Karen DeBord, Professor, Director of Graduate Programs, Extension Specialist – Child Development.

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• Recall a meaningful learning experience from your childhood. What made it meaningful?
• When we plan learning with 4-Hers, what values are we hoping to transmit? How can 4-H reinforce these values?
• When we teach, what strategies are the best to use with young children? How do we make these decisions?

The goal of early childhood education is to ensure that all children develop and learn to their fullest potential. Concerns among child development professionals has risen out of the recognition that too many children – especially from low-income families and some minority children – experience school failure, are retained in grade, are assigned to special education, and eventually drop out of school. In schools, an unfortunate practice has been made of “pushing down” the curriculum to the previous grade. That is, what used to be taught in first grade is now taught in kindergarten. Inappropriate whole group teacher-led teaching has resulted in children being labeled as immature, disruptive and unready for school. Thus children experience early failure, feel little sense of accomplishment and are frustrated with learning at early ages.

Extension specialists, agents, and volunteers join the ranks of teachers and parents who share high goals and expectations for what children can achieve. In order for children to achieve high goals, attention must be paid to HOW children are educated. Goals are more likely to be achieved when children are presented with a variety of ways to learn and greater flexibility regarding WHEN goals are expected to be achieved. The term developmentally appropriate practice was proposed by researcher Sue Bredekamp in 1987. Since 1987, early childhood educators have accepted developmentally appropriate practice as a “way of teaching.” The largest professional association for practitioners and researchers in the child development field is the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). NAEYC has published many monographs, videotapes and brochures on developmentally appropriate practice as the most effective way to interact with young children.

Too many children fail to learn at higher levels because curriculum and teaching practices do not respond to individual and cultural variation in children’s development in learning. When timelines for achieving learning objectives are overly rigid and do not consider individual variation, children fail who could otherwise succeed and their self-esteem and attitudes toward learning are irreparably harmed. The role of the adult in a child’s learning is a delicate balance between collaboration, support, reflection, modeling, direction, and co-construction of knowledge.

The role of culture in development is not well understood. This leads to two types of problems: one extreme is to treat cultural differences in children as deficits. Such situations create cultural conflicts for children whose abilities may not be recognized because they do not match the expectations of the program in which they are involved. On the other hand, some well-intentioned adults respond superficially to cultures by focusing on artifacts such as celebrations or food preferences. Culture has a far deeper influence on learning and development.

In their position statement, NAEYC suggests that a “high quality early childhood program provides a safe, nurturing environment that promotes the physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of young children while responding to the needs of families (Bredekamp, 1987, pp 1).”

A universal principle of development is that there is a wide range of variation between individuals on virtually every dimension. For practices to be developmentally appropriate, they must be age and individually appropriate. Human development research shows a predictable sequence of growth and change occurring in children during the first nine years of life. Having a basic knowledge of children within this age span provides a framework for adults to plan developmentally appropriate learning experiences. Programs can err by assuming that children grow and learn in isolation. This fails to recognize the importance of the group context and the individual’s contribution to the group. On the other hand, treating children as an UNDIFFERENTIATED member of a peer group assumes that all children must perform to some predetermined norm and conforming is failure. Such practices ignore what we know about socially constructing knowledge and establishing a caring, inclusive community where all children can develop and learn.

Developmental appropriateness had two dimensions – age appropriateness and individual appropriateness, until 1995 when the 3rd dimension of culture was added. The 5 areas that serve as principles for developmental programming for young children are curriculum, adult to child interaction, the role of the teacher or adult facilitator, partnerships between the home and the learning environment, the assessment of the child.

Adult-child interaction
Adults who work with young children have an understanding of the developmental expectations of children. Interactions and social relationships are an important context for learning. In a community of learners, all participants consider and contribute to each other’s well-being. Each child is valued; children learn to respect and acknowledge differences in abilities and talents and value each person for their strengths and contributions. The adult’s role is to support the learner so the child gains new knowledge and understanding, experiences success and maintains a sense of competence. To develop children’s interests, ideas, problems, experiences, or hypotheses are introduced while increasing difficulty or challenge as children develop new skill and understanding.

• Children learn self-control when adults treat them with dignity and use discipline techniques that value mistakes as learning opportunities, redirect children to more acceptable activities, listen, and patiently remind.
• Adults help children build their knowledge with many different learning strategies including but not limited to modeling, collaborating, co-constructing, mentoring, coaching, instructing, observing, experimenting, and cooperating with peers.
• Children learn in an environment that is dynamic, predictable and comprehensible from a child’s point of view.

 Curriculum

• Curriculum is what is taught to children. To be developmentally appropriate, the curriculum must weave cognitive, social-emotional, and physical development together.
• Curriculum enables children to develop strategies for constructing and representing knowledge and supports the child in making meaning out of their experiences.
• Curriculum builds on what children already know. To build new knowledge, child-centered environments are planned so children can learn through exploration and interaction with materials, adults and other children.
• Curriculum strengthens children’s sense of competence and enjoyment of learning by providing experiences for success from their point of view.

Learning activities are real and tangible, relating to the lives of young children. Children older than six show increasing interest and abilities to learn through written exercises. However, active participation with concrete, real-life experiences continue to be keys to motivated, meaningful learning. Work books, worksheets, coloring books and adult-made models are NOT appropriate for young children, especially those younger than six.

• A wide range (at least 12 months) of developmental interests, with a variety of challenging levels, should be considered when planning for learning.
• Adults function as facilitators interacting through questioning, suggesting, adding more complex materials, listening, and observing.
• Ample time is provided for children to investigate and explore.
• Materials and activities are multicultural, nonsexist, and non-stereotypic supporting the child’s heritage.
• A balance of active and quiet; group and individual; indoor and outdoor activities are provided.

Partnerships between the home and the early childhood environment

• Quality is added and greater learning occurs when parents share in decisions about their child’s care and education.
• Teachers can share their observations, resources, and insights as a part of regular communication with family members by giving parents opportunities to be involved in the educational program to the extent possible.

Assessment of the child

Many pieces of information are used before making teaching decisions. Observation of the child is used in making decisions about aptitudes and abilities; standardized tests alone are not the only determining placement factors for a child. Gender, culture, and socioeconomic standards are taken into consideration when understanding the developmental expectations of the child.

Middle Childhood

From the time children enter school and until around age 12 is considered middle childhood. Children in middle childhood become more concrete. Decision-making becomes more sophisticated. Cognitively, children are now ready to explore concepts such as size (length, mass), value (money, consumer decisions), sequencing, ordering (pictures in a story or retelling facts), and multiplication (as in watching yeast bread double in size). Rules become more significant and children learn not only rules for games, but rules that pave the way for mathematical concept understanding and social rules such as saying please and thank you. Rules make formal education possible.

Children begin to inquire and question many concepts to advance their knowledge. On the other hand, the thought processes that children use are confusing for adults. Children can represent language with words, but quantifying the representation is still rudimentary. For example, teaching a child to use the words “more,” “taller,” or “same” does not teach that child to quantify the concepts. Language representation is very concrete. For example, the word spaghetti has been assigned to the pasta noodles. When asking a child why spaghetti is called spaghetti, a young child may say because it looks like spaghetti and feels like spaghetti.

Characteristically, children are rigid thinkers, and are egocentric. Egocentrism or self-centeredness, makes it difficult to see another’s point of view. The world revolves around the child and his/her thought patterns. An example of rigid thought is that dealing with more than one aspect of the world at a time is difficult. Convincing a child at this cognitive stage that there are equal amounts of water when poured from a short broad container to a tall slender tube is a real strain!! Most children cannot believe or imagine that anyone’s animal is “better” than THEIR beloved animal or pet!

A child ignores before and after states and looks at the final product; not the changes that occurred. Children during this stage cannot reverse events or steps in order to develop reasons. Thoughts are linked in a loose way rather than logically.

As children gain additional language skills, more complex understandings evolve. Children become more detail oriented, have longer attention spans, and can grasp higher level ideas. Children can be challenged with concepts that require more detailed comprehension but because they are learning so rapidly, they typically challenge adult opinion.

A child’s social and emotional development from 5 to 8 years may fall between the stages of initiative vs guilt and industry vs inferiority. Both of these stages lay groundwork for becoming productive members of society. During the initiative stage, children are busy trying to be like their parents who they perceive as big, powerful, and smart. Confidence that children can do a job well should predominate. Children wanting to please and excel can feel guilt that they must always be doing something and competing – always “making” in order to be worthy. During the “industrial” age, children enter to world of work. This is the perfect time for school to begin!! Feelings of competence and mastery compete for feelings of inadequacy and failure. Many children have their sense of industry undermined by well meaning parents and teachers attempting to inappropriately motivate children to excel at the hands of criticism.

Tips for Heightening Professional Sensitivity Regarding Developmentally Appropriate Practices

Professionally and Personally

• Review developmental expectations the children with whom you work.
• If developmentally appropriate practice is a new or unfamiliar concept, enlist in training or read more about it. Several for loan videos about Developmentally Appropriate Practice are available from Extension and for purchase from NAEYC.
• Work at facilitating learning as opposed to direct teaching.
• Ask others to evaluate your interactions with children.

Curriculum Plan

• Analyze your curriculum plan. What drives the plan? If you are tired of using the same weekly themes, develop your plan around daily major concepts such as gross motor skills, manipulatives, creative science, and language. Is there flexibility and are transition times from activity to activity smooth?
• Review your methods of evaluating a child’s developmental level and progress.
• Critically evaluate your materials for bias and stereotypic themes (See Antibias Curriculum, an NAEYC publication).
• Initiate and plan for parent involvement.

Environmentally

• Evaluate the environment and your interactions for functionality, child-centeredness, building on strengths, nurturance of independence, positive self-esteem, and opportunities for parents.
• By interacting with their surroundings, children are able to examine, question, and understand things around them and begin to build basic concepts. Hands-on exploration and modeling other’s behaviors are strong learning methods for young children.
• Learning through exploration, and discovery is a part of maturation. Understanding the developmental levels of young children is critical in order to plan effective learning activities.

Further reading

Elkind, D. (1989) *The Hurried Child.* Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Publishing Co., Inc.

Adult-Child Interaction

Curriculum

Partnerships between the Home and the Early Childhood Environment

Assessment of the Child

References

Bredekamp, S. (1987). *Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8.* NAEYC: Washington, DC.

Derman-Sparks, L. (1989). *Anti-bias Curriculum.* NAEYC: Washington, DC. NAEYC order number is 1-800-424-2460.

DOCUMENT USE/COPYRIGHT
Permission is granted to reproduce these materials in whole or in part for educational purposes only (not for profit beyond the cost of reproduction) provided that the author and Network receive acknowledgment and this notice is included:

Reprinted with permission from the NCSU Dept. of Family and Consumer Sciences. DeBord, K. (1995).*Developmentally appropriate 4-H experiences for the 5-8 year old.* Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service.

Any additions or changes to these materials must be preapproved by the author.

COPYRIGHT PERMISSION ACCESS::
Karen DeBord, Ph.D., CFLE.
Professor & Extension Specialist, Child Development
Box 7605, 101 Ricks Hall
NC State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7605
(919) 515-9147 (VOICE)
(919) 515-2786 (FAX)
Karen_DeBord@NCSU.EDU
Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

FORMAT AVAILABLE:: Print – 4 pages
DOCUMENT REVIEW:: Level 3 – National Peer Review
DOCUMENT SIZE:: 27K or 9 pages
ENTRY DATE:: October 1997