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Planning for Children
Have you ever watched someone who seems to work “magic” with
groups of small children? The activities seem to flow, with all the children
happy, active and busy. Materials are used creatively and interesting
ideas and helpful guidance seem to appear effortlessly. As with all magic
tricks, however, what you don’t see is the time and energy that
is put in to learning, planning and practicing. In order to work successfully
with children, it is necessary to learn what goes into making an early
childhood environment "magical."
Good environments for children are inclusive. This
means that activities and materials are flexible and geared to the individual
needs and abilities
of each child. Good early childhood environments are also developmentally
appropriate. Developmentally appropriate settings are those
in which materials, activities and interactions are appropriate for each
child’s
developmental level, regardless of the child’s
chronological age.
Appropriate means that the materials and activities
offered to children provide opportunities to practice existing skills
and to build new skills.
A developmentally appropriate environment allows all children opportunities
to be successful, yet challenged.
Young children learn by doing. They need to touch, move, push, pull,
taste, smell and listen to develop understanding. Children are like
scientists or explorers; they are actively engaged in learning everything
possible about the world around them. In a developmentally appropriate
setting, materials and activities are selected on the basis of individual
children’s needs and interests, rather than on the basis of an
adult-selected curriculum. A curriculum based on the children’s
needs and interests—often referred to as an individualized curriculum—will
capture the children’s interest and foster learning.
When you individualize your activities, many “teachable moments” will
occur. For example, when a child visits the dentist for the first time,
or when a family in your child care has a new baby, you have a wonderful
learning opportunity for all the children. These events can become the
themes for dramatic play. You can select books that address these topics.
When new plants come up in the spring, you can introduce a science experiment.
When the mail arrives, you can talk about the many jobs that people in
the community have. Watch children’s activities and listen to their
conversations and questions for clues to their interests and needs. A
program based on children’s interests and needs is certain to be
a successful program.
Developmentally Appropriate Practice
Developmentally appropriate practice—or DAP—is based on
knowledge about how children develop and learn. With this knowledge,
you can make good decisions about the materials and activities that you
provide to children in your care.
How Children Develop and Learn:
- All areas of children’s development—physical, intellectual,
social and emotional—are closely related. Development in
one area influences and is influenced by development in other areas.
For example,
a child who is learning to talk (intellectual) is better able to
interact with other children (social), which in turn helps a child
build greater
language skill.
- Development occurs in a relatively orderly sequence,
with later abilities, skills and knowledge building on those
already acquired. A child cannot
run before he/she can walk.
- Development happens at different rates from
child to child, as well as unevenly within different areas of each
individual child’s development.
Not all typically developing children are able to walk by 1-year of
age. A certain child might be able to walk by 9-months but might
have trouble
controlling the small muscles of the hand until age four.
- Early experiences
influence a child’s continuing development.
Optimal periods exist for certain types of learning and development.
For example, there is good research to indicate that a child who does
not hear spoken language in the first year or two of life will have
great difficulty developing the ability to speak.
- Development occurs
in predictable patterns, from less complex to
more complex. A 6-month old can make simple consonant sounds, such
as “B” or “P.” By
2-years of age, the same child can speak in 2-3 word sentences and
by school age, that child can tell a complicated story.
- Development
and learning are influenced by a child’s social
and cultural environment. For example, children who grow up in homes
where books are read and parents like to read, are likely to be readers
themselves.
- Children are active learners. They construct their own understanding
of the world around them through direct experiences and interactions
with the people and things in their environment. For example, a child
who is allowed to play freely with blocks will learn first-hand about
balance, weight, gravity, and so on. No one needs to tell the child
about these things---he/she KNOWS!
- Development and learning result from
interaction between a child’s
biological makeup and the environment. A child might be born with the
genetic potential to be 6-feet tall, but because of environmental factors
such as poor nutrition or disease, that child might grow to be much
shorter.
- Play is an important vehicle for children’s social, emotional
and mental development. Children learn by doing; in play children experiment
and try new things naturally. No one has to make the child learn, it
simply happens. This is what is meant by the expression, “Play
is a child’s work.”
- Development advances when children have
opportunities to practice newly
acquired skills as well as when they experience a challenge just
beyond the level of their present mastery. Children, like adults,
need to practice skills
over and over before they can do something effortlessly. They also need to
be challenged to try new things and to take some risks, to move beyond the
things they can already do well and learn something new.
- Children have individual
styles of learning and knowing. Some children are
very active, others like to talk and talk. Everybody is different,
with different strengths and abilities.
- Children learn and develop
best in environments where they are safe and
valued, their physical needs are met and they feel secure. Obviously,
children who are happy, healthy and well cared for are better able
to turn their attention to learning about the world. Children
and adults
who are hungry, ill or frightened are not able to focus their attention
on learning or on taking risk—their lives are already risky enough.
Source: Adapted from Bredekamp, S. and Copple, C., ED. 1997. Developmentally
appropriate practices in early childhood programs: Revised editon. NAEYC:
Washington, DC
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