The long-awaited new edition of NAEYC's book Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs is here, fully revised and updated! Since the first edition in 1987, it has been an essential resource for the early childhood education field. Early childhood educators have a professional responsibility to plan and implement intentional, developmentally appropriate learning experiences that promote the social and emotional development, physical development and health, cognitive development, and general learning competencies of each child served. But what is developmentally appropriate practice (DAP)? DAP is a framework designed to promote young children's optimal learning and development through a strengths-based approach to joyful, engaged learning. As educators make decisions to support each child's learning and development, they consider what they know about (1) commonality in children's development and learning, (2) each child as an individual (within the context of their family and community), and (3) everything discernible about the social and cultural contexts for each child, each educator, and the program as a whole. This latest edition of the book is fully revised to underscore the critical role social and cultural contexts play in child development and learning, including new research about implicit bias and teachers' own context and consideration of advances in neuroscience. Educators implement developmentally appropriate practice by recognizing the many assets all young children bring to the early learning program as individuals and as members of families and communities. They also develop an awareness of their own context. Building on each child's strengths, educators design and implement learning settings to help each child achieve their full potential across all domains of development and across all content areas.

Rethinking Early Childhood Education is alive with the conviction that teaching young children involves values and vision. This anthology collects inspiring stories about social justice teaching with young children. Included here is outstanding writing from childcare teachers, early-grade public school teachers, scholars, and parents.Early childhood is when we develop our core dispositions -- the habits of thinking that shape how we live. This book shows how educators can nurture empathy, an ecological consciousness, curiosity, collaboration, and activism in young children. It invites readers to rethink early childhood education, reminding them that it is inseparable from social justice and ecological education.An outstanding resource for childcare providers, early-grade teachers, as well as teacher education and staff development programs.

“These pages make clear that the way to foster effective teaching is not with curriculum mandates and pacing guides but with professional learning opportunities that prepare expert educators to take advantage of and create teachable moments.” —From the Foreword by Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University This book brings together a group of extraordinary educators and scholars who offer important insights about what we can do to defend childhood from societal challenges. The authors explain new findings from neuroscience and psychology, as well as emerging knowledge about the impact on child development of cultural and linguistic diversity, poverty, families and communities, and the media. Each chapter presents experiences and suggestions, from the perspectives of different disciplines, about what can be done to ensure that all children gain access to the supports they need for optimal physical, social, intellectual, and emotional development. Defending Childhood features: New knowledge about how children learn from the neurobiological, behavioral, and social sciences. Effective teaching strategies that support learning and provide for the needs of the whole child. Examination of a broad range of issues that affect childhood, including violence, media and technology saturation, and a school culture of endless testing. Suggestions for policies and practices for an equitable educational system. Contributors include: Barbara Bowman, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Delis Cuéllar, Tiziana Filippini, Matia Finn-Stevenson, Eugene García, Howard Gardner, Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, James J. Heckman, Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, Mara Krechevsky, George Madaus, Ben Mardell, Sonia Nieto, Valerie Polakow, Aisha Ray, Robert L. Selman, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., Edward Zigler Beverly Falk is professor and director of the Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education at The School of Education, The City College of New York, and author of Teaching the Way Children Learn.

Early childhood education programs are expected to provide exemplary care for all children—poor and affluent, children of color and White children—while also adapting care to include children’s families and cultures. These two sets of expectations are often difficult for teachers and programs to meet. In this book, Carollee Howes shows how high-quality programs successfully adapt child development guidelines within cultural contexts, and why quality needs to be and can be measured in culturally specific ways. This important book: Closely examines ECE programs considered exemplary for low-income children of color. Shows how directors and teachers successfully use practices derived from their cultural communities to implement universal standards of child care. Identifies the commonalities in good early childhood programs that are shared across class, race, and ethnic communities. Offers best practices based on extensive assessments, interviews, and observations. “Will have immediate relevance for policy debates, for understanding the mechanisms of program effects, and for educators who wish to deepen their knowledge of practice.” —Robert C. Pianta, University of Virginia “I urge all higher education faculty, in-service teacher trainers, accreditation observers, researchers, text-book writers and policymakers of standards to read this book.” —From the Foreword by Louise Derman-Sparks

The basic information family child care providers need to run a successful program in a warm, welcoming setting for children and their families

Make learning visible in the early years Early childhood is a uniquely sensitive time, when young learners are rapidly developing across multiple domains, including language and literacy, mathematics, and motor skills. Knowing which teaching strategies work best and when can have a significant impact on a child’s development and future success. Visible Learning in Early Childhood investigates the critical years between ages 3 and 6 and, backed by evidence from the Visible Learning® research, explores seven core strategies for learning success: working together as evaluators, setting high expectations, measuring learning with explicit success criteria, establishing developmentally appropriate levels of learning, viewing mistakes as opportunities, continually seeking feedback, and balancing surface, deep, and transfer learning. The authors unpack the symbiotic relationship between these seven tenets through Authentic examples of diverse learners and settings Voices of master teachers from the US, UK, and Australia Multiple assessment and differentiation strategies Multidisciplinary approaches depicting mathematics, literacy, art and music, social-emotional learning, and more Using the Visible Learning research, teachers partner with children to encourage high expectations, developmentally appropriate practices, the right level of challenge, and a focus on explicit success criteria. Get started today and watch your young learners thrive!

High-quality early care and education for children from birth to kindergarten entry is critical to positive child development and has the potential to generate economic returns, which benefit not only children and their families but society at large. Despite the great promise of early care and education, it has been financed in such a way that high-quality early care and education have only been available to a fraction of the families needing and desiring it and does little to further develop the early-care-and-education (ECE) workforce. It is neither sustainable nor adequate to provide the quality of care and learning that children and families needâ€"a shortfall that further perpetuates and drives inequality. Transforming the Financing of Early Care and Education outlines a framework for a funding strategy that will provide reliable, accessible high-quality early care and education for young children from birth to kindergarten entry, including a highly qualified and adequately compensated workforce that is consistent with the vision outlined in the 2015 report, Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation. The recommendations of this report are based on essential features of child development and early learning, and on principles for high-quality professional practice at the levels of individual practitioners, practice environments, leadership, systems, policies, and resource allocation.