReady?”
• IntentionalTeaching“MyTurnatthe
Microphone”
• IntentionalTeaching“Introducing
New Vocabulary”
Expressive
language: the
ability to use
language
9. Uses language to express thoughts and
needs
9a. Uses an expanding expressive
vocabulary
9b. Speaks clearly
9c. Uses conventional grammar
9d. Tells about another time or place
10. Uses appropriate conversational and
other communication skills

10a. Engages in conversations
10b. Uses social rules of language
• TreesStudy:Day4,Investigation1
(Large-group discussion and Shared
Writing, p. 34)
• BuildingsStudy:Day4,Investigation
3 (Large-group discussion and Shared
Writing, p. 58)
• IntentionalTeaching“Introducing
New Vocabulary”
Source: Teaching Strategies, 2012.
In classrooms that use curricula designed by individuals,
parents should also have the
opportunity to know whether the curriculum is consistent with
the mission and goals of
the program and the extent to which it aligns with or supports
standards used in the state
or local community. Regardless of the type of curriculum, this
requires that the teach-
ers and program administrators plan for and implement
intentional communication about
the curriculum. Information about the selected curriculum
model or approach should be
included in official program documents such as a family
handbook, written curriculum
guide or overview, or program websites. Teachers can provide
parents with examples of
standards that are being used in their classrooms and point out
how they relate specifi-
cally to the activities that are planned for the children. Some

teachers create classroom or
hallway displays that indicate how an activity is related to a
particular standard or group
of standards.
See the annotated list of "Websites for Creating Classroom
Blogs" at the end of this chap-
ter for examples of the way in which programs describe or
explain their approaches to
curriculum.
Accountability: Testing and Assessment
Parents are entitled to accurate reporting designed to help them
understand how the cur-
riculum is working on behalf of their children. Teachers and
programs need to provide infor-
mation to families to help them understand the accountability
measures in use and how that
information is specifically relevant to the curriculum and its
goals/objectives.
This responsibility is complicated by many factors. In the
public schools, standardized tests are
used that report results in terms of the requirements of the No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
Report cards are issued for schools and states, beginning w ith
third-grade data intended

to provide information about which schools and districts are
making adequate yearly
progress (AYP), with accompanying options for
parents who wish to transfer their children from
schools designated as low-performing to schools
that report higher achievement.
Although test reporting in the public schools
doesn’t officially begin until third grade, many
public and private schools feel pressure to use
standardized tests with younger children for a vari-
ety of reasons that may or may not be related to
determining progress, including:
• Determining entry-level readiness for a class
of 4-year-olds, kindergarten, or first grade
• Screening children who must meet minimal
score requirements for eligibility to charter,
magnet, or private schools
• Identification of special needs, including
giftedness
• “Coaching” to help children perform
better on standardized tests to be
administered later
These kinds of activities are described as high-
stakes testing—when the outcome of an individual child’s
performance on a single measure
can have significant effects on decisions that will affect the
child’s future access to educa-
tional opportunities. Often—especially in communities with
high numbers of immigrant or
low-socioeconomic, undereducated families and families

navigating the elementary school
choice system for the first time—parents aren’t aware of the
potential implications of high-
stakes testing.
The terminology of curriculum standards can also be confusing
to parents and families. While
educators use professional jargon and terms such as AYP,
alignment, benchmarks, differ-
entiating instruction, and high-stakes testing, it is best to
communicate with families about
Teachers, children, and families are increasingly
affected by high-stakes testing. Educators and
families can benefit from a shared understand-
ing of how external pressures and mandates
affect goals and curriculum.
Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum Chapter 5
standards-based curriculum in plain language; this helps to
establish meaningful dialogue
(Grant & Ray, 2010).
Developmentally Appropriate Accountability
Assessment and communicating information about assessments
is a focus in Chapter 12, but
here it is important to note that early childhood educators are

mindful of the developmental
issues associated with accountability and standards. The
NAEYC position statements provide
clearly articulated guidance about:
• The types of assessment that are appropriate for young
children
• How programs can and should communicate, incorporate, and
share assessment infor-
mation with families
• How assessments should be linked to curriculum
• How early learning standards can be developed to maintain
fidelity to developmentally
sound principles about how young children learn
(NAEYC/NAECS/SDE, 2002)
For early childhood programs seeking national accreditation
through the NAEYC (2018),
standard 4 is devoted to the identification of criteria that
programs must meet to docu-
ment that they:
• Develop and use a written assessment system that describes
the purposes, procedures,
and uses of assessments and results
• Use developmentally appropriate methods aligned with
curricular goals
• Are sensitive to and informed by family culture and home
language
• Use the information gathered to plan and modify the

curriculum
• Include information from families to inform the assessment
process
• Provide regular opportunities for two-way communication
with families about chil-
dren’s progress
5.4 Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
As you begin to develop reciprocal relationships with families,
you will want to share infor-
mation about developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) with
regard to curriculum; this will
provide a foundation for further discussion (Copple &
Bredekamp, 2009; Gestwicki, 2011).
For example, programs and teachers can:
• Include a statement in promotional or informational materials
that curriculum for
young children is based on research about child development
and is designed to com-
plement and support how they learn best.
• Invite parents to tour the classroom, emphasizing features that
reflect DAP, such as
displays at the child’s eye level, carefully organized and labeled
materials that promote
independence, and a variety of materials that appeal to children
in different ways.
• Provide resource information about DAP in a notebook or
parent library.
• Post information in the classroom about developmental

characteristics relevant to the
age of the children in the group.
• Create and display printed labels for classroom centers that
briefly describe how activi-
ties promote development in different ways.
• Include a statement on interest inventories or family
questionnaires that information
gathered is used to construct goals and make decisions about
curricular activities.
• Establish a communications notebook or log that goes back
and forth between home
and school.
• In parent-teacher conferences, describe a specific example of a
decision you made that
was based on an observation about each child’s development
(Seplocha, 2007).
• Enlist parents’ support and input to establish learning and
social/emotional goals for
individual children (Kaczmarek, 2007).
In short, building relationships with families should include the
use of multiple strategies that
clearly communicate the importance of knowledge about child
development as the founda-

tion for learning. By sharing information about how children
learn, one creates a logical con-
text for providing visual documentation about what they are
learning.
The Power of Documentation
Making the curriculum visible in the classroom and other
appropriate areas of the school
sends a powerful message to all—children, families, and
community—that what young chil-
dren learn and do is important. As mentioned in Chapter 2,
visual documentation of learning
is a concept associated with and highly developed in the Reggio
Emilia programs (Edwards,
Gandini, & Forman, 1998). Essentially, Reggio Emilia teachers
construct displays that recount
what and how children learn during long-term project work. The
displays include images,
scripts of children’s words, teacher reflections, and examples of
children’s work. They focus on
how a project was initiated and how the children think about
what occurred over time. Judy
Helm (2007) describes this process for American teachers as
“windows on learning.”
The use of visual documentation does not need to be restricted
only to those programs that
use an emergent curriculum or long-term project work. From a
practical perspective, making
curricular activities visible to others can be a powerful
communications strategy in any early
childhood setting. Visual documentation helps visitors
understand the curriculum and inspires
confidence that you are teaching from a developmental
perspective, meeting children’s indi-

vidual needs, and meeting learning standards and/or program
outcomes.
Reggio Emilia-style documentation was originally constructed
on panels—display boards that
included cut-and-pasted photographs and text accompanied by
displays of two-dimensional
work or pictures of three-dimensional work. More recently,
selected projects have been pub-
lished by Reggio Emilia in book form, including The Theater
Curtain (2002); Reggio Tutti: A
Guide to the City by the Children (2000); Everything Has a
Shadow Except Ants (1999); The
Future Is a Lovely Day (2001); and Dialogues with Places
(2008).
Using Technologies for Documentation and Communication
With advances in user-friendly technologies, teachers now have
at their disposal many options
for creating documentation (Berson & Berson, 2010). Many
tools are currently available that
can serve to streamline the process and help families feel a part
of the daily learning experi-
ences of their children.
Certainly the digital camera and cell phone have revolutionized
the way in which teachers
capture the essence of classroom activities. The ability to take,

store, edit, print, and insert
images in a variety of applications suggests many possibilities
for sharing the curriculum with
families. Teachers can also scan children’s two-dimensional
work.
But pictures alone don’t tell the whole story. Consider Figure
5.1. The image depicts a block
structure built by children. Without a description, it could be
interpreted in any number of
ways. When the teacher adds a simple printed description to the
figure (label A), more infor-
mation is conveyed. Further expanding the label to include a
short reflective statement about
what the image represents (label B) connects the activity with
the curriculum in a way that is
meaningful. Label C fully describes the learning represented in
the photo as well as the skills
and knowledge the children used.
By posting captioned photographs, teachers can give families a
glimpse into the everyday lives
of their young children at school or in child care. Extended
documentation of children’s work
and play over time goes even further, showing how the
curriculum supports children’s inter-
ests, development, and holistic learning. Feature Box 5.1 tells
the story of how two teachers
used a blog to document a curriculum study with a group of 5-
and 6-year-olds.
Teachers can now use many forms of technology to connect
families with the classroom
and the curriculum (Grant & Ray, 2010). Ebooks, like the one
you’re reading now, show how

Label A
Children in the 4/5K class worked in the
block center this morning.
Label B
This 4-story block tower represents a zoo. It
was constructed during the work cycle
period over two days by three kindergarten
children.
Label C
Three kindergarteners who have been
developing their skills in the block center all
year demonstrate their knowledge of
balance, symmetry and classification in this
4-story construction. These are major math
concepts included in the kindergarten math
standards. The children solved several
structural problems as they worked over
two days to complete the tower. The
decision to add animals and people was
made after the 4 levels were complete, but
before the enclosing pieces were placed. At
one point, they posted a sign that said, “wrk
n prgrs.” After they decided to add animals,
the children carefully counted out pairs of
identical animals, sorting them by size and
type, putting animals from like habitats
together.
Figure 5.1: Labeling
Labels A, B, and C represent three increasingly informative
levels of description that complement
the visual depiction of a classroom activity.

Blogging
Two teachers, Mary and Jane, embarked on a month-long field-
based investigation of the city parks
in their community. The parks were all within walking distance
of the child development center and
easily accessible via public transportation. Family members
were invited to participate in the planned
excursions, but the teachers realized that not everyone would be
able to do so.
Jane and Mary wanted all parents to feel that they were
involved with this project, so they used a
free online service to set up a password-protected classroom
blog. For parents without computer
access, daily pages were printed and kept in a notebook at the
classroom sign-in area. Parents
could review them as desired at dropoff or pickup times. The
teachers posted photographs and
daily entries dictated by the
children. They scanned and
uploaded children’s drawings
and excerpts from their journals
to the blog.
The blog also included teacher
reflections, copies of articles
they had read that informed
their planning, and links to

online resources they had used
to develop and conduct the
study. Other artifacts from their
work, such as organizational
charts and brainstorming lists
that were too big to scan, were
displayed in the classroom and
photographed to upload to
the blog. Figure 5.2 includes a
sample entry from the blog.
▶ Stop and Reflect
1. Since a blog represents an
online forum for sharing
ideas or experiences with
others and may be interac-
tive, it has many potential
applications. Can you think
of a way you might use a
blog in your classroom or
care setting?
2. Do you think there might be
potential privacy issues asso-
ciated with blogging about
the children in your care or
classroom? How might such
issues be addressed?
The first week of Summer
we showed the children some
maps and talked to them
about “birds-eye-view.” We
looked at maps we had picked
up on a field trip to the

Visitor’s Center and also at
Google maps and Google
earth. We asked the children
to draw their own “birds-
eye-view” maps. You will
Septermber 21, 2012 4/5K class blog
The Park Project Blog
Bird’s Eye View
by The Butterfly Class
Search
Name
Email
Question/Comment
notice that the children
generally combine birds-eye-
view and side view. They
draw their beds and other
things they have seen from
above as birds-eye-view and
they draw everything else
from a side view. We really
enjoyed looking at these maps.
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Figure 5.2: Blog Entry
In this blog entry from the first week of the study, a few of
the children went with one of the teachers on a test run
of the bus system to get maps from the City Visitor Center.
Many of the subsequent posts were dictated by children to
the teacher.
technology is expanding our ability to provide remote access to
learning materials. Of course
teachers must follow school or program policies to protect
privacy and restrict public access
to online applications. Some programs are also creating policies
regarding family and staff use
of social networking sites (National Coalition of Campus Child
Development Centers Listserve
Communications, March, 2012).
The level of technological support will likely vary by setting.

But to the extent that such appli-
cations are available, any or all of the following can be used to
link home and school:
Septermber 21, 2012 3-year-old class newsletter
Sunflower Gazette
In the classroom: Moon Rocks and Astronauts
Student of the Week:
David
What is your favorite food? “Pizza”
What is your favorite color? “Orange”
Who is in your family? “Mommy and Daddy
and big sister and me”
What is your favorite book? “The Hungry Caterpillar”
As you may have guessed, we are now studying outer
space! After many weeks of the children pretending
they were on a trip to the moon while pushing them on
the tire swings, we realized the interest wasn’t going
away. A few of our students even knew the names of
the planets; naturally, everyone started taking a great
interest. We have been doing many fun space related
activities.
Mini Rockets: Each child
created a miniature rocket out
of a toilet paper tube and film
canister. They decorated
these, and will launch them

for our grand finale of space
after spring break!
Moon Cake: We enjoyed a
delicious snack of “moon
cake” on Thursday. It was
mentioned in a book we read
about a bear who woke up in
hibernation surrounded by
snow and thought he was on
the moon! He ate “moon cake”
there as well.
1
Why Does the Moon
Change Shape?
The Sunflower astronauts
helped us create their own
class rocket ship for imagi-
nary trips to the moon!
The astronauts are learn-
ing to count down from 5,
play a space board game to
enhance 1:1 counting and
numeral recognition, and
have learned the four
phases of the moon.
Se
e w
ha
t w

e’v
e b
ee
n
re
ad
in
g!
Figure 5.3: Newsletter
Many teachers publish a newsletter—daily, weekly, bi-weekly,
or monthly—with user-friendly soft-
ware programs. This is a sample newsletter, the Sunflower
Gazette, about a 3-year-old class.
• Newsletters (see example in Figure 5.3) can include
descriptions of activities; features
on children, families, and teachers; favorite stories and songs;
upcoming events; class-
room recipes; and much more.
• Classroom or program websites can include both permanent
and time-sensitive infor-
mation (see annotated list of websites at the end of this

chapter).
• Blogs (see list at end of chapter for free online blogging
sites).
• Email distribution list to families in addition to individual
communications.
• Text or instant-messaging for real-time announcements.
• Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or other social networking
applications to connect with
families and connect them to one another.
Informational and Interactive Events and Programs
As described in Table 5.2, many well-known models for formal
family involvement include
components focused on parent education. These priorities may
include such things as general
education, improving literacy and/or facility with English,
career-ladder opportunities, or par-
enting skills. The focus or intent of these kinds of programs is
different from parent education
about the child’s curriculum.
In this section, we briefly consider programs and experiences
intended to inform and engage
parents/families in dialogue about the curriculum itself. These
types of activities fall into three
broad categories: (1) providing access to curriculum resources,
(2) planned events that engage
families in first-hand experiences with the curriculum, and (3)
sending the curriculum home
(Berger, 2008; Gestwicki, 2004; Sciarra & Dorsey, 2007;
Wentworth, 2006).

Providing Access to Curriculum Resources
First, parents should be able to see printed information about
the curriculum and relevant
books, articles, or other references they can read or review at
any time. If a purchased cur-
riculum is being used, samples of teacher resource books,
printed assessment materials, and
examples of print materials that children use should be
accessible at school for parents to view.
Teachers who develop their own curricula should make a
description of the approach or
model and assessment system available in writing. An organized
notebook of print resources,
such as articles that inform the curriculum and examples of
children’s activities, can help par-
ents understand its goals. A specific location for resource
information should be created that
is clearly designated for parent/family/community use. If a
separate room is not available, this
space could be in the entry or reception area, a book rack in a
hallway or office, or in class-
room observation areas if the site is so equipped.
The point is that parents need to sense that you want to share
information about curriculum
with them, that you make an effort to do so, and that the
information you provide is current
and accurate. If at all manageable, a circulating or lending
system can reach family members
who can’t get to the resource location.
Planned Events That Engage Families
Events provide information and/or hands-on activities that give
parents the opportunity to

learn about and interpret the curriculum first hand. Ideally,
parents and teachers together
should have input about topics.
Examples of this kind of activity can include:
• Social events—such as a picnic, pan-
cake supper, or cookout—designed
to develop a sense of community at
school.
• An orientation meeting or information
session to share general information
about the curriculum and/or particular
elements such as literacy, math, or art.
• Informal discussion groups focused on
a specific topic (such as temper tan-
trums or toilet training) or sharing a
film or reading an article of relevance
or timeliness.
• A panel discussion with representatives
from local schools focused on helping
parents prepare for children’s transi-
tions to elementary school.
• A back-to-school night or open house
intended to familiarize family members

with classroom organization, materials,
and activities that are part of the chil-
dren’s daily experience.
• Hands-
onworkshopsthatengageparentsinactivitiesdemonstratinghowchil
dren
learn, such as story reading, a math/science cooking night, or
even finger painting.
•
Specialeventsthathighlightchildren’swork,suchasanartexhibit,har
vestingthe
classroom garden, or celebrating children’s writing.
These events also provide for informal discussion and question-
and-answer opportunities with
the teacher. When teachers and families engage in ongoing
dialogue about the curriculum,
children benefit indirectly from insights they gain and a sense
of shared purpose.
Sending the Curriculum Home
Inventive teachers also employ practical strategies to directly
extend children’s curriculum
activities from school to home. Academic homework is
inappropriate for young children. But
you could, for example, create a “traveling suitcase” or book
bag (Gestwicki, 2004) with items
that a child might not have at home but that the family would
enjoy using together, such as
a favorite book and puppet or puzzle. You might also provide
paper, markers, and envelopes
for a drawing and note to put in the classroom mailbox for a
friend. You can ask parents if it
would be appropriate to make a special call to children at home

as an incentive for learning
their phone number, or send a postcard when they can tell you
their address. You might send
home a photograph of the child at school, with paper and a pen
for the parents to record how
the child describes what he or she was doing.
Families as Primary Curriculum Resources
If you reach out to the families in your classroom, you will find
that they enrich your cur-
riculum tremendously. Every group of children brings a host of
familial language, cultural,
© Ingram Publishing / Thinkstock
Teachers can create many different kinds
of informal occasions to give families the
opportunity to become familiar with and
participate in their children’s activities.
occupational, and personal knowledge that, when combined,
forms a unique community in
ways both obvious and subtle. Luis Moll and colleagues
described this perspective toward
family involvement as a “funds of knowledge” approach
(Gonzalez, Moll, & Amanti, 2005;
Grant, Ray, 2010; Ordonez-Jasiz & Ortiz, 2007), cautioning that
failure to recognize parents as

a significant resource constitutes a deficit approach (pp. 4–5).
If you were writing a case study paper for a course assignment,
you would certainly rely on
primary or first-hand sources (e.g., observation, interviews, and
so on) as the most reliable
information for your description of the study subject(s).
Similarly, you can consider your chil-
dren’s families as primary resources for the curriculum. The
knowledge and insights you gain
about them should serve as a major influence for the decisions
you make to plan and adapt
activities so that the curriculum is relevant, meaningful, and
respectful.
Antibias Curriculum
Further support for these perspectives comes from the antibias
curriculum guidelines devel-
oped by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen Edwards (2010).
The premise of antibias cur-
riculum is that a central focus of our work should be “to support
children’s full development
in our multiracial, multilingual, multicultural world and to give
them the tools to stand up to
prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and eventually to institutional
‘isms’”(p. vii).
The four broad goals of antibias curriculum can inform our
work with families as curriculum
resources:
“Each child will:
1. Demonstrate self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and
positive social identities.

2. Express comfort and joy with human diversity, accurate
language for human differences,
and deep, caring human connectedness.
3. Increasingly recognize unfairness, have language to describe
unfairness, and understand
that unfairness hurts.
4. Demonstrate empowerment and the skills to act, with others
or alone, against prejudice
and/or discriminatory actions.” (pp. 4–5)
While there are many dimensions of the curriculum that can be
enhanced with family support,
learning about the families of the young children you teach is
one effective way to individual-
ize curriculum and promote the goals outlined above.
Learning About and Connecting with Families
There are several useful strategies you can use to gather
information to help you connect
your curriculum with the children and their families. In this
section we will consider three: (1)
questionnaires and interviews, (2) family mapping, and (3)
storytelling.
Asking parents to complete an informational questionnaire or to
participate in an interview,
either at school or during a home visit, can be extremely useful.
The purpose of these activi-
ties should be twofold: to gather information about the child
and to learn about the family.
Including a brief introductory statement that describes the
purpose of the interview or ques-
tionnaire can answer questions parents might have about its
intent.

Family survey questions should be framed in a manner that
gives parents control over how
they report information. For example, asking to list family
members who live in the home and
indicate their relationship to the child is preferable to listing
family roles such as “mother,”
“father,” “sisters,” “brothers,” with an adjacent fill -in blank.
Table 5.4 lists several examples of questions about children and
families you might want to ask.
Table 5.4: Examples of Interview or Family Survey Questions
Questions about the Child Questions about the Family
1. What are your child’s favorite activities?
2. What are your child’s least favorite activities?
3. Who does your child like to play with?
4. What are your child’s food preferences?
5. Does your child have any particular fears?
6. Does your child enjoy being read to or telling
stories?

7. Describe your child’s personality.
8. What does your child seem to be most interested in
learning about?
1. List the names of the family members who live in
your home and their relationship to your child.
2. What is your family’s country of origin?
3. What language(s) are spoken in your home?
4. Describe your family’s favorite recreational activities
or hobbies.
5. How does your family observe holidays?
6. How do the members of your family share family
history?
7. What kind of work do members of your family do?
As you gather information, you can begin to represent it by
using a graphic organizer or
chart to create maps for individual families (Bennett, 2007)
and/or your class as a whole. In
this way, you can start to see patterns and opportunities for
ways to connect your curriculum,
children, and families. Figure 5.4 displays a map for an
individual child/family in our imaginary
class. Figure 5.5 provides an example of the kinds of things you
might learn about the group
of seventeen children in our opening vignette.
A third option for developing insights about families is

storytelling. Stories can serve as power-
ful tools for learning, both as modeling an important component
of literacy, and a means to
identify strengths and values within family groups (Fiese,
Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006; Overton,
2005). Typically, the focus of family stories and legends varies
by culture and reflects the fam-
ily’s worldview.
In Western cultures influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition,
stories often feature main
characters that exemplify strength and a focus on individualism,
qualities highly valued in
the American mythology and folklore. In non-Western
traditions, a collectivist orientation
influences narrative themes that frequently revolve around
family responsibilities and a group
orientation (Fiese, Eckert, & Spagnola, 2006). Asking families
to share a favorite story about
their child, history, or interesting characters can be done in
numerous ways, including:
• Sending home a tape or digital audio recorder and asking a
parent to read or tell the
story for use in the classroom listening center.
• Transcribing the story during a face-to-face meeting or visit to
the classroom or care
setting.
• Giving each family a large index card to summarize a story
and keeping the cards in a
file box.
• Providing each family with a piece of “language experience
paper” that has lines for

writing on the bottom and space for an illustration at the top.
Short narratives can
then be assembled into a book for the classroom library or book
center.
Family stories can reveal patterns of strengths not perhaps
observable in other ways, such
as perseverance, resourcefulness, spirit, humor, or diplomacy
(Overton, 2005). When used in
the classroom, they offer children a concrete connection to
home and opportunities to learn
about their friends.
F05.05_ECE311
At Home:
Mom (Josie)
Dad (Robert)
Brother (David, 9)
Baby on the way
Grandmother
Uncle (Jim)
Child Profile:
Fights with brother
Has 2 best friends

Generally sociable and
friendly
Learning to play soccer
Afraid of dark
Loves baking with
grandmother
Collects rocks & bugs
Hates vegetables
Likes ”Bob“ books
Work:
Mom – Nurse
Dad – Landscaping
Uncle – Landscaping
(own business)
Joseph
(4)
Language &
Origins:
Mom / Dad (U.S.)
Grandmother
(Puerto Rico)
English/ Spanish
Traditions

Christmas
Halloween
Annual Family Reunion
Birthdays
4th of July Picnic
Family Activities:
Camping / fishing
:
Figure 5.4: Family Map
From this family map you can see that Joseph lives with a
bilingual extended family. They own a
landscaping business. His mother is a nurse and she is expecting
their third child. The family enjoys
camping and fishing. The family reports that Joseph is generally
happy but fights with his brother.
He seems to have science-related interests.
Strategies for Involving Families in Your Curriculum
If you have engaged in the kinds of activities described above,
you most likely will have already
formed initial relationships with the families of your students.
Armed with information and
motivated by a desire to include them in the curriculum and

classroom culture, what can you
do to encourage them to actively participate? Providing a range
of options is critical, as at
any given time family members’ ability and motivation to
participate can vary (Hallacka-Ball,
2007). As a general rule, planning ahead and providing clear
guidance, and a formal orienta-
tion about your expectations if necessary, is also good practice.
Informal visits can help you welcome families and make them
feel comfortable in the classroom
or care setting. Such visits do not require a tremendous amount
of preplanning, but you should
think about an overall approach, according to what the visit or
occasion requires. For example:
• Informal visits or observations—advance notice is helpful, but
an open-door policy
makes families feel welcome and lets them see curriculum in
action.
• Birthdays or other special occasions—these require advance
notice and time limits;
advise families of any policies relative to allergies or food
restrictions.
F05.06_ECE311
Family History
• Oral history/
storytelling (3)
• Photo albums (12)
• Facebook (1)
• Annual reunion (1)
Work (parents or

extended family)
• Agriculture (6)
• Retail (3)
• Service industries (5)
• Book-keeping (1)
• Photographer (1)
• Baker (1)
• Law enforcement (1)
• Teacher/caregiver (2)
• Landscaping (3)
• Entertainer/singer (1)
• Nurse (1)
Traditions
• Christmas (17)
• Easter (16)
• Day of the Dead (1)
• Chinese New Year (1)
• Birthdays (17)
• Tooth Fairy (16)
• St. Patrick’s Day (2)
• 4th of July Picnic (10)
• Halloween (16)
• First Communion (6)
Countries of Origin
• US (13)
• Guatemala (1)
• Mexico (1)
• Jamaica (1)
• China (1)
Home Languages
• English (15)
• Spanish (2)

Hobbies/Recreation
• Camping/hiking (3)
• Moto-cross (1)
• Hunting/fishing (4)
• Carpentry (2)
• Flea markets (3)
• Soccer (6)
• Dancing (4)
• Playing in a band (1)
• Painting (1)
Figure 5.5: Classroom Map
From charting family survey data, you learn that you have
family members who might be able to
support a study of community helpers (nurse, law enforcement);
there is expertise related to grow-
ing, producing, distributing, and preparing foods and learning
about stores and services; there also
might be interesting possibilities for photography and music.
• A visit from the family of the week
or month —schedule the visit and
let the family know ahead of time
what the routine is and what you
would like them to share about
their family.
• Invitations to siblings or grand-

parents to school—schedule in
advance and set aside time for
introductions and interactions.
• Lunch visits—letting the child know
ahead of time is important, as sep-
arating from the parent a second
time, after lunch, can be difficult.
• Assisted/chaperoned field trips—
field trips often require additional
adults. Parents need to know that
sometimes children’s normal class-
room behavior changes when par-
ents are present. But parents can
be very helpful with the logistics
of transporting lunches, rain gear,
a first aid kit, supplies, and so on, and they can provide the
closer supervision that
is usually needed when children leave the school or center.
• Guest reader or storyteller—advise the family member on how
the choice of a book
or story will be made; consider audio- or videotaping such a
presentation for later use
(with permission).
Another range of options centers on more intentional, volunteer-
type involvement that is
directly related to curriculum activities. These kinds of
activities may require active recruit-
ing, some orientation, or directions regarding the specific nature
of expectations or proce-
dures and the need for confidentiality and limits of authority.
Volunteering in the classroom
can provide family members with a high level of satisfaction

and self-esteem (Sciarra &
Dorsey, 2007).
Note: Long-term volunteers in a child-care setting, licensed
preschool, or elementary school
classroom who will interact with children may have to secure
health and security clearances
according to your state’s licensing regulations.
Volunteer opportunities are limited only by your imagination,
but some of the more common
examples include:
• Reading to children—Reading on a regular basis rather than
the one-time visit
described above. You may need to provide a reading list and
some introduction to
effective strategies for introducing and reading a book, such as
previewing the cover,
naming the author/illustrator, helping children predict what
might happen, and mod-
erating expression while reading. But family members who
might want to do this are
likely enthusiastic readers already. Reading to a group of
children can be very different
from the one-on-one reading they do at home, so establishing a
comfort level with
the number of children a volunteer reads to can also be wise.
© Hemera / Thinkstock
Members of a child’s extended family—such as grandpar-
ents, aunts, or uncles—are often ready, willing, and able
to attend both formal and informal school functions.
Their involvement can extend the security of family rela-
tionships to the education setting.

Collaborating with the Community Chapter 5
• Clerical support—Some volunteers prefer to work “behind the
scenes,” but they can
still learn a lot about and support your curriculum by working
with materials: fixing
toys or mending books, cutting paper, laminating, printing
announcements, assem-
bling classroom books, making labels. Task cards that provide
simple directions are
helpful, especially if the helper is working when you are busy
doing other things.
• Work/play facilitators—If a family member wants to volunteer
as an “extra hand” in the
classroom for instructional support, the educator must provide
him or her with the same
kind of orientation given to a paid assistant. Observing the
classroom beforehand will
help the volunteer adapt to standard procedures and routines as
well as the teacher’s
approach to classroom management. In the elementary school,
volunteers may be asked
to help with homework or even assist at the computer station.
Areas of the preschool/
kindergarten classroom particularly adaptable to this kind of
help are dramatic play, art,
cooking, and the block area. With babies and toddlers, an extra
“rocker” is usually wel-
come, and volunteers willing to get down on the floor and play

can be priceless!
• “Experts”—Enlisting the help of parents or other family
members with particular areas
of experience, expertise, or interest that relate directly to
curriculum topics. Once you
know what kind of informational resources your parents can
provide (via your surveys
and conversations) you can intentionally include topical studies
or enrichment experi-
ences in the curriculum that relate to skills and knowledge
present among your family
population. Family members are an excellent resource for
sharing multicultural activities,
including the stories, but also for the music, food, song and
dance of native cultures.
5.5 Collaborating with the Community
A developmentally appropriate approach to the curriculum
assumes that teachers consider
communities an important source of information for planning
(Copple & Bredekamp, 2009;
Gestwicki, 2011). This requires that teachers and administrators
figure out how to gather and
share information and successfully integrate the community into
the lives of their children in
school or care settings. This part
of the chapter focuses on practi-
cal ways to do so.
Communities as Primary
Curriculum Resources
Every content area of a cur-
riculum is represented in the
real world by individuals, orga-

nizations, businesses, and the
natural/physical environment.
Teachers and schools that
attempt to integrate children’s
experiences with the community
provide them with a meaningful
context for what they are learn-
ing, and there are many practi-
cal ways to do so.
© Bridgepoint Education
In this image, volunteers, with the support of corporate
sponsors, are painting a school. This is an example of how
community partnerships can be mutually beneficial.
Knowing and Connecting with the Community
If you have lived in the community where you work, you will
already have some familiarity with
the stores, neighborhoods, businesses, schools, and hospitals
that make up the community. If
you are not familiar with the area, you can make an effort to get
to know these features over
time. Once again, creating a file or notebook with information
about community resources
can be very helpful. You can also add suggestions for how each
resource can support your
curriculum. Figure 5.6 displays a template for recording
information in a resource file.

Other ways in which you can gather information about your
community include the following:
• Take walks in the immediate neighborhood.
• Obtain a calendar of community festivals and cultural events.
• Locate the nearest university extension service.
• Find out what child-friendly programs are available through
local museums, parks,
media outlets, and tourist destinations such as zoos or historical
sites.
• Identify closest access to public transportation, routes, and
fare information.
• Gather menus from local restaurants.
• Make use of city/community websites and retail listings or
Yellow Pages directories.
Figure 5.6: Template for a Resource File Card
On the sample card, information is recorded for a nearby retail
store, including the name of an
individual who would be willing to come to the classroom.

Strategies for Involving the Community in the Curriculum
Experienced teachers know that once you have established
relationships with individual fami-
lies and community partners, those networks don’t disappear at
the end of each school year
or when your students move on to other schools or programs.
The connections you make
over time constitute a store of personal resources that enhance
any curriculum you use and
also serve to inform the community about how they can become
involved with and invested
in early childhood education.
Opportunities for involving community in the curriculum are
limited only by your imagina-
tion and ability to make creative use of resources. The
following list provides brief narrative
examples from the author’s recent experiences:
• A toddler teacher notices that her 2-year-old children seem
very interested in animals
but easily confuse larger farm animals, such as cows, horses,
and goats. In her com-
munity, horse-drawn carriage tours are a major tourist
attraction. She arranges with
a local tour company for a short carriage ride around the
neighborhood and a visit to
the company’s barn, which has a small petting area with baby
farm animals.
• Kindergarten children observe a nest being built by a bird on
the playground and
begin to request information about how eggs hatch. The teacher
contacts the state
university extension service. They have a program that offers to
send a field agent who

will bring an incubator and eggs to the classroom, teach the
children how to monitor
and turn the eggs daily until they hatch, and then reclaim
the chicks.
• In a class of 3-year-olds, the teacher notices a high level of
interest in rocks. She pro-
vides many activities and books about rocks and arranges a
walking trip to a nearby
store that specializes in minerals, stones, and rocks. The store
owners answer chil-
dren’s questions and allow each child to choose a small rock to
bring back to the
classroom.
• Children in a class of 4-year-olds who are studying different
kinds of bread plant a
small patch of wheat in their class garden. One of the parents
from the class works as
a cashier for a local grocery store. The parent approaches the
operations manager of
the store, who agrees to send the head baker to the classroom to
demonstrate bread
making.
• The director of a child care program contacts a local lumber
yard that agrees to save
and donate trimmings from their custom woodworking shop to
the center. The teach-
ers then have a ready supply of interesting wood shapes for
construction and three-
dimensional art projects.
In some instances, more formal, long-term collaborations that
enhance curriculum are estab-
lished between schools, programs, and communities. There are

many examples across America
of “public-private” partnerships that represent significant
investments of personnel, money,
services, or equipment in early education and child-care
programs (U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services, 2012). A local business may “adopt” a
school to provide it with com-
puters and technology support. A benefactor might donate or
bequeath gifts for a variety of
purposes, or a local charitable group may actively pursue a
mission to support young children
and their families. The United Way is a good example of a
community organization that funds
and organizes activities to “help children and youth achieve
their potential.”
http://www.unitedway.org/
Chapter Summary Chapter 5
Advocacy as a Community Effort
When communities work together with programs, early
educators, schools, and families,
advocacy for young children becomes a shared, personalized
endeavor. Through formal
and informal interactions, particular areas of strength and need
become apparent that pro-
vide communities with the information they need to set
priorities and distribute resources.
Teachers and caregivers are in a unique position to facilitate
this process; besides membership

in national professional organizations (see Chapter 1), at a local
level, they can:
• Participate in local or regional professional association
activities, such as the NAEYC’s
Week of the Young Child
• Serve on site-based school improvement councils
• Volunteer for community improvement projects and initiatives
• Write letters to local government or private-sector
representatives to identify areas of
need or opportunity
• Collaborate and network with educators in other programs
As you gain experience and knowledge about families and the
community, your understand-
ing of how to connect these resources with your curriculum will
grow. You will see that
the curriculum can respond to, include, and reflect unique
perspectives that reinforce John
Dewey’s observation that “the school must represent present
life—life as real and vital to the
child as that which he carries on in the home, in the
neighborhood, or on the play-ground”
(1897, p. 78).
Chapter Summary
• Collaborating with families and communities involves
communication, engagement,
and shared decision making between teachers, programs, and
families. Research docu-
ments the many ways in which collaboration among teachers,

families, and communi-
ties benefit all involved.
• Ecological and family systems theories provide a basis for
understanding how produc-
tive relationships can be established and maintained.
• Despite challenges such as building trust and logistics, family
involvement at school or
the child-care program can be effectively accomplished through
formally established
programs or grassroots efforts.
• Helping parents understand learning standards includes
providing information about
standards, accountability systems, and developmentally
appropriate assessment.
• Teachers use many different strategies—including curriculum
documentation, tech-
nologies, and interactive events—to help families understand
and connect with the
curriculum.
• Teachers gather information about children and their families
to gain insights about
the kinds of ways in which they can be considered primary
resources for the curricu-
lum and to help them identify and respond to interests and
needs.
• Teachers also gather information about the community in
order to uncover opportuni-
ties for enhancing the curriculum with real-world, meaningful
experiences.

http://naeyc.org/woyc
Posttest Chapter 5
Posttest
1. Student achievement is positively correlated with programs
that:
a. Establish and maintain strict policies for keeping visitors out
of classrooms so that
the teachers can concentrate on their work.
b. Find ways to promote parent and family participation in
school activities and affairs.
c. Make all important decisions thoughtfully and then inform
parents about how they
will affect their children.
d. Implement standardized testing of children as early as
possible.
2. Alice McLellan Birney and Phoebe Apperson Hearst were
instrumental in establishing:
a. The PTO network of independent parent-teacher
organizations.
b. The National Association for the Education of Young
Children.

c. The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA).
d. A coalition of social workers to lobby Congress for passage
of the Lanham Act.
3. Bronfenbrenner’s theory makes particular sense as a
foundation for thinking about
home/school/community relationships because:
a. It represents the child’s experience in the context of
interrelated influences.
b. Uri Bronfenbrenner was particularly well known and
effective as a community
organizer.
c. Only theories from respected sources should be used to
develop policies and
procedures.
d. It shows that culture has little impact on children’s
development.
4. Family systems theory maintains that while families are
increasingly diverse,
a. Physical and emotional home environments are remarkably
similar.
b. All families are highly motivated to be involved in school or
child care center
activities.
c. Children learn to adopt characteristics of mainstream culture
at school indepen-
dently of the roles they exhibit at home.

d. Incorporating rituals, customs, and home traditions can
provide consistency, secu-
rity, and balance for children at school or in care.
5. Alignment or mapping of standards and curriculum is a
process that:
a. Matches NAEYC developmentally appropriate practice with
the National Core
Standards
b. Matches a particular set of learning standards with
curriculum objectives, out-
comes, or activities.
c. Shows the relationship between state tests and state
standards.
d. Is developmentally inappropriate, so it is not recommended
for preschool teachers.
Posttest Chapter 5
6. Providing information to families about developmentally
appropriate practice and the
curriculum:
a. Is not necessary, as only the teachers have the training and
experience to under-
stand what a DAP curriculum represents and includes.

b. Helps them understand that standards do not dictate the
specific curriculum a pro-
gram or school uses.
c. Provides an opportunity to address and meet early learning
standards.
d. Ensures that they will subsequently want to be more involved
in school activities.
7. Visual documentation of student learning is a process that:
a. Preschool and infant/toddler teachers don’t typically use as it
takes too much time.
b. Teachers use to adapt curriculum for children with visual
impairments.
c. Aligns curriculum and standards using technology, so that it
will be easy for parents
to understand.
d. Teachers use to represent children’s work with images,
narratives, reflections, and
artifacts.
8. Teachers use many strategies to help families of preschoolers
learn about their child’s
curriculum, including:
a. Providing and discussing printed or online information about
the curriculum.
b. Sending home report cards four times a year.

c. Setting up an email distribution list to communicate with
families.
d. Sending home worksheets for homework, so parents can see
what the children do
every day.
9. Regarding families and communities as primary curriculum
resources:
a. Isn’t relevant, because the primary grades are not really part
of early childhood
education.
b. Isn’t needed because typically the curriculum provides all
necessary resources.
c. Includes gathering information in respectful ways that can be
subsequently ana-
lyzed and organized for opportunities.
d. Is the only way to effectively address the learning needs of
the children in your
care.
10. Teachers and families engage in child advocacy when they:
a. Join together to celebrate children in events such as the
NAEYC’s Week of the
Young Child.
b. Share responsibilities for chaperoning field trips.
c. Repair and recycle books for the public library.
d. Collect and redeem grocery store box tops to raise money for

the program.
Answers: 1 (b); 2 (c); 3 (a); 4 (d); 5 (b); 6 (b); 7 (d); 8 (a); 9
(c); 10 (a)
Key Terms Chapter 5
Discussion Questions
1. Identify aspects of working with families that you feel most
and least confident about
and what you might do to either strengthen or enhance those
capabilities.
2. From what you already know about the community in which
you live or work, brain-
storm an initial list of possible curriculum resources; use the
card format from Figure 5.6
to record information about them.
3. From the information you have so far from the opening
vignettes about your imagi-
nary class, what kinds of opportunities and challenges for
successful family involvement
might you anticipate?
Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter Pretest
1. True. Early childhood organizations, researchers, and public
funding sources believe
that collaboration improves learning outcomes for children.

2. False. Understanding the ways families work helps teachers
understand and respond to
the children they teach or care for.
3. True. Helping families understand goals and desired
outcomes also aids their under-
standing about how the curriculum addresses curriculum
standards.
4. True. Making the curriculum visible in the classroom and
other appropriate areas of the
school sends a powerful message to all—children, families, and
community—that what
young children learn and do is important.
5. True. Connecting children with the community makes the
curriculum more real and
meaningful and establishes partnerships within the community.
Key Terms
Adequate yearly progress (AYP) Refers to the expected average
gain in achievement test
scores of a school’s population from one year to the next
Alignment (mapping) Documentation in writing of how
curriculum goals and compo-
nents connect specifically with elements of learning standards
Benchmark Description of a desired goal that represents a gain
of knowledge or skills by a
particular time
Differentiating instruction Adapting the environment, materials,
and planning to meet

the needs and interests of individual children
Family systems theory (FST) Looking at and studying children
in the context of family
Graphic organizer Charts or other templates used to organize
ideas, information, or
procedures
High-stakes testing When the outcome of an individual child’s
performance on a single
test is tied to decisions that will impact access to educational
opportunities
Parent-Teacher Association An organization of parents, teachers
and staff, all of whom
work together to encourage parent participation in the school or
classroom
Examples of Programs Offering Website Curriculum
Information
Clicking on the links below will take you to the home page for
each school, which provides
examples of the curriculum in use at each.
N. E. Miles Early Childhood Development Center, Charleston,
SC. The N. E. Miles ECDC is a
university-based preschool and kindergarten demonstration

program.
Nautilus Montessori School, Roseville, CA. A private preschool
and kindergarten using an aca-
demic Montessori program with additional curricular elements
specific to the school.
Emerson Waldorf School, Chapel Hill, NC. A school spanning
pre-K through grade 12 using
the Waldorf approach inspired by Rudolf Steiner.
Mini University, Miami, OH. Four NAEYC-accredited centers
in southern Ohio using the Creative
Curriculum. Clicking on “age groups” provides access to
information about curriculum and
standards used with children of different ages.
Rosalie Cooperative School of Young Children, Albuquerque,
NM. This is a home-based coop-
erative of families inspired by Reggio-Emilia.
Pine Village Spanish Immersion Preschools, Boston. An early
childhood program for toddlers
and preschoolers with a curriculum focused on global
citizenship and bilingual education.
Websites for Creating Classroom Blogs
Blogger (for teachers) Google site with version designed for
teachers.
EduBlogs Designed for teachers to easily create and manage
their own blogs, with features
for customizing designs, privacy, and uploading videos, photos,
and podcasts.

Kidblog Set up so that teachers can easily create blogs for kids
to use. The teacher functions
as the blog administrator to manage children’s accounts.
SchoolRack Award-winning site for creating classroom websites
and blogs with features for
communication and collaboration.
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Gestwicki, C. (2004). Home, school and community relations
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ml.
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Copyright © 2009 by the National Association for the Education
of Young Children
The purpose of this position statement is to pro-
mote excellence in early childhood education by
providing a framework for best practice. Grounded
both in the research on child development and
learning and in the knowledge base regarding
educational effectiveness, the framework outlines
practice that promotes young children’s optimal
learning and development. Since its first adoption
in 1986, this framework has been known as devel-
opmentally appropriate practice.1
The profession’s responsibility to promote
quality in the care and education of young children
compels us to revisit regularly the validity and cur-
rency of our core knowledge and positions, such
as this one on issues of practice. Does the position
need modification in light of a changed context? Is
there new knowledge to inform the statement? Are
there aspects of the existing statement that have
given rise to misunderstandings and misconcep-
tions that need correcting?
Over the several years spent in developing
this revision, NAEYC invited the comment of early
childhood educators with experience and exper-
tise from infancy to the primary grades, including
Developmentally Appropriate Practice
in Early Childhood Programs Serving
Children from Birth through Age 8

Note : Throughout this statement, the terms teacher,
practitioner,
and educator are variously used to refer to those working in the
early childhood field. The word teacher is always intended to
refer to any adult responsible for the direct care and education
of a group of children in any early childhood setting. Included
are
not only classroom teachers but also infant/toddler caregivers,
family child care providers, and specialists in other disciplines
who fulfill the role of teacher. In more instances, the term prac -
titioners is intended to also include a program’s administrators.
Educators is intended to also include college and university
faculty and other teacher trainers.
Adopted 2009
Position stAtement
a late 2006 convening of respected leaders in the
field. The result of this broad gathering of views is
this updated position statement, which addresses
the current context and the relevant knowledge
base for developmentally appropriate practice and
seeks to convey the nature of such practice clearly
and usefully.
This statement is intended to complement
NAEYC’s other position statements on practice,
which include Early Learning Standards and Early
Childhood Curriculum, Assessment, and Program
Evaluation, as well as the Code of Ethical Conduct
and NAEYC Early Childhood Program Standards and
Accreditation Criteria.2
A position statement of the National Association for the
Education of Young Children

2
of Young Children
Since the 1996 version of this position statement,
the landscape of early childhood education in the
United States has changed significantly and a num-
ber of issues have grown in importance. Shortage
of good care for children in the highly vulnerable
infant and toddler years has become critical.3 Issues
of home language and culture, second language
learning, and school culture have increased with
the steady growth in the number of immigrant fami-
lies and children in our population.4 In addition, far
more children with special needs (including those
with disabilities, those at risk for disabilities, and
those with challenging behaviors) participate in typ-
ical early childhood settings today than in the past.5
As for teachers, the nation continues to struggle
to develop and maintain a qualified teaching force.6
This difficulty is especially acute in the under-
funded early childhood arena, especially the child
care sector, which is losing well prepared teaching
staff and administrators at an alarming rate.7
Looking forward, demographic trends predict
a modest growth in the number of young children
in the population, significant increases in the
demand for early care and education, dramatic
increases in children’s cultural and linguistic diver-
sity, and unless conditions change, a greater share
of children living in poverty. Among these, the
biggest single child-specific demographic change

in the United States over the next 20 years is pre-
dicted to be an increase in children whose home
language is not English.8
Also significant is that policy makers and the
public are far more aware of the importance of
the early childhood years in shaping children’s
futures. Based on this widespread recognition and
the context of early childhood education today, it
was decided this statement would highlight three
challenges: reducing learning gaps and increasing
the achievement of all children; creating improved,
better connected education for preschool and
elementary children; and recognizing teacher
knowledge and decision making as vital to educa-
tional effectiveness.
Reducing learning gaps and increasing
the achievement of all children
All families, educators, and the larger society
hope that children will achieve in school and go
on to lead satisfying and productive lives. But
that optimistic future is not equally likely for all of
the nation’s schoolchildren. Most disturbing, low-
income and African American and Hispanic stu-
dents lag significantly behind their peers on stan-
dardized comparisons of academic achievement
throughout the school years, and they experience
more difficulties while in the school setting.9
Behind these disparities in school-related
performance lie dramatic differences in children’s
early experiences and access to good programs
and schools. Often there is also a mismatch
between the “school” culture and children’s cul-

tural backgrounds.10 A prime difference in chil-
dren’s early experience is in their exposure to
language, which is fundamental in literacy devel-
opment and indeed in all areas of thinking and
learning. On average, children growing up in low-
income families have dramatically less rich experi-
ence with language in their homes than do middle-
class children:11 They hear far fewer words and are
engaged in fewer extended conversations. By 36
months of age, substantial socioeconomic dispari-
ties already exist in vocabulary knowledge,12 to
name one area.
Children from families living in poverty or in
households in which parent education is low typi-
cally enter school with lower levels of foundational
skills, such as those in language, reading, and
mathematics.13 On starting kindergarten, children
in the lowest socioeconomic group have average
cognitive scores that are 60 percent below those
of the most affluent group. Explained largely by
socioeconomic differences among ethnic groups,
average math achievement is 21 percent lower for
African American children than for white children
and 19 percent lower for Hispanic children than
for non-Hispanic white children.14 Moreover, due to
deep-seated equity issues present in communities
and schools, such early achievement gaps tend to
increase rather than diminish over time.15
Concerns over the persistence of achieve-
ment gaps between subgroups are part of a larger
concern about lagging student achievement in the
United States and its impact on American eco-
nomic competitiveness in an increasingly global
economy. In comparisons with students of other
industrialized countries, for example, America’s

students have not consistently fared well on tests
of educational achievement.16
Critical issues in the current context
of Young Children
3
It is these worries that drive the powerful
“standards/accountability” movement. Among the
movement’s most far-reaching actions has been
the 2001 passing of No Child Left Behind (NCLB),
which made it national policy to hold schools
accountable for eliminating the persistent gaps in
achievement between different groups of children.
With the aim of ensuring educational equity, the
law requires the reporting of scores disaggregated
by student group; that is, reported separately for
the economically disadvantaged, major racial and
ethnic minorities, special education recipients,
and English language learners.17 By requiring the
reporting of achievement by student group and
requiring all groups to make achievement gains
annually, NCLB seeks to make schools accountable
for teaching all their students effectively.
Whether NCLB and similar “accountability”
mandates can deliver that result is hotly debated,
and many critics argue that the mandates have
unintended negative consequences for children,
teachers, and schools, including narrowing the
curriculum and testing too much and in the wrong
ways. Yet the majority of Americans support the

movement’s stated goals,18 among them that all
children should be achieving at high levels.19 This
public support—for the goals, if not the methods —
can be viewed as a demand that educators do
something to improve student achievement and
close the gaps that all agree are damaging many
children’s future prospects and wasting their
potential.
Learning standards and accountability policies
have impinged directly on public education from
grade K and up, and they are of growing relevance
to preschool education, as well. As of 2007, more
than three-quarters of the states had some sort
of early learning standards—that is, standards for
the years before kindergarten—and the remaining
states had begun developing them.20 Head Start
has put in place a “child outcomes framework,”
which identifies learning expectations in eight
domains.21 National reports and public policy state-
ments have supported the creation of standards-
based curriculum as part of a broader effort to
build children’s school readiness by improving
teaching and learning in the early years.22 For its
part, NAEYC has position statements defining the
features of high-quality early learning standards,
curriculum, and assessment.23
So we must close existing learning gaps and
enable all children to succeed at higher levels—but
how? While this question is not a new one, in the
current context it is the focus of increased atten-
tion. As later outlined in “Applying New Knowledge
to Critical Issues,” accumulating evidence and
innovations in practice now provide guidance as
to the knowledge and abilities that teachers must
work especially hard to foster in young children, as

well as information on how teachers can do so.
Creating improved, better connected
education for preschool and elementary
children
For many years, preschool education and ele-
mentary education—each with its own funding
sources, infrastructure, values, and traditions—
have remained largely separate. In fact, the educa-
tion establishment typically has not thought of
preschool as a full-fledged part of American public
education. Among the chief reasons for this view
is that preschool is neither universally funded by
the public nor mandatory.24 Moreover, preschool
programs exist within a patchwork quilt of spon-
sorship and delivery systems and widely varying
teacher credentials. Many programs came into
being primarily to offer child care for parents who
worked. In recent years, however, preschool’s edu-
cational purpose and potential have been increas-
ingly recognized, and this recognition contributes
to the blurring of the preschool-elementary bound-
ary. The two spheres now have substantial reasons
to strive for greater continuity and collaboration.
One impetus is that mandated accountability
requirements, particularly third grade testing,
exert pressures on schools and teachers at K–2,25
who in turn look to teachers of younger children to
help prepare students to demonstrate the required
proficiencies later. A related factor is the growth of
state-funded prekindergarten, located in schools
or other community settings, which collectively
serves more than a million 3- and 4-year-olds.
Millions more children are in Head Start programs
and child care programs that meet state prekin-
dergarten requirements and receive state preK

dollars. Head Start, serving more than 900,000
children nationwide, is now required to coordinate
with the public schools at the state level.26 Title I
dollars support preschool education and services
for some 300,000 children. Nationally, about 35
4
of Young Children
percent of all 4-year-olds are in publicly supported
prekindergarten programs.27
For its part, the world of early care and edu-
cation stands to gain in some respects from a
closer relationship with the K–12 system. Given
the shortage of affordable, high-quality programs
for children under 5 and the low compensation
for those staff, advocates see potential benefits to
having more 4-year-olds, and perhaps even 3-year-
olds, receive services in publicly funded schooling.
Proponents also hope that a closer relationship
between early-years education and the elementary
grades would lead to enhanced alignment and each
sphere’s learning from the other,28 thus resulting
in greater continuity and coherence across the
preK–3 span.
At the same time, however, preschool educa-
tors have some fears about the prospect of the
K–12 system absorbing or radically reshaping
education for 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds, especially
at a time when pressures in public schooling are
intense and often run counter to the needs of

young children. Many early childhood educators
are already quite concerned about the current
climate of increased high-stakes testing adversely
affecting children in grades K–3, and they fear
extension of these effects to even younger chil-
dren. Even learning standards, though generally
supported in principle in the early childhood
world,29 are sometimes questioned in practice
because they can have negative effects.
Early learning standards are still relatively
new, having been mandated by Good Start, Grow
Smart in 2002 for the domains of language, literacy,
and mathematics. While some states have taken a
fairly comprehensive approach across the domains
of learning and development, others focus heavily
on the mandated areas, particularly literacy. When
state standards are not comprehensive, the curric-
ulum driven by those standards is less likely to be
so, and any alignment will likely address only those
few curriculum areas identified in the standards.
Such narrowing of curriculum scope is one
shortcoming that can characterize a set of stan-
dards; there can be other deficiencies, too. To be
most beneficial for children, standards need to be
not only comprehensive but also address what is
important for children to know and be able to do;
be aligned across developmental stages and age/
grade levels; and be consistent with how children
develop and learn. Unfortunately, many state stan-
dards focus on superficial learning objectives, at
times underestimating young children’s compe-
tence and at other times requiring understandings
and tasks that young children cannot really grasp
until they are older.30 There is also growing con-
cern that most assessments of children’s knowl-

edge are exclusively in English, thereby missing
important knowledge a child may have but cannot
express in English.31
Alignment is desirable, indeed critical, for
standards to be effective. Yet effective alignment
consists of more than simplifying for a younger
age group the standards appropriate for older
children. Rather than relying on such downward
mapping, developers of early learning standards
should base them on what we know from research
and practice about children from a variety of
backgrounds at a given stage/age and about the
processes, sequences, variations, and long-term
consequences of early learning and development.32
As for state-to-state alignment, the current sit-
uation is chaotic. Although discussion about estab-
lishing some kind of national standards framework
is gaining momentum, there is no common set of
standards at present. Consequently, publishers
competing in the marketplace try to develop cur-
riculum and textbooks that address the standards
of all the states. Then teachers feel compelled to
cover this large array of topics, teaching each only
briefly and often superficially. When such cur-
riculum and materials are in use, children move
through the grades encountering a given topic in
grade after grade—but only shallowly each time—
rather than getting depth and focus on a smaller
number of key learning goals and being able to
master these before moving on.33
Standards overload is overwhelming to teach-
ers and children alike and can lead to potentially
problematic teaching practices. At the preschool

and K–3 levels particularly, practices of concern
include excessive lecturing to the whole group,
fragmented teaching of discrete objectives, and
insistence that teachers follow rigid, tightly paced
schedules. There is also concern that schools are
curtailing valuable experiences such as problem
solving, rich play, collaboration with peers, oppor-
tunities for emotional and social development,
outdoor/physical activity, and the arts. In the
high-pressure classroom, children are less likely
to develop a love of learning and a sense of their
own competence and ability to make choices, and
of Young Children
5
they miss much of the joy and expansive learning
of childhood.34
Educators across the whole preschool-primary
spectrum have perspectives and strengths to bring
to a closer collaboration and ongoing dialogue. The
point of bringing the two worlds together is not for
children to learn primary grade skills at an earlier
age; it is for their teachers to take the first steps
together to ensure that young children develop and
learn, to be able to acquire such skills and under-
standings as they progress in school.
The growing knowledge base can shed light on
what an exchanging of best practices might look
like,35 as noted later in “Applying New Knowledge
to Critical Issues.” Through increased communi-

cation and collaboration, both worlds can learn
much that can contribute to improving the edu-
cational experiences of all young children and to
making those experiences more coherent.
Recognizing teacher knowledge and
decision making as vital to educational
effectiveness
The standards/accountability movement has led
to states and other stakeholders spelling out what
children should know and be able to do at vari-
ous grade levels. Swift improvement in student
achievement across all student subgroups has
been demanded. Under that mandate, many policy
makers and administrators understandably gravi-
tate toward tools and strategies intended to expe-
dite the education enterprise, including “teacher
proofing” curriculum, lessons, and schedules. As
a result, in some states and districts, teachers in
publicly funded early childhood settings report
that they are allowed far less scope in classroom
decision making than they were in the past,36 in
some cases getting little to no say in the selection
of curriculum and assessments or even in their use
of classroom time.
How much directing and scaffolding of teach-
ers’ work is helpful, and how much teacher auton-
omy is necessary to provide the best teaching and
learning for children? The answer undoubtedly
varies with differences among administrators and
teachers themselves and the contexts in which
they work.
A great many school administrators (elemen-
tary principals, superintendents, district staff) lack
a background in early childhood education, and

their limited knowledge of young children’s devel-
opment and learning means they are not always
aware of what is and is not good practice with chil-
dren at that age. Teachers who have studied how
young children learn and develop and effective
ways of teaching them are more likely to have this
specialized knowledge. Moreover, it is the teacher
who is in the classroom every day with children.
So it is the teacher (not administrators or curricu-
lum specialists) who is in the best position to know
the particular children in that classroom—their
interests and experiences, what they excel in and
what they struggle with, what they are eager and
ready to learn. Without this particular knowledge,
determining what is best for those children’s learn-
ing, as a group and individually, is impossible.
But it must be said that many teachers
themselves lack the current knowledge and skills
needed to provide high-quality care and education
to young children, at least in some components of
the curriculum. Many factors contribute, includ-
ing the lack of a standard entry-level credential,
wide variation in program settings and auspices,
low compensation, and high turnover.37 With work-
force parameters such as these, is it reasonable to
expect that every teacher in a classroom today is
capable of fully meeting the challenges of provid-
ing high-quality early care and education?
Expert decision making lies at the heart of
effective teaching. The acts of teaching and learn-
ing are too complex and individual to prescribe a
teacher’s every move in advance. Children benefit
most from teachers who have the skills, knowledge,
and judgment to make good decisions and are given
the opportunity to use them.
Recognizing that effective teachers are good

decision makers, however, does not mean that
they should be expected to make all decisions in
isolation. Teachers are not well served when they
are stranded without the resources, tools, and
supports necessary to make sound instructional
decisions, and of course children’s learning suffers
as well.
Ideally, well conceived standards or learning
goals (as described previously) are in place to
guide local schools and programs in choosing or
developing comprehensive, appropriate curricu-
lum. The curriculum framework is a starting place,
then teachers can use their expertise to make
adaptations as needed to optimize the fit with the
6
of Young Children
children. Further, such curricular guidance gives
teachers some direction in providing the materials,
learning experiences, and teaching strategies that
promote learning goals most effectively, allowing
them to focus on instructional decision making
without having to generate the entire curriculum
themselves.
Even well qualified teachers find it challenging
to create from scratch a comprehensive curricu-
lum that addresses all the required standards and
important learning goals, as well as designing the
assessment methods and learning experiences.
This daunting task is even less realistic for those
teachers with minimal preparation. Hence, there is

value in providing teachers a validated curriculum
framework and related professional development,
as long as teachers have the opportunity to make
individual adaptations for the diversity of children
they teach.38
That good teaching requires expert decision
making means that teachers need solid profes-
sional preparation, as well as ongoing professional
development and regular opportunities to work
collaboratively.39 Since this level of preparation
and training does not yet exist for many in the
early childhood workforce, the question of how
best to equip and support inadequately prepared
teachers needs serious investigation. Research on
critical factors in good teaching, as described in
the next section of this statement, has powerful
lessons to offer.
Applying new knowledge to critical issues
Fortunately, a continually expanding early child-
hood knowledge base enables the field to refine,
redirect, or confirm understandings of best prac-
tice. The whole of the present position statement
reflects fresh evidence of recent years and the
perspectives and priorities emerging from these
findings. This section looks within that mass of
new knowledge to a few lines of research specifi-
cally helpful in addressing the three critical issues
for the field identified in this position statement.
First, new findings hold promise for reduc-
ing learning gaps and barriers and increasing the
achievement of all children. More is now known
about which early social and emotional, cogni-

tive, physical, and academic competencies enable
young children to develop and learn to their full
potential. Such findings are useful in determining
curriculum content and sequences for all children.
But they are especially important in helping those
children most likely to begin school with lower
levels of the foundational skills needed to succeed
and most likely to fall farther behind with time—
among whom children of color, children growing
up in poverty, and English language learners are
overrepresented. Another key aspect is ensur-
ing that children who have learning difficulties
or disabilities receive the early intervention ser-
vices they need to learn and function well in the
classroom.
Research continues to confirm the greater effi-
cacy of early action—and in some cases, intensive
intervention—as compared with remediation and
other “too little” or “too late” approaches. Changing
young children’s experiences can substantially
affect their development and learning, especially
when intervention starts early in life and is not an
isolated action but a broad-gauged set of strate-
gies.40 For example, Early Head Start, a comprehen-
sive two-generational program for children under
age 3 and their families, has been shown to pro-
mote cognitive, language, and social and emotional
development.41 The success of Early Head Start
illustrates that high-quality services for infants
and toddlers—far too rare in the United States
today—have a long-lasting and positive impact
on children’s development, learning abilities, and
capacity to regulate their emotions.42
Although high-quality preschool programs

benefit children (particularly low-income children)
more than mediocre or poor programs do,43 fewer
children living in poverty get to attend high-quality
preschool programs than do children from higher-
income households.44 Findings on the impact of
teaching quality in the early grades show a similar
pattern.45 In addition to this relationship of overall
program and school quality to later school suc-
cess, research has identified a number of specific
predictors of later achievement. Some of these
predictors lie in language/literacy and mathemat-
ics; others are dimensions of social and emotional
competence and cognitive functioning related to
how children fare in school.
of Young Children
7
In the language and literacy domain, vocabu-
lary knowledge and other aspects of oral language
are particularly important predictors of children’s
reading comprehension.46 Even when children
with limited vocabulary manage to acquire basic
decoding skills, they still often encounter difficulty
around grade 3 or 4 when they begin needing to
read more advanced text in various subjects.47
Their vocabulary deficit impedes comprehension
and thus their acquisition of knowledge neces-
sary to succeed across the curriculum.48 Clearly,
children who hear little or no English in the home
would have even more initial difficulty with com-
prehension in English.

To shrink the achievement gap, then, early
childhood programs need to start early with pro-
active vocabulary development to bring young
children whose vocabulary and oral language
development is lagging—whatever the causes—
closer to the developmental trajectory typical of
children from educated, affluent families.49 For
these children to gain the vocabulary and the
advanced linguistic structures they will need for
elementary grade reading, their teachers need to
engage them in language interactions throughout
the day, including reading to them in small groups
and talking with them about the stories. Especially
rich in linguistic payoff is extended discourse; that
is, conversation between child and adult on a given
topic sustained over many exchanges.50
Compelling evidence has shown that young
children’s alphabet knowledge and phonological
awareness are significant predictors of their later
proficiency in reading and writing.51 A decade
ago, many preschool teachers did not perceive it
as their role—or even see it as appropriate—to
launch young children on early steps toward lit-
eracy, including familiarizing them with the world
of print and the sounds of language. The early
childhood profession now recognizes that gaining
literacy foundations is an important facet of chil-
dren’s experience before kindergarten,52 although
the early literacy component still needs substantial
improvement in many classrooms.
Like the teaching of early literacy, mathemat-
ics education in the early childhood years is
key to increasing all children’s school readiness
and to closing the achievement gap.53 Within the
mathematics arena, preschoolers’ knowledge of

numbers and their sequence, for example, strongly
predicts not only math learning but also literacy
skills.54 Yet mathematics typically gets very little
attention before kindergarten.55 One reason is that
early childhood teachers themselves often lack the
skills and confidence to substantially and effec-
tively increase their attention to mathematics in
the curriculum.56
Mathematics and literacy concepts and
skills—and, indeed, robust content across the
curriculum—can be taught to young children
in ways that are engaging and developmentally
appropriate.57 It can be, but too often isn’t; to
achieve such improvements will require consider-
able strengthening of early-years curriculum and
teaching. Failing to meet this challenge to improve
all children’s readiness and achievement will per-
petuate the inequities of achievement gaps and the
low performance of the U.S. student population as
a whole.
Besides specific predictors in areas such as
mathematics and literacy, another major thread in
recent research is that children’s social and emo-
tional competencies, as well as some capabilities
that cut across social and emotional and cognitive
functioning, predict their classroom functioning.
Of course, children’s social, emotional, and behav-
ioral adjustment is important in its own right, both
in and out of the classroom. But it now appears
that some variables in these domains also relate
to and predict school success. For example, stud-
ies have linked emotional competence to both
enhanced cognitive performance and academic
achievement.58 A number of factors in the emo-

tional and social domain, such as independence,
responsibility, self-regulation, and cooperation,
predict how well children make the transition to
school and how they fare in the early grades.59
A particularly powerful variable is self-regu-
lation, which the early childhood field has long
emphasized as a prime developmental goal for the
early years.60 Mounting research evidence confirms
this importance, indicating that self-regulation in
young children predicts their later functioning in
areas such as problem solving, planning, focused
attention, and metacognition, and thus contributes
to their success as learners.61 Moreover, help-
ing children from difficult life circumstances to
develop strong self-regulation has proven to be
both feasible and influential in preparing them to
succeed in school.62
The gains children make as a result of high-
quality programs for children under 6 have been
8
of Young Children
found to diminish in a few years if children do not
continue to experience high-quality education in
grades K–3.63 This consistent finding makes clear
the importance of improving quality and conti-
nuity all along the birth–8 continuum. As previ-
ously described, critical to developing a better
connected, more coherent preschool-elementary

framework is aligning standards, curriculum, and
assessment practices within that continuum.64
(Ideally, such a framework would extend to infant
and toddler care as well.)
Further, educators and researchers are begin-
ning to consider how to unite the most important
and effective elements of preschool education with
those of K–3.65 In this search for the “best of both
worlds,” policy makers and educators can look to
the expanding body of knowledge on the aspects of
early learning and development that enable children
to do well in school and the practices that should
be more prevalent across the entire preK–3 span.66
First, research evidence on the predictors of
successful outcomes for children (highlighted ear-
lier) suggests a number of learning goals and expe-
riences that in some form ought to be incorporated
across preK–3. These include, for example, robust
curriculum content; careful attention to known
learning sequences (in literacy, mathematics, sci-
ence, physical education, and other domains); and
emphasis on developing children’s self-regulation,
engagement, and focused attention. Also proven
to yield positive results for children are practices
familiar to early childhood educators, such as
relationship-based teaching and learning; partner-
ing with families; adapting teaching for children
from different backgrounds and for individual chil-
dren; active, meaningful, and connected learning;67
and smaller class sizes.68 Evidence of the benefits
of these practices suggests that they should be
extended more widely into the elementary grades.
A second source of knowledge about effec-
tively connecting education across the preschool-
grade 3 span comes from educational innovations

now being piloted. Schools that encompass these
grades and thoughtfully consider how to increase
continuity, alignment, and coherence are emerging
around the country, and some are being studied by
researchers.69
Expansion of P–16 or P–20 commissions
around the country, although not yet giving much
attention to prekindergarten,70 provides one
vehicle for the conversations about continuity that
need to take place. While there are entrenched
practices and structures separating preschool
and K–3 education, the current forces noted here
provide considerable impetus and opportunity
to achieve stronger, more coordinated preK–3
education.
The importance of teachers to high-quality
early education, indeed to all of education, cannot
be overemphasized. Although wise administrative
and curricular decisions made upstream from the
individual teacher significantly affect what goes
on in the classroom, they are far from ensuring
children’s learning. Research indicates that the
most powerful influences on whether and what
children learn occur in the teacher’s interactions
with them, in the real-time decisions the teacher
makes throughout the day.71 Thus, no educational
strategy that fails to recognize the centrality of the
teacher’s decisions and actions can be successful.
It is the teacher’s classroom plans and orga-
nization, sensitivity and responsiveness to all
the children, and moment-to-moment interac-
tions with them that have the greatest impact on
children’s development and learning.72 The way
teachers design learning experiences, how they

engage children and respond to them, how they
adapt their teaching and interactions to children’s
background, the feedback they give—these matter
greatly in children’s learning. And none can be fully
determined in advance and laid out in a curriculum
product or set of lesson plans that every teacher
is to follow without deviation. Teachers will always
have moment-to-moment decisions to make.
To make these decisions with well-grounded
intentionality, teachers need to have knowledge
about child development and learning in general,
about the individual children in their classrooms,
and about the sequences in which a domain’s spe-
cific concepts and skills are learned. Teachers also
need to have at the ready a well developed reper-
toire of teaching strategies to employ for different
purposes.73
Directly following from this first lesson is a
second: the imperative to make developing teacher
quality and effectiveness a top priority. This invest-
ment must include excellent preservice prepara-
tion, ongoing professional development, and on-
the-ground support and mentoring. For example,
good curriculum resources are helpful when they
specify the key skills and concepts for children
and provide a degree of teaching guidance, but
of Young Children
9
without overscripting. New or inadequately trained

teachers and those encountering a new curriculum
or set of standards may be particularly in need of
such scaffolding.74
Another valuable form of scaffolding for
teachers is interaction with mentors and peers.
Meeting the needs of diverse learners and helping
all children to develop and learn require significant
time for teachers to collaborate with colleagues,
discuss and observe best practices, and partici-
pate in meaningful professional development. Most
teachers, including novice teachers, get too little
time for such activities. While providing time and
opportunity for teachers to do these things can be
very challenging for administrators, it is critical.75
To act on this second “lesson”—the impera-
tive to make teaching quality and effectiveness
a top priority—means changing what happens
in the classroom. But it also means establishing
policies and committing public funds at the fed-
eral, state, and local levels, as described in “Policy
Considerations,” the concluding section of this
position statement.
Core considerations in developmentally appropriate practice
Every day, early childhood practitioners make a
great many decisions, both long-term and short-
term. As they do so, they need to keep in mind
the identified goals for children’s learning and
development and be intentional in helping children
achieve these goals. The core of developmentally
appropriate practice lies in this intentionality, in
the knowledge that practitioners consider when
they are making decisions, and in their always aim-

ing for goals that are both challenging and achiev-
able for children.
Knowledge to consider in making
decisions
In all aspects of their work with children, early
childhood practitioners must consider these three
areas of knowledge:
1. What is known about child development
and learning—referring to knowledge of
age-related characteristics that permits gen-
eral predictions about what experiences are
likely to best promote children’s learning
and development.
Teachers who are knowledgeable about child
development and learning are able to make broad
predictions about what children of a particular age
group typically will be like, what they typically will
and will not be capable of, and what strategies and
approaches will most likely promote their optimal
learning and development. With this knowledge,
teachers can make preliminary decisions with some
confidence about environment, materials, interac-
tions, and activities. At the same time, their knowl-
edge also tells them that specific groups of children
and the individual children in any group always will
be the same in some ways but different in others.
2. What is known about each child as an
individual—referring to what practitioners
learn about each child that has implications
for how best to adapt and be responsive to
that individual variation.

To be effective, teachers must get to know
each child in the group well. They do this using a
variety of methods—such as observation, clinical
interview (an extended dialogue in which the adult
seeks to discern the child’s concepts or strategies),
examination of children’s work, individual child
assessments, and talking with families. From the
information and insights gathered, teachers make
plans and adjustments to promote each child’s
individual development and learning as fully as
possible. Developmental variation among children
is the norm, and any one child’s progress also will
vary across domains and disciplines, contexts, and
time. Children differ in many other respects, too—
including in their strengths, interests, and prefer-
ences; personalities and approaches to learning;
and knowledge, skills, and abilities based on prior
experiences. Children may also have special learn-
ing needs; sometimes these have been diagnosed
and sometimes they have not. Among the factors
that teachers need to consider as they seek to opti-
mize a child’s school adjustment and learning are
circumstances such as living in poverty or home-
lessness, having to move frequently, and other
challenging situations. Responding to each child
as an individual is fundamental to developmentally
appropriate practice.
10
of Young Children

3. What is known about the social and
cultural contexts in which children live—
referring to the values, expectations, and
behavioral and linguistic conventions that
shape children’s lives at home and in their
communities that practitioners must strive to
understand in order to ensure that learning
experiences in the program or school are
meaningful, relevant, and respectful for each
child and family.
As we grow up in a family and in a broader
social and cultural community, we all come to
certain understandings about what our group
considers appropriate, values, expects, admires.
We learn this through direct teaching from our
parents and other important people in our lives
and through observing those around us. Among
these understandings, we absorb “rules” about
behaviors—such as how to show respect, how to
interact with people we know well and those we
have just met, how to regard time and personal
space, how to dress, and countless other attitudes
and actions. We typically absorb these rules very
early and very deeply, so we live by them with little
conscious thought. When young children are in a
group setting outside the home, what makes sense
to them, how they use language to interact, and
how they experience this new world depend on
the social and cultural contexts to which they are
accustomed. A skilled teacher takes such contex-
tual factors into account, along with the children’s
ages and their individual differences, in shaping all
aspects of the learning environment.
To recap this decision-making process: An effec-
tive teacher begins by thinking about what children

of the age and developmental status represented
in the group are typically like. This knowledge
provides a general idea of the activities, routines,
interactions, and curriculum that will be effective
with that group. The teacher also must consider
each child, including looking at the child as an
individual and within the context of family, com-
munity, culture, linguistic norms, social group, past
experience (including learning and behavior), and
current circumstances. Only then can the teacher
see children as they are to make decisions that are
developmentally appropriate for each of them.
Challenging and achievable goals
Meeting children where they are is essential, but
no good teacher simply leaves them there. Keeping
in mind desired goals and what is known about the
children as a group and individually, the teacher
plans experiences to promote children’s learning
and development.
Learning and development are most likely to
occur when new experiences build on what a child
already knows and is able to do and when those
learning experiences also entail the child stretch-
ing a reasonable amount in acquiring new skills,
abilities, or knowledge. After the child reaches that
new level of mastery in skill or understanding, the
teacher reflects on what goals should come next;
and the cycle continues, advancing children’s
learning in a developmentally appropriate way.
Clearly, such effective teaching does not hap-
pen by chance. A hallmark of developmentally
appropriate teaching is intentionality. Good teach-
ers are intentional in everything they do—setting
up the classroom, planning curriculum, making

use of various teaching strategies, assessing chil-
dren, interacting with them, and working with their
families. Intentional teachers are purposeful and
thoughtful about the actions they take, and they
direct their teaching toward the goals the program
is trying to help children reach.
Principles of child development and learning that inform
practice
Developmentally appropriate practice as defined
in this position statement is not based on what
we think might be true or what we want to believe
about young children. Developmentally appropri-
ate practice is informed by what we know from
theory and literature about how children develop
and learn. In particular, a review of that literature
yields a number of well supported generalizations,
or principles.
No linear listing of principles—including the
one below—can do justice to the complexity of the
phenomenon that is child development and learn-
ing. While the list is comprehensive, it certainly is
not all-inclusive. Each principle describes an indi-
vidually contributing factor; but just as all domains
of development and learning are interrelated, so
too do the principles interconnect. For example,
the influence of cultural differences and individual
of Young Children
11

differences, each highlighted in a separate princi-
ple below, cuts across all the other principles. That
is, the implication of any principle often differs as a
function of cultural or individual givens.
A complete discussion of the knowledge base
that informs developmentally appropriate practice
is clearly beyond the scope of this document. Each
of the principles rests on a very extensive research
base that is only partially referenced here.76
All the limitations of such a list not withstand-
ing, collectively the principles that follow form
a solid basis for decision making—for decisions
at all levels about how best to meet the needs
of young children in general, and for decisions
by teachers, programs, and families about the
strengths and needs of individual children, with all
their variations in prior experiences, abilities and
talents, home language and English proficiency,
personalities and temperaments, and community
and cultural backgrounds.
All the domains of development and
learning—physical, social and emotional,
and cognitive—are important, and they are
closely interrelated. Children’s develop-
ment and learning in one domain influence
and are influenced by what takes place in
other domains.
Children are thinking, moving, feeling, and
interacting human beings. To teach them well
involves considering and fostering their develop-
ment and learning in all domains.77 Because this
full spectrum of development and learning is
fundamental to children’s lives and to their future

participation as members of society, early care and
education must address all the domains.
Further, changes in one domain often facilitate
or limit development in other areas.78 For example,
when children begin to crawl or walk, they gain
new possibilities for exploring the world, and their
mobility affects both their cognitive development
and sense of autonomy. Likewise, children’s lan-
guage development influences their ability to par-
ticipate in social interaction with adults and other
children; such interactions, in turn, support their
further language development.79 A growing body
of work demonstrates the relationship between
emotional and social factors and children’s aca-
demic competence80 and thus the importance of all
these areas in educating young children. In brief,
the knowledge base documents the importance of
a comprehensive curriculum and the interrelated-
ness of the developmental domains in children’s
well-being and success.
Many aspects of children’s learning and
development follow well documented
sequences, with later abilities, skills, and
knowledge building on those already
acquired.
Human development research suggests that
relatively stable, predictable sequences of growth
and change occur in children during the first nine
years of life.81 Predictable changes occur in all
domains of development, although the ways that
these changes are manifested and the meaning
attached to them may vary widely in different cul-
tural and linguistic contexts.82 Knowledge of how

children within a given age span typically develop
and learn provides a general framework to guide
teachers in preparing the learning environment,
considering curriculum, designing learning experi-
ences, and teaching and interacting with children.
Also important for educators to know are the
sequences in which children gain specific con-
cepts, skills, and abilities, building on prior devel -
opment and learning. In mathematics, for example,
children’s learning to count serves as an important
foundation for their acquiring an understanding
of numerals.83 Familiarity with known learning
sequences should inform curriculum development
and teaching practice.
Development and learning proceed at
varying rates from child to child, as well
as at uneven rates across different areas of
a child’s individual functioning.
Individual variation has at least two dimen-
sions: the inevitable variability around the
typical or normative course of development and
the uniqueness of each child as an individual.
Children’s development follows individual pat-
terns and timing; children also vary in tempera-
ment, personality, and aptitudes, as well as in what
they learn in their family and within the social
and cultural context or contexts that shape their
experience.
All children have their own strengths, needs,
and interests. Given the enormous variation among
children of the same chronological age, a child’s
age is only a crude index of developmental abili-
ties and interests. For children who have special
learning needs or abilities, additional efforts and

resources may be necessary to optimize their
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of Young Children
development and learning. The same is true when
children’s prior experiences do not give them the
knowledge and skills they need to thrive in a spe-
cific learning environment.
Given this normal range of variation, decisions
about curriculum, teaching, and interactions with
children should be as individualized as possible.
Rigid expectations of group norms do not reflect
what is known about real differences in develop-
ment and learning. At the same time, having high
expectations for all children is essential, as is using
the strategies and providing the resources neces-
sary to help them meet these expectations.
Development and learning result from a
dynamic and continuous interaction of
biological maturation and experience.
Development is the result of the interplay
between the growing, changing child and the
child’s experiences in the social and physical

worlds.84 For example, a child’s genetic makeup
may predict healthy growth, but inadequate nutri-
tion in the early years of life will keep this potential
from being fulfilled. Conversely, the impact of an
organic condition on a young child’s learning and
development can be minimized through system-
atic, individualized intervention. Likewise, a child’s
innate temperament—such as a predisposition to
be either wary or outgoing—shapes and is shaped
by how other children and adults interact with
that child. In light of the power of biology and the
effects of children’s prior experiences, it is impor-
tant for early childhood educators to maintain high
expectations and employ all their knowledge, inge-
nuity, and persistence to find ways to help every
child succeed.
Early experiences have profound effects,
both cumulative and delayed, on a child’s
development and learning; and optimal
periods exist for certain types of develop-
ment and learning to occur.
Children’s early experiences, whether positive
or negative, are cumulative. For example, a child’s
social experiences with other children in the pre-
school years may help him develop social skills
and confidence that enable him or her to make
friends in subsequent years, and these experiences
further enhance the child’s social competence
and academic achievement. Conversely, children
who fail to develop minimal social skills and thus
suffer neglect or rejection from peers are at risk
for later outcomes such as school dropout, delin-
quency, and mental health problems.85 Similarly,

early stimulation promotes brain development and
the forming of neural connections, which in turn
enable further development and learning. But if
the very young child does not get this stimulation,
he is less able to benefit from subsequent learning
opportunities, and a cumulative disadvantage is
set in motion.
Intervention and support are more successful
the earlier a problem is addressed. Prevention of
reading difficulties, for example, is far less difficul t
and expensive than remediation.86 In addition, the
literature shows that some aspects of develop-
ment occur most efficiently at certain points in the
life span. The first three years of life, for example,
appear to be an optimal period for oral language
development.87 Ensuring that children get the
needed environmental inputs and supports for a
particular kind of learning and development at its
“prime time” is always the most reliable route to
desired results.
Development proceeds toward greater
complexity, self-regulation, and symbolic
or representational capacities.
A pervasive characteristic of development is
that children’s functioning becomes increasingly
complex—in language, social interaction, physical
movement, problem solving, and virtually every
other domain. Increased organization and memory
capacity of the developing brain make it possible
with age for children to combine simple routines
into more complex strategies.88 The younger the
child, the more she or he tends to think concretely
and in the here and now. Yet in some ways, young
children’s thinking can be quite abstract. For exam-

ple, preschoolers know that adding always makes
more and subtracting makes less, and they are able
to grasp abstract ideas about counting objects
such as the one-to-one principle.89
All young humans must negotiate the transi-
tion from total dependence on others at birth to
competence and internal control, including learn-
ing to regulate their emotions, behaviors, and
attention. For young infants, there are tasks such
as learning to soothe themselves from arousal to
a settled state. A few years later, self-regulation
means developing the capacity to manage strong
emotions and keep one’s attention focused.
Throughout the early years, adults play significant
roles in helping children learn to self-regulate.
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5
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13
Caregivers are important in helping very young
children to modulate their emotional arousal; for
example, soothing babies and then helping them
learn to soothe themselves.90 In the preschool
years, teachers can help children develop self-
regulation by scaffolding high-level dramatic play,91

helping children learn to express their emotions,
and engaging children in planning and decision
making.92
During the early years of life, children move
from sensory or behavioral responses to symbolic
or representational knowledge.93 For example,
young children are able to navigate their homes
and other familiar settings by recall and sensory
cues, but later they come to understand and can
use abstractions such as left and right or read a
map of the house. It is around age 2 that children
begin to represent and reconstruct their experi-
ences and knowledge.94 For example, children may
use one object to stand for another in play, such as
a block for a phone or a spatula for a guitar.95 Their
ability to use various modes and media to convey
their meaning increases in range and scope. By the
preschool years, these modes may include oral
language, gestures and body movement, visual arts
(drawing, painting, sculpting), construction, dra-
matic play, and writing. Their efforts to represent
their ideas and concepts in any of these modes
enhance the knowledge itself.96
Children develop best when they have
secure, consistent relationships with
responsive adults and opportunities for
positive relationships with peers.
From the earliest years of life, warm, nurturing
relationships with responsive adults are neces-
sary for many key areas of children’s development,
including empathy and cooperation, self-regulation
and cultural socialization, language and communi-
cation, peer relationships, and identity formation.97

When children and caring adults have the
opportunity to get to know each other well, they
learn to predict each other’s signals and behavior
and establish attunement and trust.98 The first and
most important relationships are those a child
forms with parents or other primary caregivers.
Forming one or more such attachments sets the
stage for other relationships, as children move
into the wider world beyond their immediate
family.99 Young children benefit from opportuni-
ties to develop ongoing, trusting relationships
with adults outside the family and with other
children. Notably, positive teacher-child relation-
ships promote children’s learning and achieve-
ment, as well as social competence and emotional
development.100
Nurturing relationships are vital in fostering
high self-esteem and a strong sense of self-efficacy,
capacity in resolving interpersonal conflicts coop-
eratively, and the sociability to connect with oth-
ers and form friendships. Further, by providing
positive models and the security and confidence to
try new experiences and attempt new skills, such
relationships support children’s learning and the
acquisition of numerous capabilities.101
Development and learning occur in and
are influenced by multiple social and cul-
tural contexts.
Understanding children’s development
requires viewing each child within the sociocul-
tural context of that child’s family, educational set-

ting, and community, as well as within the broader
society.102 These various contexts are interrelated,
and all powerfully influence the developing child.
For example, even a child in a loving, support-
ive family within a strong, healthy community is
affected by the biases of the larger society, such as
racism or sexism, and may show some effects of its
negative stereotyping and discrimination.
Here culture is intended to refer to the custom-
ary beliefs and patterns of behavior, both explicit
and implicit, that are inculcated by the society—or
by a social, religious, or ethnic group within the
society—in its members. Even though culture is
discussed often in the context of diversity and
immigrant or minority groups, all of us are mem-
bers of cultures and are powerfully influenced by
them. Every culture structures and interprets chil-
dren’s behavior and development in its own way.103
Early childhood teachers need to understand the
influence of sociocultural contexts and family
circumstances on learning, recognize children’s
developing competencies, and be familiar with the
variety of ways that children may demonstrate
their developmental achievements.104 Most impor-
tantly, educators need to be sensitive to how their
own cultural experience shapes their perspective
and to realize that multiple perspectives, not just
their own, must be considered in decisions about
children’s development and learning.
As children grow up, they need to learn to
function well in the society and in the increasingly
global economy and to move comfortably among
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10
groups of people from backgrounds both similar
and dissimilar to their own. Fortunately, children
are capable of learning to function in more than
one social or cultural context and to make behav-
ioral or linguistic shifts as they move from one con-
text to another, although this complex ability does
not occur overnight and requires adult support.
Acquiring a new language or the ability to operate
in a new culture can and should be an additive pro-
cess, rather than causing the displacement of the
child’s first language and culture.105 For example,
immigrant children are able to develop English
proficiency without having to give up their home
language, and it is important that they retain their
fluency in the language of their family and com-
munity. Likewise, children who speak only English
benefit from learning another language and can do
so without sacrificing their English proficiency.106
Always mentally active in seeking to
understand the world around them, chil-
dren learn in a variety of ways; a wide
range of teaching strategies and interac-
tions are effective in supporting all these
kinds of learning.

Several prominent theories and bodies of
research view cognitive development from the
constructivist, interactive perspective.107 That is,
young children construct their knowledge and
understanding of the world in the course of their
own experiences, as well as from teachers, fam-
ily members, peers and older children, and from
books and other media. They learn from the con-
crete (e.g., manipulatives); they also apparently
are capable of and interested in abstract ideas, to a
far greater degree than was previously believed.108
Children take all this input and work out their own
understandings and hypotheses about the world.
They try these out through interactions with
adults and other children, physical manipulation,
play, and their own thought processes—observing
what happens, reflecting on their findings, imagin-
ing possibilities, asking questions, and formulating
answers. When children make knowledge their own
in these ways, their understanding is deeper and
they can better transfer and apply their learning in
new contexts.109
Using multiple teaching strategies is important
in meeting children’s different learning needs. The
Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers report
concluded:
Good teachers acknowledge and encourage chil-
dren’s efforts, model and demonstrate, create
challenges and support children in extending their
capabilities, and provide specific directions or
instruction. All of these teaching strategies can be
used in the context of play and structured activi-
ties. Effective teachers also organize the classroom
environment and plan ways to pursue educational

goals for each child as opportunities arise in child-
initiated activities and in activities planned and
initiated by the teacher.110
Thus, children benefit when teachers have at
their disposal a wide range of teaching strategies
and from these teachers select the best strategy to
use in a situation, depending on the learning goal,
specific context, and needs of individual children
at that moment, including children who may need
much more support than others even in explora-
tion and play.111
Play is an important vehicle for devel-
oping self-regulation as well as for pro-
moting language, cognition, and social
competence.
Children of all ages love to play, and it gives
them opportunities to develop physical compe-
tence and enjoyment of the outdoors, understand
and make sense of their world, interact with
others, express and control emotions, develop
their symbolic and problem-solving abilities, and
practice emerging skills. Research shows the links
between play and foundational capacities such as
memory, self-regulation, oral language abilities,
social skills, and success in school.112
Children engage in various kinds of play, such
as physical play, object play, pretend or dramatic
play, constructive play, and games with rules.
Observed in all young animals, play apparently
serves important physical, mental, emotional, and
social functions for humans and other species, and
each kind of play has its own benefits and charac-

teristics. From infancy, children act on the world
around them for the pleasure of seeing what hap-
pens; for example, repeatedly dropping a spoon
on the floor or pulling the cat’s tail. At around age
2, children begin to demonstrate symbolic use of
objects—for instance, picking up a shell and pre-
tending to drink as from a cup—at least when they
have had opportunities to observe others engaging
in such make-believe behavior.113
From such beginnings, children begin to
engage in more mature forms of dramatic play, in
which by the age of 3–5 they may act out specific
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11
roles, interact with one another in their roles, and
plan how the play will go. Such play is influential
in developing self-regulation, as children are highly
motivated to stick to the roles and rules of the
play, and thus grow in the ability to inhibit their
impulses, act in coordination with others, and
make plans.114 High-level dramatic play produces
documented cognitive, social, and emotional ben-
efits.115 However, with children spending more time
in adult-directed activities and media use, forms of

child play characterized by imagination and rich
social interactions seem to be declining.116 Active
scaffolding of imaginative play is needed in early
childhood settings if children are to develop the
sustained, mature dramatic play that contributes
significantly to their self-regulation and other
cognitive, linguistic, social, and emotional ben-
efits. Adults can use proven methods to promote
children’s extended engagement in make-believe
play as well as in games with rules and other kinds
of high-level play.117 Rather than detracting from
academic learning, play appears to support the
abilities that underlie such learning and thus to
promote school success.118
Development and learning advance when
children are challenged to achieve at a
level just beyond their current mastery,
and also when they have many opportuni-
ties to practice newly acquired skills.
Human beings, especially children, are moti-
vated to understand or do what is just beyond
their current understanding or mastery.119 Effective
teachers create a rich learning environment to acti-
vate that motivation, and they make use of strate-
gies to promote children’s undertaking and mas-
tering of new and progressively more advanced
challenges.120
In a task just beyond a child’s independent
reach, adults and more-competent peers contrib-
ute significantly to the child’s development by
providing the support or assistance that allows the
child to succeed at that task. Once children make
this stretch to a new level in a supportive context,

they can go on to use the skill independently and
in a variety of contexts, laying the foundation for
the next challenge. Provision of such support,
often called scaffolding,121 is a key feature of effec-
tive teaching.122
At the same time, children need to be success-
ful in new tasks a significant proportion of the time
in order for their motivation and persistence to be
maintained.123 Confronted by repeated failure, most
children will simply stop trying. Repeated oppor-
tunity to practice and consolidate new skills and
concepts is also essential in order for children to
reach the threshold of mastery at which they can
go on to use this knowledge or skill and apply it in
new situations. Young children engage in a great
deal of practice during play and in other child-
guided contexts.124
To set challenging, achievable goals for chil-
dren and to provide the right amount and type of
scaffolding require knowledge of child develop-
ment and learning, including familiarity with the
paths and sequences that children are known to
follow in acquiring specific skills, concepts, and
abilities. This general knowledge, along with what
the teacher learns from close observation and
probing of the individual child’s thinking, is critical
to matching curriculum and teaching experiences
to that child’s emerging competencies so as to be
challenging but not frustrating.
Children’s experiences shape their moti-
vation and approaches to learning, such
as persistence, initiative, and flexibility;

in turn, these dispositions and behaviors
affect their learning and development.
The National Education Goals Panel and its
Goal One Technical Planning Group identified
“approaches to learning” as one of five aspects
of school readiness.125 Focused on the how rather
than the what of learning, approaches to learning
involve both children’s feelings about learning
(including their interest, pleasure, and motivation
to learn) and children’s behavior when learning
(including attention, persistence, flexibility, and
self-regulation).126
Even in the early years, children differ in
their approaches to learning. These differences
may influence children’s school readiness and
school success. For example, children who start
school more eager to learn tend to do better in
reading and mathematics than do less motivated
children.127 Children with more positive learning
behaviors, such as initiative, attention, and per-
sistence, later develop stronger language skills.128
Moreover, children with greater self-regulation and
other “learning-related skills” in kindergarten are
more skilled in reading and mathematics in later
grades.129
Although temperament and other inherent dif-
ferences may affect children’s approaches to learn-
16

of Young Children
ing, their experiences in families and early educa-
tion programs have a major influence. Programs
can implement evidence-based strategies that will
promote positive approaches to learning. These
strategies include strengthening relationships
with children; working with families; and selecting
effective curriculum, assessments, and teaching
methods.130
Guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice
Practice that promotes young children’s optimal
learning and development—what this statement
terms developmentally appropriate practice—is
grounded both in the research on child develop-
ment and learning and in the knowledge base
regarding educational effectiveness in early care
and education.
But whether or not what actually happens
in the classroom is, in practice, developmentally
appropriate is the result of myriad decisions at all
levels—by policy makers, administrators, teachers,
and families about the care and education of young
children. Effective early childhood professionals
draw on all the principles of child development
and learning outlined, as well as the knowledge
base on effective practices, and they apply the
information in their practice.
The following guidelines address decisions
that early childhood professionals make in the five
key (and interrelated) areas of practice: (1) creat-
ing a caring community of learners, (2) teaching to
enhance development and learning, (3) planning
curriculum to achieve important goals, (4) assess-

ing children’s development and learning, and (5)
establishing reciprocal relationships with families.
1Creating a caring community of learners
Because early childhood settings tend to be chil-
dren’s first communities outside the home, the
character of these communities is very influential
in development. How children expect to be treated
and how they treat others is significantly shaped
in the early childhood setting. In developmentally
appropriate practice, practitioners create and
foster a “community of learners” that supports
all children to develop and learn. The role of the
community is to provide a physical, emotional, and
cognitive environment conducive to that develop-
ment and learning. The foundation for the com-
munity is consistent, positive, caring relationships
between the adults and children, among children,
among teachers, and between teachers and fami-
lies. It is the responsibility of all members of the
learning community to consider and contribute to
one another’s well-being and learning.
To create a caring community of learners,
practitioners ensure that the following occur for
children from birth through the primary grades.
A. Each member of the community is valued
by the others. By observing and participat-
ing in the community, children learn about
themselves and their world and also how to
develop positive, constructive relationships
with other people. Each child has unique
strengths, interests, and perspectives to
contribute. Children learn to respect and
acknowledge differences of all kinds and to

value each person.
B. Relationships are an important context
through which children develop and learn.
Children construct their understandings
about the world around them through inter-
actions with other members of the commu-
nity (both adults and peers). Opportunities
to play together, collaborate on investiga-
tions and projects, and talk with peers and
adults enhance children’s development
and learning. Interacting in small groups
provides a context for children to extend
their thinking, build on one another’s ideas,
and cooperate to solve problems. (Also
see guideline 5, “Establishing Reciprocal
Relationships with Families.”)
C. Each member of the community respects
and is accountable to the others to behave
in a way that is conducive to the learning
and well-being of all.
1. Teachers help children develop
responsibility and self-regulation.
Recognizing that such abilities and
behaviors develop with experience and
time, teachers consider how to foster
such development in their interactions
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17

with each child and in their curriculum
planning.
2. Teachers are responsible at all times
for all children under their supervision,
monitoring, anticipating, preventing,
and redirecting behaviors not conducive
to learning or disrespectful of the com-
munity, as well as teaching prosocial
behaviors.
3. Teachers set clear and reasonable
limits on children’s behavior and apply
those limits consistently. Teachers help
children be accountable to themselves
and to others for their behavior. In the
case of preschool and older children,
teachers engage children in developing
their own community rules for behavior.
4. Teachers listen to and acknowledge
children’s feelings and frustrations,
respond with respect in ways that chil-
dren can understand, guide children
to resolve conflicts, and model skills
that help children to solve their own
problems.
5. Teachers themselves demonstrate
high levels of responsibility and self-
regulation in their interactions with other
adults (colleagues, family members) and
with children.
D. Practitioners design and maintain the physi-

cal environment to protect the health and
safety of the learning community members,
specifically in support of young children’s
physiological needs for activity, sensory
stimulation, fresh air, rest, and nourishment.
The daily schedule provides a balance of
rest and active movement. Outdoor experi-
ences, including opportunities to interact
with the natural world, are provided for
children of all ages.
E. Practitioners ensure members of the com-
munity feel psychologically safe. The overall
social and emotional climate is positive.
1. Interactions among community mem-
bers (administrators, teachers, families,
children), as well as the experiences
provided by teachers, leave participants
feeling secure, relaxed, and comfortable
rather than disengaged, frightened, wor-
ried, or unduly stressed.
2. Teachers foster in children an enjoy-
ment of and engagement in learning.
3. Teachers ensure that the environment
is organized and the schedule follows
an orderly routine that provides a stable
structure within which development
and learning can take place. While the
environment’s elements are dynamic and
changing, overall it still is predictable
and comprehensible from a child’s point
of view.

4. Children hear and see their home
language and culture reflected in the
daily interactions and activities of the
classroom.
2Teaching to enhance development and learning
From birth, a child’s relationships and interactions
with adults are critical determinants of develop-
ment and learning. At the same time, children are
active constructors of their own understanding
of the world around them; as such, they benefit
from initiating and regulating their own learn-
ing activities and from interacting with peers.
Developmentally appropriate teaching practices
provide an optimal balance of adult-guided and
child-guided experiences. “Adult-guided experience
proceeds primarily along the lines of the teacher’s
goals, but is also shaped by the children’s active
engagement; child-guided experience proceeds
primarily along the lines of children’s interests
and actions, with strategic teacher support.”131 But
whether a learning experience is adult- or child-
guided, in developmentally appropriate practice it
is the teacher who takes responsibility for stimu-
lating, directing, and supporting children’s devel-
opment and learning by providing the experiences
that each child needs.
The following describe teaching practices that
are developmentally appropriate for young chil-
dren from birth through the primary grades.
A. Teachers are responsible for fostering the
caring learning community through their
teaching.
B. Teachers make it a priority to know each

child well, and also the people most signifi-
cant in the child’s life.
1. Teachers establish positive, personal
18
of Young Children
relationships with each child and with
each child’s family to better understand
that child’s individual needs, interests,
and abilities and that family’s goals, val-
ues, expectations, and childrearing prac-
tices. (Also see guideline 5, “Establishing
Reciprocal Relationships with Families.”)
Teachers talk with each child and family
(with a community translator, if neces-
sary, for mutual understanding) and use
what they learn to adapt their actions
and planning.
2. Teachers continually gather informa-
tion about children in a variety of ways
and monitor each child’s learning and
development to make plans to help
children progress. (Also see guideline 4,
“Assessing Children’s Development and
Learning.”)
3. Teachers are alert to signs of undue
stress and traumatic events in each
child’s life and employ strategies to

reduce stress and support the develop-
ment of resilience.
C. Teachers take responsibility for knowing
what the desired goals for the program
are and how the program’s curriculum is
intended to achieve those goals. They carry
out that curriculum through their teaching
in ways that are geared to young children
in general and these children in particular.
Doing this includes following the predict-
able sequences in which children acquire
specific concepts, skills, and abilities and
by building on prior experiences and under-
standings. (Also see guideline 3, “Planning
Curriculum to Achieve Important Goals.”)
D. Teachers plan for learning experiences that
effectively implement a comprehensive
curriculum so that children attain key goals
across the domains (physical, social, emo-
tional, cognitive) and across the disciplines
(language literacy, including English acquisi-
tion, mathematics, social studies, science,
art, music, physical education, and health).
E. Teachers plan the environment, schedule,
and daily activities to promote each child’s
learning and development.
1. Teachers arrange firsthand, meaningful
experiences that are intellectually and
creatively stimulating, invite exploration
and investigation, and engage children’s
active, sustained involvement. They do

this by providing a rich variety of materi-
als, challenges, and ideas that are worthy
of children’s attention.
2. Teachers present children with oppor-
tunities to make meaningful choices,
especially in child-choice activity peri-
ods. They assist and guide children who
are not yet able to enjoy and make good
use of such periods.
3. Teachers organize the daily and
weekly schedule to provide children
with extended blocks of time in which to
engage in sustained play, investigation,
exploration, and interaction (with adults
and peers).
4. Teachers provide experiences, materi-
als, and interactions to enable children
to engage in play that allows them to
stretch their boundaries to the fullest in
their imagination, language, interaction,
and self-regulation as well as to practice
their newly acquired skills.
F. Teachers possess an extensive repertoire of
skills and strategies they are able to draw
on, and they know how and when to choose
among them, to effectively promote each
child’s learning and development at that
moment. Those skills include the ability to
adapt curriculum, activities, and materials
to ensure full participation of all children.
Those strategies include, but are not lim-
ited to, acknowledging, encouraging, giving

specific feedback, modeling, demonstrating,
adding challenge, giving cues or other assis-
tance, providing information, and giving
directions.
1. To help children develop initiative,
teachers encourage them to choose and
plan their own learning activities.
2. To stimulate children’s thinking and
extend their learning, teachers pose
problems, ask questions, and make com-
ments and suggestions.
3. To extend the range of children’s
interests and the scope of their thought,
teachers present novel experiences and
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19
introduce stimulating ideas, problems,
experiences, or hypotheses.
4. To adjust the complexity and challenge
of activities to suit children’s level of skill
and knowledge, teachers increase the
challenge as children gain competence
and understanding.
5. To strengthen children’s sense of
competence and confidence as learners,

motivation to persist, and willingness to
take risks, teachers provide experiences
for children to be genuinely successful
and to be challenged.
6. To enhance children’s conceptual
understanding, teachers use various
strategies, including intensive inter-
view and conversation, that encourage
children to reflect on and “revisit” their
experiences.
7. To encourage and foster children’s
learning and development, teachers
avoid generic praise (“Good job!”) and
instead give specific feedback (“You got
the same number when you counted the
beans again!”).
G. Teachers know how and when to scaffold
children’s learning—that is, providing just
enough assistance to enable each child to
perform at a skill level just beyond what
the child can do on his or her own, then
gradually reducing the support as the child
begins to master the skill, and setting the
stage for the next challenge.
1. Teachers recognize and respond to the
reality that in any group, children’s skills
will vary and they will need different lev-
els of support. Teachers also know that
any one child’s level of skill and need for
support will vary over time.
2. Scaffolding can take a variety of forms;

for example, giving the child a hint, add-
ing a cue, modeling the skill, or adapting
the materials and activities. It can be
provided in a variety of contexts, not
only in planned learning experiences but
also in play, daily routines, and outdoor
activities.
3. Teachers can provide the scaffold-
ing (e.g., the teacher models the skill)
or peers can (e.g., the child’s learn-
ing buddy models); in either case, it is
the teacher who recognizes and plans
for each child’s need for support and
assistance.
H. Teachers know how and when to use the
various learning formats/contexts most
strategically.
1. Teachers understand that each major
learning format or context (e.g., large
group, small group, learning center,
routine) has its own characteristics, func-
tions, and value.
2. Teachers think carefully about which
learning format is best for helping chil-
dren achieve a desired goal, given the
children’s ages, development, abilities,
temperaments, etc.
I. When children have missed some of the
learning opportunities necessary for school
success (most often children from low-

income households), programs and teach-
ers provide them with even more extended,
enriched, and intensive learning experi-
ences than are provided to their peers.
1. Teachers take care not to place these
children under added pressure. Such
pressure on children already starting
out at a disadvantage can make school a
frustrating and discouraging experience,
rather than an opportunity to enjoy and
succeed at learning.
2. To enable these children to make
optimal progress, teachers are highly
intentional in use of time, and they focus
on key skills and abilities through highly
engaging experiences.
3. Recognizing the self-regulatory, lin-
guistic, cognitive, and social benefits that
high-quality play affords, teachers do
not reduce play opportunities that these
children critically need. Instead, teach-
ers scaffold and model aspects of rich,
mature play.
J. Teachers make experiences in their class-
rooms accessible and responsive to all chil-
dren and their needs—including children
who are English language learners, have
special needs or disabilities, live in poverty
20

of Young Children
or other challenging circumstances, or are
from different cultures.
1. Teachers incorporate a wide variety of
experiences, materials and equipment,
and teaching strategies to accommodate
the range of children’s individual differ-
ences in development, skills and abilities,
prior experiences, needs, and interests.
2. Teachers bring each child’s home cul-
ture and language into the shared culture
of the learning community so that the
unique contributions of that home cul-
ture and language can be recognized and
valued by the other community mem-
bers, and the child’s connection with
family and home is supported.
3. Teachers include all children in all of
the classroom activities and encourage
children to be inclusive in their behav-
iors and interactions with peers.
4. Teachers are prepared to meet special
needs of individual children, includ-
ing children with disabilities and those
who exhibit unusual interests and skills.
Teachers use all the strategies identified
here, consult with appropriate specialists
and the child’s family, and see that the
child gets the adaptations and special-

ized services he or she needs to succeed
in the early childhood setting.
3Planning curriculum to achieve important goals
The curriculum consists of the knowledge, skills,
abilities, and understandings children are to
acquire and the plans for the learning experi-
ences through which those gains will occur.
Implementing a curriculum always yields out-
comes of some kind—but which outcomes those
are and how a program achieves them are critical.
In developmentally appropriate practice, the cur-
riculum helps young children achieve goals that
are developmentally and educationally significant.
The curriculum does this through learning experi-
ences (including play, small group, large group,
interest centers, and routines) that reflect what
is known about young children in general and
about these children in particular, as well as about
the sequences in which children acquire specific
concepts, skills, and abilities, building on prior
experiences.
Because children learn more in programs
where there is a well planned and implemented
curriculum, it is important for every school and
early childhood program to have its curriculum
in written form. Teachers use the curriculum and
their knowledge of children’s interests in planning
relevant, engaging learning experiences; and they
keep the curriculum in mind in their interactions
with children throughout the day. In this way they
ensure that children’s learning experiences—in
both adult-guided and child-guided contexts—are
consistent with the program’s goals for children
and connected within an organized framework.

At the same time, developmentally appropriate
practice means teachers have flexibility—and the
expertise to exercise that flexibility effectively—in
how they design and carry out curricular experi-
ences in their classrooms.132
The following describe curriculum planning
that is developmentally appropriate for children
from birth through the primary grades.
A. Desired goals that are important in young
children’s learning and development have
been identified and clearly articulated.
1. Teachers consider what children
should know, understand, and be able to
do across the domains of physical, social,
emotional, and cognitive development
and across the disciplines, including
language, literacy, mathematics, social
studies, science, art, music, physical
education, and health.
2. If state standards or other mandates
are in place, teachers become thoroughly
familiar with these; teachers add to these
any goals to which the standards have
given inadequate weight.
3. Whatever the source of the goals,
teachers and administrators ensure that
goals are clearly defined for, communi-
cated to, and understood by all stake-
holders, including families.
B. The program has a comprehensive, effec-

tive curriculum that targets the identified
goals, including all those foundational for
later learning and school success.
1. Whether or not teachers were partici-
pants in the decision about the curricu-
of Young Children
21
lum, they familiarize themselves with it
and consider its comprehensiveness in
addressing all important goals.
2. If the program is using published cur-
riculum products, teachers make adapta-
tions to meet the learning needs of the
children they teach.
3. If practitioners develop the curriculum
themselves, they make certain it targets
the identified goals and they use strong,
up-to-date resources from experts to
ensure that curriculum content is robust
and comprehensive.
C. Teachers use the curriculum framework
in their planning to ensure there is ample
attention to important learning goals and
to enhance the coherence of the classroom
experience for children.

1. Teachers are familiar with the under-
standings and skills key for that age
group in each domain (physical, social,
emotional, cognitive), including how
learning and development in one domain
impact the other domains.
2. In their planning and follow-through,
teachers use the curriculum framework
along with what they know (from their
observation and other assessment)
about the children’s interests, progress,
language proficiency, and learning needs.
They carefully shape and adapt the expe-
riences they provide children to enable
each child to reach the goals outlined in
the curriculum.
3. In determining the sequence and
pace of learning experiences, teachers
consider the developmental paths that
children typically follow and the typical
sequences in which skills and concepts
develop. Teachers use these with an
eye to moving all children forward in
all areas, adapting when necessary for
individual children. When children have
missed some of the learning opportuni-
ties that promote school success, teach-
ers must adapt the curriculum to help
children advance more quickly.
D. Teachers make meaningful connections a
priority in the learning experiences they
provide children, to reflect that all learners,

and certainly young children, learn best
when the concepts, language, and skills
they encounter are related to something
they know and care about, and when the
new learnings are themselves intercon-
nected in meaningful, coherent ways.
1. Teachers plan curriculum experiences
that integrate children’s learning within
and across the domains (physical, social,
emotional, cognitive) and the disciplines
(including language, literacy, mathemat-
ics, social studies, science, art, music,
physical education, and health).
to draw on children’s own interests and
introduce children to things likely to
interest them, in recognition that devel-
oping and extending children’s interests
is particularly important during the pre-
school years, when children’s ability to
focus their attention is in its early stages.
that follow logical sequences and that
allow for depth and focus. That is, the
experiences do not skim lightly over a
great many content areas, but instead
allow children to spend sustained time
with a more select set.
E. Teachers collaborate with those teaching
in the preceding and subsequent grade
levels, sharing information about children
and working to increase the continuity and

coherence across ages/grades, while pro-
tecting the integrity and appropriateness of
practices at each level.
F. In the care of infants and toddlers, practi-
tioners plan curriculum (although they may
not always call it that). They develop plans
for the important routines and experiences
that will promote children’s learning and
development and enable them to attain
desired goals.
4Assessing children’s development and learning
Assessment of children’s development and learn-
ing is essential for teachers and programs in order
to plan, implement, and evaluate the effective-
22
of Young Children
ness of the classroom experiences they provide.
Assessment also is a tool for monitoring children’s
progress toward a program’s desired goals. In
developmentally appropriate practice, the experi-
ences and the assessments are linked (the experi-
ences are developing what is being assessed, and
vice versa); both are aligned with the program’s
desired outcomes or goals for children. Teachers
cannot be intentional about helping children to
progress unless they know where each child is
with respect to learning goals.
Sound assessment of young children is chal-

lenging because they develop and learn in ways
that are characteristically uneven and embedded
within the specific cultural and linguistic contexts
in which they live. For example, sound assessment
takes into consideration such factors as a child’s
facility in English and stage of linguistic develop-
ment in the home language. Assessment that is not
reliable or valid, or that is used to label, track, or
otherwise harm young children, is not develop-
mentally appropriate practice.
The following describe sound assessment that
is developmentally appropriate for children from
birth through the primary grades.
A. Assessment of young children’s progress
and achievements is ongoing, strategic, and
purposeful. The results of assessment are
used to inform the planning and implement-
ing of experiences, to communicate with the
child’s family, and to evaluate and improve
teachers’ and the program’s effectiveness.
B. Assessment focuses on children’s progress
toward goals that are developmentally and
educationally significant.
C. There is a system in place to collect, make
sense of, and use the assessment informa-
tion to guide what goes on in the classroom
(formative assessment). Teachers use this
information in planning curriculum and
learning experiences and in moment-to-
moment interactions with children—that is,
teachers continually engage in assessment
for the purpose of improving teaching and
learning.

D. The methods of assessment are appropriate
to the developmental status and experi-
ences of young children, and they recognize
individual variation in learners and allow
children to demonstrate their competence
in different ways. Methods appropriate to
the classroom assessment of young chil-
dren, therefore, include results of teachers’
observations of children, clinical interviews,
collections of children’s work samples, and
their performance on authentic activities.
E. Assessment looks not only at what children
can do independently but also at what they
can do with assistance from other children
or adults. Therefore, teachers assess chil-
dren as they participate in groups and other
situations that are providing scaffolding.
F. In addition to this assessment by teachers,
input from families as well as children’s own
evaluations of their work are part of the
program’s overall assessment strategy.
G. Assessments are tailored to a specific
purpose and used only for the purpose for
which they have been demonstrated to
produce reliable, valid information.
H. Decisions that have a major impact on chil-
dren, such as enrollment or placement, are
never made on the basis of results from a
single developmental assessment or screen-
ing instrument/device but are based on mul-

tiple sources of relevant information, includ-
ing that obtained from observations of and
interactions with children by teachers and
parents (and specialists, as needed).
I. When a screening or other assessment
identifies children who may have special
learning or developmental needs, there
is appropriate follow-up, evaluation, and,
if indicated, referral. Diagnosis or label-
ing is never the result of a brief screening
or one-time assessment. Families should
be involved as important sources of
information.
5Establishing reciprocal relationships with families
Developmentally appropriate practices derive from
deep knowledge of child development principles
and of the program’s children in particular, as well
as the context within which each of them is living.
The younger the child, the more necessary it is for
practitioners to acquire this particular knowledge
through relationships with children’s families.
of Young Children
23
Practice is not developmentally appropriate if
the program limits “parent involvement” to sched-
uled events (valuable though these may be), or if
the program/family relationship has a strong “par-
ent education” orientation. Parents do not feel like

partners in the relationship when staff members
see themselves as having all the knowledge and
insight about children and view parents as lacking
such knowledge.
Such approaches do not adequately convey
the complexity of the partnership between teach-
ers and families that is a fundamental element of
good practice. The following describe the kind of
relationships that are developmentally appropri-
ate for children (from birth through the primary
grades), in which family members and practitio-
ners work together as members of the learning
community.
A. In reciprocal relationships between prac-
titioners and families, there is mutual
respect, cooperation, shared responsibil-
ity, and negotiation of conflicts toward
achievement of shared goals. (Also see
guideline 1, “Creating a Caring Community
of Learners.”)
B. Practitioners work in collaborative part-
nerships with families, establishing and
maintaining regular, frequent two-way com-
munication with them (with families who do
not speak English, teachers should use the
language of the home if they are able or try
to enlist the help of bilingual volunteers).
C. Family members are welcome in the set-
ting, and there are multiple opportunities
for family participation. Families participate
in program decisions about their children’s
care and education.

D. Teachers acknowledge a family’s choices
and goals for the child and respond with
sensitivity and respect to those preferences
and concerns, but without abdicating the
responsibility that early childhood practi-
tioners have to support children’s learning
and development through developmentally
appropriate practices.
E. Teachers and the family share with each
other their knowledge of the particular
child and understanding of child develop-
ment and learning as part of day-to-day
communication and in planned conferences.
Teachers support families in ways that
maximally promote family decision-making
capabilities and competence.
F. Practitioners involve families as a source
of information about the child (before pro-
gram entry and on an ongoing basis) and
engage them in the planning for their child.
G. The program links families with a range
of services, based on identified resources,
priorities, and concerns.
Policy considerations
Teachers and administrators in early childhood
education play a critical role in shaping the future
of our citizenry and our democracy. Minute to min-
ute, day to day, month to month, they provide the
consistent, compassionate, respectful relationships
that our children need to establish strong founda-
tions of early learning. By attending to the multiple

domains of development and the individual needs
of those in their care, early childhood professionals
who employ developmentally appropriate practices
engage young children in rich out-of-home early
learning experiences that prepare them for future
learning and success in life.
Regardless of the resources available, early
childhood professionals have an ethical respon-
sibility to practice according to the standards of
their profession. It is unrealistic, however, to expect
that they can fully implement those standards and
practices without public policies and funding that
support a system of early childhood education that
is grounded in providing high-quality developmen-
tally appropriate experiences for all children.
The goal must be advancement in both realms:
more early childhood professionals engaging in
developmentally appropriate practices, and more
policy makers establishing policies and committing
public funds to support such practices.
Many elements of developmentally appropri-
ate practice should be reflected in our federal,
state, and local policies. Policy areas that are
24
of Young Children
particularly critical for developing a high-quality,
well financed system of early childhood education,
which includes the implementation of develop-
mentally appropriate practice, must include at a

minimum: early learning standards for children
and related/aligned curricula and assessment; a
comprehensive professional development and
compensation system; a program quality rating
and improvement system to improve program
quality as well as to inform the families, the public,
and policy makers about quality; comprehensive
Notes
1NAEYC. 1986. Position statement on developmentally
appropriate practice in programs for 4- and 5-year-olds.
Young Children 41 (6): 20–29; Bredekamp, S., ed. 1987.
Developmentally appropriate practice in early child-
hood programs serving children from birth through age 8.
Expanded edition. Washington, DC: NAEYC; NAEYC. 1996.
Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood
programs serving children from birth through age 8. A
position statement of the National Association for the
Education of Young Children. In Developmentally appropri -
ate practice in early childhood programs, Rev. ed., eds. S.
Bredekamp & C. Copple, 3–30. Washington, DC: Author.
2NAEYC & NAECS/SDE (National Association of Early
Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education).
2002. Early learning standards: Creating the conditions for
success. Joint position statement. Online: www.naeyc.org/
dap; NAEYC & NAECS/SDE (National Association of Early
2003. Early childhood curriculum, assessment, and program
evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in
programs for children birth through age 8. Joint position
statement. Online: www.naeyc.org/dap; NAEYC. 2005. Code
of ethical conduct and statement of commitment. Position
statement. Online: www.naeyc.org/dap; NAEYC. 2005.
NAEYC early childhood program standards and accreditation

criteria. 11 vols. Washington, DC: Author.
Critical issues in the current context
3Children’s Defense Fund. 2005. The state of America’s chil -
dren, 2005. Washington, DC: Author.
4Cochran, M. 2007. Finding our way: The future of American
early care and education. Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
5Sandall, S., M.L. Hemmeter, B.J. Smith, & M.E. McLean,
eds. 2005. DEC recommended practices: A comprehensive
guide for practical application in early intervention/early
childhood special education. Longmont, CO: Sopris West,
and Missoula, MT: Division for Early Childhood, Council
for Exceptional Children; Hemmeter, M.L., L. Fox, & S.
Doubet. 2006. Together we can: A program-wide approach
to addressing challenging behavior. In Social emotional
development, eds. E. Horn & H. Jones, Young Exceptional
Children Monograph Series, vol. 8. Missoula, MT: Division
for Early Childhood.
and coordinated services for children; attention to
program evaluation; and commitment of additional
public funds to support program affordability and
quality in every setting.
NAEYC regularly provides information to
inform advocates and policy makers in their efforts
to establish sound policies in these areas.
6Gitomer, D.H. 2007. Teacher quality in a changing policy
landscape: Improvements in the teacher pool. Princeton, NJ:
Educational Testing Service. Online: www.ets.org/Media/
Education_Topics/pdf/TQ_full_report.pdf.
7Whitebook, M., C. Howes, & D. Phillips. 1990. The national

child care staffing study: Who cares? Child care teachers and
the quality of care in America. Final report. Oakland, CA:
Child Care Employee Project.
8Cochran, M. 2007. Finding our way: The future of American
early care and education. Washington, DC: Zero to Three.
9Klein, L.G., & J. Knitzer. 2006. Effective preschool curricula
and teaching strategies. Pathways to Early School Success,
Issue Brief No. 2. New York: Columbia University, National
Center for Children in Poverty; Brooks-Gunn, J., C.E. Rouse,
& S. McLanahan. 2007. Racial and ethnic gaps in school
readiness. In School readiness and the transition to kinder-
garten in the era of accountability, eds. R.C. Pianta, M.J.
Cox, & K.L. Snow, 283–306. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
10Heath, S.B. 1983. Ways with words: Language, life, and work
in communities and classrooms. New York: Cambridge
University Press; Vogt, L., C. Jordan, & R. Tharp. 1993.
Explaining school failure, producing school success. In
Minority education: Anthropological perspectives, eds. E.
Jacob & C. Jordan, 53–65. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
11Hart, B., & T.R. Risley. 1995. Meaningful differences in the
everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore:
Paul H. Brookes; Hart, B., & T.R. Risley. 1999. The social
world of children learning to talk. Baltimore: Paul H.
Brookes.
12Farkas, G., & K. Beron. 2004. The detailed age trajectory of
oral vocabulary knowledge: Differences by class and race.
Social Science Research 33: 464–97.
13Barbarin, O., D. Bryant, T. McCandies, M. Burchinal, D.
Early, R. Clifford, & R. Pianta. 2006. Children enrolled in
public pre–K: The relation of family life, neighborhood

quality, and socioeconomic resources to early compe-
tence. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 76: 265–76;
Zill, N., & J. West. 2001. Entering kindergarten: Findings
from the condition of education, 2000. Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics.
In order for such information and recommendations to be up
to date, NAEYC’s policy-relevant summaries and information
appear not in this position statement but in their own loca-
tion on the Association’s website at www.naeyc.org.
of Young Children
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14Lee, V.E., & D.T. Burkam. 2002. Inequality at the starting
gate:
Social background differences in achievement as children
begin school. New York: Economic Policy Institute.
15Aber, L., K. Burnley, D.K. Cohen, D.L. Featherman, D.
Phillips,
S. Raudenbush, & B. Rowan. 2006. Beyond school reform:
Improving the educational outcomes of low-income chil-
dren. Report to the Spencer Foundation. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan, Center for Advancing Research and
Solution

s for Society; Klein, L.G., & J. Knitzer. 2006. Effective
preschool curricula and teaching strategies. Pathways to
Early School Success, Issue Brief No. 2. New York: Columbia
University, National Center for Children in Poverty.
16See, e.g., Mullis, I.V.S., M.O. Martin, & P. Foy. 2009, in
press.
TIMSS 2007 international report and technical report.
Chestnut Hill, MA: Lynch School of Education, Boston
College, TIMSS & PIRLS International Study Center;
NCES (National Center for Education Statistics). 2006.
Comparing mathematics content in the National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NEAP), Trends in International
Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and Program
for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003 assess-
ments: Technical report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department
of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
Institute of Education Sciences. Online: purl.access.gpo.
gov/GPO/LPS70522.
17U.S. Dept. of Education, Office of Elementary and
Secondary Education. 2007. Title I—Improving the aca-
demic achievement of the disadvantaged; Individuals
with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): Final rule. Federal
Register 72 (67): 17747–81. Online: www.ed.gov/legislation/

FedRegister/finrule/2007-2/040907a.html.
18Johnson, J., A.M. Arumi, & A. Ott. 2006. Reality Check
2006—Education insights: A Public Agenda initiative to build
momentum for improving American schools. New York:
Public Agenda.
19The goals of NCLB—Goal 1: To strengthen the school’s core
academic program so that by 2013-2014 all students (in
aggregate and for each subgroup) will demonstrate aca-
demic skills at the “proficient” level or above on the State’s
assessments and be engaged in high quality teaching and
learning. Goal 2: To increase the number of students mak-
ing successful transitions between schools and school lev-
els. Goal 3: To increase the level of parental involvement
in support of the learning process via communication
between school and home. Goal 4: To align staff capacities,
school processes, and professional development activities
to implement effective methods and instructional prac-
tices that are supported by scientifically-based research.
Goal 5: To recruit, staff, and retain highly qualified staff
that will implement effective methods and instructional
practices.
20NIEER (National Institute for Early Education Research).

2007. The state of preschool 2007: State preschool yearbook.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University, Graduate School
of Education. Online: nieer.org/yearbook/pdf/yearbook.pdf.
21U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Administration on
Children, Youth, and Families, & Head Start Bureau. 2003.
The Head Start path to positive child outcomes. Washington,
DC: Authors. Online: www.headstartinfo.org/pdf/hsout-
comespath28ppREV.pdf.
22Bowman, B.T., S. Donovan, & M.S. Burns. 2000. Eager to
learn: Educating our preschoolers. Washington, DC: National
Academies Press; Shonkoff, J.P., & D.A. Phillips, eds. 2000.
From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early child
development. A report of the National Research Council.
Washington, DC: National Academies Press.
dap; NAEYC & NAECS/SDE (National Association of Early

statement. Online: www.naeyc.org/dap.
24Takanishi, R., & K. Kauerz. 2008. PK inclusion: Getting seri -
ous about a P–16 education system. Phi Delta Kappan 89
(7): 480–87.
25Pedulla, J.J. 2003. State-mandated testing: What do teachers
think? Educational Leadership 61 (3): 42–46; Goldstein, L.S.
2007. Embracing multiplicity: Learning from two practi-
tioners’ pedagogical responses to the changing demands
of kindergarten teaching in the United States. Journal of
Research in Childhood Education 21 (4): 378–99; Goldstein,
L.S. 2007b. Examining the unforgiving complexity of kin-
dergarten teaching. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 22:
39–54.
26U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. 2007. Bill
H.R.1429. “The Improving Head Start for School Readiness
Act.” (P.L. 110–34). Online: www.washingtonwatch.com/
bills/show/110_PL_110-134.html.
(7): 480–87.

28Graves, B. 2006. PK–3: What is it and how do we know it
works? Foundation for Child Development Policy Brief,
Advancing PK–3 4; Ritchie, S., K. Maxwell, & R.M. Clifford.
2007. FirstSchool: A new vision for education. In School
readiness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of
accountability, eds. R.C. Pianta, M.J. Cox, & K.L. Snow,
85–96. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes; Takanishi, R., & K.
Kauerz. 2008. PK inclusion: Getting serious about a P–16
education system. Phi Delta Kappan 89 (7): 480–87.
30Neuman, S.B., K. Roskos, C. Vukelich, & D. Clements. 2003.
The state of state prekindergarten standards in 2003. Report
for the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading
Achievement (CIERA). Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan.
31NAEYC. 2005. Screening and assessment of young English-

language learners. Supplement to the NAEYC and NAECS/
SDE Joint Position Statement on Early Childhood
Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Evaluation.
Washington, DC: Author. Online: www.naeyc.org/dap.
26
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dap.
33NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics). 2006.
Curriculum focal points for prekindergarten through grade 8
mathematics: A quest for coherence. Reston, VA: Author.
34Wien, C.A. 2004. Negotiating standards in the primary class-
room: The teacher’s dilemma. New York: Teachers College
Press.

35See, e.g., Kagan, S.L., & K. Kauerz. 2007. Reaching for the
whole: Integration and alignment in early education policy.
In School readiness and the transition to kindergarten in
the era of accountability, eds. R.C. Pianta, M.J. Cox, & K.L.
Snow, 11–30. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes; Ritchie, S., K.
Maxwell, & R.M. Clifford. 2007. FirstSchool: A new vision
for education. In School readiness and the transition to kin-
dergarten in the era of accountability, eds. R.C. Pianta, M.J.
Cox, & K.L. Snow, 85–96. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
36Goldstein, L.S. 2007a. Embracing multiplicity: Learning from
two practitioners’ pedagogical responses to the changing
demands of kindergarten teaching in the United States.
Journal of Research in Childhood Education 21 (4): 378–99;
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Guidelines for developmentally appropriate
practice

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132For a more complete discussion of principles and indi-
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NAEYC & NAECS/SDE (National Association of Early
of Young Children
According to Jaruszewicz (2019), a primary goal of a
developmentally appropriate approach to assessment is to
inform practices so that the curriculum you implement matches
the developmental needs and interests of the children in your
classroom. As part of our ability to effectively assess and

utilize those assessments, it is important to remember that
informal assessments are a key part of the assessment process in
early childhood education. Informal assessments must match our
curriculum goals, should actively involve children and families,
focus on change and growth over time, and happen in real time
in the classroom or care setting (Jaruszewicz, 2019). According
to NAEYC’s guidelines for developmentally appropriate
practices (2009), the job of an early childhood educator has five
connected components, as illustrated in the following image:
To prepare for this discussion,
· Read Chapters 5 and 12 in your course text.
· Read pages 16–23 in the resource Developmentally
Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving
Children From Birth Through Age 8 (Links to an external site.).
· Read the resource Early Childhood Assessment (Links to an
external site.).
· Review the Week 3 Instructor Guidance
· Review the several commonly used informal assessments
noted in Table 12.3 of the course text.
For your initial post,
· Select one informal assessment from Table 12.3 of the text.
· Discuss why you feel it is an effective form of assessment to
use in your future role as an educator.
· As an educator, imagine you have just administered the

assessment. Describe how specifically you will use this
measurement to make instructional decisions about curriculum.
Support your choices with the course text.
· Explain how you will share the assessment results with
families considering the following:
· How you will communicate with them (e.g., email, phone call,
etc.).
· How you will explain the results.
· The ways your approach is inclusive of family, culture, and
individual differences.

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