Developmentally Appropriate Practice
by Carla R.
1. Michael-Luna & Heimer (2012) emphasize the importance of generating an individualized framework that integrates child’s culture background and growing environment
2. Copple & Bredekamp (2008) suggest that every educator should critically analyze and appropriately make use of D.A.P in order to meet the needs of diverse children and changing society.
3. Strengths*
4. Refers to teaching decisions that vary with and adapt to the age, experience, interests, and abilities of individual children within a given age range ( Copple & Bredekamp, 2006, p. 7)
5. Drawing on ELECT (2007), play-based learning is highly recommended in ECE because ”play is a means to early learning that capitalize on children’s natural curiosity and exuberance” (p.15). Thus, educators are expected to be creative and constructive rather than merely being informative.
6. Organizes domains that need educator’s attention (social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language)
7. Child centered approach with hands on experiences and use of different materials.
8. Promotes engaging activities and purposeful play
9. Focuses on dynamic interactions with materials, environment, peers and caregivers
10. Fosters the development of abilities meeting the children where they are and supports children's interests
11. Recognizes that learning happens at varying rates from child to child
12. Emphasize that children learn and develop well when they have secure and positive relationships and enviroment
13. Interaction with peers and teacher
14. Role play
15. Functional classroom, different materials and space for interaction
16. Outdoor play and exploration
17. ACTIVITY: DRAMATIC PLAY
18. Domains fostered: Physical development (movements); Literacy skills (speaking, multimodal forms of representation and making meaning); Social & emotional skills (contact with others, self-regulation, work with different materials, team-work); Cognitive skills (decision making, problem solving, reasoning, negotiation) Problem solving skills
19. * Based on Copple & Bredekamp (2006)
20. Limitations
21. Teacher assistance and careful observation
22. Different spaces for developing different learning domains
23. Developed for a particular context, then it is susceptible to cultural differences
24. Reinforces that all children develop in similar ways (Michael-Luna & Heimer, 2012)
25. Likely to disregard children's emergent knowledge
26. Outcome based, with high expectations on children’s performances and completion of particular tasks
27. Hatch (2012) states that DAP pays more attention to skills and instructional strategies rather than curriculum content. It can also "blur differences between curriculum and instruction” (p. 52).
28. Dramatic play: the teacher working in a project or a theme can develop an activity that engages all class and fosters different domains. In dramatic play, children learn about themselves and the world, by imitating, imagining and playing with different roles.
29. Step 1:Read a story to the children and ask open ended questions; Step 2: separate materials to construct objects, scenario, costumes; Step 3: Plan how the story will be presented with the children; Step 4: Ask them about the roles they want to take; Step 5: Observe, ask questions, make suggestions and build upon their sayings and play
30. EXAMPLE
31. Best Start Expert Panel on Early Learning. (2007). Early Learning for Every Child Today: A frame work for Ontario early childhood setting. Retrieved from http://www.cfcollaborative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ELECT.pdf Copple, C.,& Bredekamp, S. (2006). Bascis of Developmentally Appropriate Practice:An Introduction for Teachers of Children 3 to 6, National Association for the Education of Young Children Washington, DC Copple, C.,, & Bredekamp, S. (2008).Getting clear about developmentally appropriate practice. Young Children I,(1), 54-55. File, N. (2012). The relationship between child development and early childhood curriculum. In N. File, J. Mueller, &D. Baslerwisneski (Eds.), Curriculum in early childhood education: Reexamined, rediscovered, renewed (pp. 29-41).New York, NY: Routledge. Hatch, J. A. (2012). From theory to curriculum. Developmental theory and its relationship to curriculum and instruction in early childhood education. In N. File, J. Mueller, & D. Baslerwisneski (Eds.), Curriculum in early childhood education: Re-examined, rediscovered, renewed (pp. 120-132). New York, NY: Routledge. Michael-Luna, S., & Heimer, L. (2012). Creative curriculum and High Scope Curriculum: Constructing possibilities in Early Education. In N. File, J. Mueller, & D. Baslerwisneski (Eds.), Curriculum in early childhood education: Re-examined, rediscovered, renewed (pp. 120-132). New York, NY: Routledge.
