As you facilitate children’s learning in a developmentally appropriate classroom you are:

• a planner and creator of an environment rich in opportunities for hands-on exploration
• a supporter of social collaboration and problem solving among children
• a collaborator in problem solving
• a questioner (scaffolding)
• a listener
• an observer of children’s zones of proximal development
• a facilitator of play

The Developmentally Appropriate Classroom

Much of what the Greater Essex County District School Board believes about play in The Early Years is rooted in the position statements on developmentally appropriate practices from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. The purpose of the statements was to respond to a growing trend toward more formal, academic instruction for young children. Many early childhood programs were emphasizing rote learning and whole group instruction of narrowly defined academic skills. We now know, through research and experience, that educators need to think first about what young children are like and then create an environment and experiences that are in tune with children's characteristics. Rather than trying to redesign children, we design our programs to fit them.

The concept of developmental appropriateness has two dimensions: age appropriateness and individual appropriateness.

Age Appropriateness - human development occurs in universal, predictable sequence of growth and change that occur during the first nine years of life. These changes occur in all domains of development - physical, emotional, social, and cognitive.

Individual Appropriateness - each child is a unique person with an individual pattern and timing of growth, as well as individual personality, learning style, and family background. Both the curriculum and adults' interactions with children should be responsive to individual differences.

A developmentally appropriate curriculum for young children is planned to be appropriate for the age span of the children within the group and is implemented with attention to the different needs, interests and developmental levels of those individual children.

A. A developmentally appropriate classroom provides for all areas of a child's development: physical, emotional, social, and cognitive through an integrated approach.

B. Appropriate curriculum planning is based on teachers' observations and recordings of each child's special interests and developmental progress.

C. Curriculum planning emphasizes learning as an interactive process. Teachers prepare the environment for children to learn through active exploration and interaction with adults, other children and materials.

D. Learning activities and materials should be concrete, real and relevant to the lives of young children.

E. Programs provide for a wider range of developmental interests and abilities than the chronological age range of the group would suggest. Adults are prepared to meet the needs of children who exhibit unusual interests and skills outside the normal developmental range.

F. Teachers provide a variety of activities and materials. Teachers increase the difficulty, complexity and challenge of an activity as children are involved with it and as children develop an understanding and skills.

G. Adults provide opportunities for children to choose from among a variety of activities, materials and equipment; and time to explore through active involvement. Adults facilitate children's engagement with materials and activities and extend the child's learning by asking questions or making suggestions that stimulate children's thinking.

H. Multicultural and non-sexist experiences, materials and equipment should be provided for children of all ages.

I. Adults provide a balance of rest and active movement throughout the program day.

J. Outdoor experiences should be provided for children of all ages.

Stages of Play

1. Unoccupied: Children watch others playing but do not enter play themselves.
2. Onlooker: Children watch other children play and may talk to them.
3. Solitary: Children play alone with objects as other children but do not interact with other children.
4. Parallel: Children play with the same objects as other children nearby but they do not interact with each other.
5. Associative: Children engage in similar, somewhat organized activities, but specific roles and goals are not laid out. They may talk about what they or others are doing, share toys, and ask each other questions.
6. Cooperative: Two or more play together engaging in a joint effort toward a common purpose. Players take on different responsibilities or roles as they organize their play themes.

Assessment

Program and assessment practices for The Early Years can best be described by three questions:

• What are the children to learn?
• How will they learn it?
• How will we know that they have learned it?

The first question refers to knowledge, skills and expectations. These form the basis for good program planning and may be based on the learning expectations outlined in the Ministry of Education's Program Documents.

The second question is best exhibited by the cross-curricular, play-based program. The children are provided with choice and opportunity to develop in all areas and programming is based on a solid understanding of child development.

Assessment and reporting devices address the third question.

Lifelong learning depends on the confidence and self-esteem developed before and during The Early Years. The realization of every child's potential will depend upon credible assessment tools such as teacher observation and direct communication. Teacher assessment methods are complemented, extended and elaborated by observations from students' self-assessment, peer assessment, and observations from parents.

Many teachers incorporate the learning expectations outlined in The Ontario Curriculum into their checklists. Whatever method a teacher chooses, the observation records will provide data for reflection, positive interaction, and communication with parents.

Assessment of what Early Years students know, can do, and are like occurs throughout the day in a variety of authentic tasks, contexts, and settings. Observation is more than just looking. It is kid watching - watching the way children go about their group work or play, listening to children's ideas and trying to understand their reasoning, discussing problems so that children reveal their way of thinking, and examining the products that children create. It determines the materials and strategies used in your program. Assessment for young children relies mainly on procedures that reflect what is going on in the classroom in typical activities, rather than in artificial situations. It must recognize the individual diversity of learners and whether children have been given the time and the opportunity to become proficient in their native language as well as in English (or French in an Immersion setting). In every case, assessment drives the curriculum.

According to brain researcher Dr. David Sousa, in the past we recognized the existence of two cognitive growth spurts in young children - on at about age four or five and the second during adolescence. In 1991, however, new research that looked at the effects of drugs on newborns demonstrated the earlier appearance of a cognitive growth spurt between the ages of eighteen and thirty months. According to Sousa, we may have grossly underestimated what young children can do. This new research further highlights the importance of a rich environment in the preschool years.