Ignite and fulfill your professional development goals! Increased organization and memory capacity of the developing brain make it possible for children to combine simple routines into more complex strategies with age.39 Despite these predictable changes in all domains, the ways that these changes are demonstrated and the meanings attached to them will vary in different cultural and linguistic contexts. Neural connections in the brain—which are the basis for all thought, communication, and learning—are established most rapidly in early childhood.14 The processes of forming new neural connections and pruning the neural connections that are not used continue throughout a person’s lifespan but are most consequential in the first three years.15 When adults are sensitive and respond to an infant’s babble, cry, or gesture, they directly support the development of neural connections that lay the foundation for children’s communication and social skills, including self-regulation. Educators also strategically make comments and suggestions and ask questions to help move children toward a learning goal, even as children continue to lead the activity.32, Guided play gives educators opportunities to use children’s interests and creations to introduce new vocabulary and concepts, model complex language, and provide children with multiple opportunities to use words in context in children’s home languages as well as in English. For example, in some cultures, children may be encouraged to satisfy their growing curiosity by moving independently to explore the environment; in other cultures, children may be socialized to seek answers to queries within structured activities created for them by adults.40 In addition, all children learn language through their social interactions, but there are important distinctions in the process for monolingual, bilingual, and multilingual children.41 Rather than assuming that the process typical of monolingual children is the norm against which others ought to be judged, it is important for educators to recognize the differences as variations in strengths (rather than deficits) and to support them appropriately.42, Development and learning also occur at varying rates from child to child and at uneven rates across different areas for each child. Technology and interactive media should expand children’s access to new content and new skills; they should not replace opportunities for real, hands-on experiences.68 When truly integrated, uses of technology and media become normal and transparent—the child or the educator is focused on the activity or exploration itself, not the technology. Find a sponsorship opportunity that’s right for you and help support early childhood educators, parents, and other professionals. Donate to help NAEYC advance a strong and dynamic early childhood profession and connect educators to cutting-edge resources. All domains of child development—physical development, cognitive development, social and emotional development, and linguistic development (including bilingual or multilingual development), as well as approaches to learning—are important; each domain both supports and is supported by the others. Support our mission and reach the NAEYC audience through your advertisement, conference exhibit booth, or sponsorship. Deepen your professional knowledge wherever you are with NAEYC’s exciting webinar series and online and face-to-face training opportunities. Early childhood educators are responsible for fostering children’s development and learning in all these domains as well as in general learning competencies and executive functioning, which include attention, working memory, self-regulation, reasoning, problem solving, and approaches to learning. Equally important is encouraging each child’s sense of agency. Become an organizational or corporate partner to inspire early childhood education at the local and national level. All young children need daily, sustained opportunities for play, both indoors and outdoors. Infants appear particularly attuned to adults as sources of information, underscoring the importance of consistent, responsive caregiving to support the formation of relationships.46 Cultural variations can be seen in these interactions, with implications for later development and learning. Seeing connections with home and community can be a powerful signal for children’s establishing psychological safety; conversely, when there are few signs of connection for children, their psychological safety is jeopardized. Children need to feel successful in new tasks a significant proportion of the time to promote their motivation and persistence.62 Confronted by repeated failure, most children will simply stop trying. Contact us with your questions-- we're here to help! In addition, some regression in observed skills is common before new developments are fully achieved.43 For all of these reasons, the notion of “stages” of development has limited utility; a more helpful concept may be to think of waves of development that allow for considerable overlap without rigid boundaries.44. For children facing adverse circumstances, including trauma, the buffering effects of caring, consistent relationships—with family and other community members but also in high-quality early childhood programs—are also important to note.22 This emerging science emphasizes the critical importance of early childhood educators in providing consistent, responsive, sensitive care and education to promote children’s development and learning across the full birth-through-8 age span. It means “making rich connections among domain and subject areas, but allowing each to retain its core conceptual, procedural, and epistemological structures.”55 It is, therefore, important that educators have a good understanding of the core structures (concepts and language) for all the academic subject areas so that they can communicate them in appropriate ways to children. For example, studies suggest that students who are taught math primarily through memorization and rote learning are more than a year behind those who have been taught by relating math concepts to their existing knowledge and reflecting on their own understanding.36. Development and learning are dynamic processes that reflect the complex interplay between a child’s biological characteristics and the environment, each shaping the other as well as future patterns of growth. Stay up to date with research-based, teacher-focused articles on birth to age 8 in our award-winning, peer-reviewed journal. Every day, we stand up for, celebrate, educate and inspire the people who power the retail industry. Support our efforts to secure a bright future for young children, educators, and families. Play (especially in intentionally designed environments with carefully selected materials) provides young children with opportunities to engage in this type of practice. Support access to high-quality early childhood education programs and opportunities and resources for educators. The early childhood years lay the foundation and create trajectories for all later learning and development. Learn about our work with governments and NGOs around the world to support young children and their teachers. Learn about our work with governments and NGOs around the world to support young children and their teachers. Although general progressions of development and learning can be identified, variations due to cultural contexts, experiences, and individual differences must also be considered. Stay up to date with research-based, teacher-focused articles on birth to age 8 in our award-winning, peer-reviewed journal. Discover the benefits of early childhood accreditation, learn about the four step process, find support and resources for your program or login to the accreditation portal. Discover practical tips and innovative ideas for preschool teachers in our award-winning magazine. Stay current on all things related to your professional association, from book releases to policy updates. Repeated opportunities to practice and consolidate new skills and concepts are also essential for children to reach the threshold of mastery at which they can go on to use this knowledge or skill, applying it in new situations. They recognize patterns and make predictions that they then apply to new situations. Also essential is deep knowledge of each child, based on what the teacher has learned from close observation and from the family about the individual child’s interests, skills, and abilities and about practices of importance to the family. Explore jobs in the Career Center and find higher education and professional development opportunities. It can also support learning, comprehension, and communication across language differences and provide adaptations that support inclusion of children with disabilities. For example, technology and interactive media can facilitate communication between families, children, and teachers. Engage with our policy agendas, advocacy resources, and current initiatives. Discover practical tips and innovative ideas for preschool teachers in our award-winning magazine. They also recognize the potential for implicit bias to lead to lowered expectations, especially for children of color,59 and actively work to avoid such bias. Ultimately, motivation is a personal decision based on the learner’s determination of meaningfulness, interest, and engagement.53 Educators can promote children’s agency and help them feel motivated by engaging them in challenging yet achievable tasks that build on their interests and that they recognize as meaningful and purposeful to their lives. NAEYC’s guidelines and recommendations for developmentally appropriate practice are based on the following nine principles and their implications for early childhood education professional practice. A growing body of work demonstrates relationships between social, emotional, executive function, and cognitive competencies26 as well as the importance of movement and physical activity.27 These areas of learning are mutually reinforcing and all are critical in educating young children across birth through age 8. Focus on the study of research methods, cognitive psychology, social psychology, personality, learning theory, ethical practice and more. A pervasive characteristic of development is that children’s functioning, including their play, becomes increasingly complex—in language, cognition, social interaction, physical movement, problem solving, and virtually every other aspect. The child also has the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, to … Educators can involve children in choosing or creating learning experiences that are meaningful to them, helping them establish and achieve challenging goals, and reflecting on their experiences and their learning. Behavior analysis in child development takes a mechanistic, contextual, and pragmatic approach. From infancy through age 8, proactively building children’s conceptual and factual knowledge, including academic vocabulary, is essential because knowledge is the primary driver of comprehension. Studies have found that some children are denied opportunities to exercise agency because they are mistakenly deemed unable to do so.54 For educators, supporting a child’s agency can be especially challenging when they do not speak the same language as the child or are not able to understand a child’s attempts to express solutions or preferences. High-quality early childhood education contributes substantially to children’s resilience and healthy development. For example, when given an object, children are more likely to engage in creative explorations of that object when they are provided with more open-ended guidance versus when they are given specific information about what the object was designed to do. The curriculum should provide both breadth and depth with multiple opportunities to revisit concepts and experiences, rather than rapidly progressing through a wide but shallow set of experiences. Donate to help NAEYC advance a strong and dynamic early childhood profession and connect educators to cutting-edge resources. All domains of child development—physical development, cognitive development, social and emotional development, and linguistic development (including bilingual or multilingual development), as well as approaches to learning—are important; each domain both supports and is supported by the others. Educators can also intentionally build bridges between children’s interests and the subject matter knowledge that will serve as the foundation for learning in later grades. When planning learning environments and activities, educators may find it helpful to consider a continuum ranging from children’s self-directed play to direct instruction.31 Neither end of the continuum is effective by itself in creating a high-quality early childhood program. It is important to recognize that although children of all races and ethnicities experience poverty and other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), Black and Latino/a children, as well as children in refugee and immigrant families, children in some Asian-American families, and children in Native American families, have been found to be more likely to experience ACEs than White non-Latino/a and other Asian-American populations of children,19 reflecting a history of systemic inequities.20 Moreover, racism itself must be recognized not only for its immediate and obvious impacts on children, but also for its long-term negative impacts, in which the repetitive trauma created by racism can predispose individuals to chronic disease.21 It should be noted that these stressors and trauma affect adults as well as children, including family members and early childhood educators themselves, who, despite their skills and importance, often earn wages that place them into poverty. Encouraging children to reflect on their experiences and learning and to revisit concepts over time is also an important strategy for educators. Celebrate young children and their families with hands-on activities encouraging movement and healthy lifestyles through music, food, and art. These meaningful and engaging experiences help children—including those in kindergarten and the primary grades—build knowledge and vocabulary across subject areas and in purposeful contexts (which is more effective than memorization of word lists).33, Despite evidence that supports the value of play, not all children are afforded the opportunity to play, a reality which disproportionately affects Black and Latino/a children.34 Play is often viewed as being at odds with the demands of formal schooling, especially for children growing up in under-resourced communities.35 In fact, the highly didactic, highly controlling curriculum found in many kindergarten and primary grades, with its narrow focus on test-focused skill development, is unlikely to be engaging or meaningful for children; it is also unlikely to build the broad knowledge and vocabulary needed for reading comprehension in later grades. They make use of strategies to promote children’s undertaking and mastering of new and progressively more advanced challenges. For example, labeling objects helps young children form conceptual categories; statements conveyed as generic descriptions about a category are especially salient to young children and, once learned, can be resistant to change.56 It is also important for educators to monitor their language for potential bias. Emerging evidence suggests a number of cautions, including concerns about negative associations between excessive screen time and childhood obesity as well as negative impacts on toddlers’ performance on measures of fine motor, communication, and social skills.65 There is no evidence that development is enhanced when children younger than age 2 independently use devices with screen media.66 Keeping these cautions in mind, technology and interactive media can help to support developmentally appropriate practice. Say Hello and discuss, network, and connect with our interest forums and online communities. In these cases, nonverbal cues and/or technology-assistive tools may be helpful as the educator also works to address the communication barrier. Learn about and purchase the best books and resources to support young children's learning and development. The negative impacts of chronic stress and other adverse experiences can be overcome. Consistently, studies find clear links between play and foundational capacities such as working memory, self-regulation, oral language abilities, social skills, and success in school.29. Educators shape children’s conceptual development through their use of language. Children are active learners from birth, constantly taking in and organizing information to create meaning through their relationships, their interactions with their environment, and their overall experiences. Children learn in an integrated fashion that cuts across academic disciplines or subject areas. Develop grassroots efforts advancing early childhood in your community with these tools and resources. Become an organizational or corporate partner to inspire early childhood education at the local and national level. Join your professional membership association, explore local Affiliates, and access unbeatable member benefits. Researchers studying the pedagogy of play have identified three key components: choice (the children’s decisions to engage in play, as well as decisions about its direction and its continuation), wonder (children’s continued engagement as they explore, gather information, test hypotheses, and make meaning), and delight (the joy and laughter associated with the pleasure of the activity, making discoveries, and achieving new things).30 Play also typically involves social interaction with peers and/or adults. Enhance your career and improve your knowledge, skills, and practices with our in-person and online training. As noted earlier regarding brain development, children’s feelings of safety and security are essential for the development of higher-order thinking skills, so fostering that sense of belonging is essentially a brain-building activity. 10, 11, 12 Each individual—child, family member, and early educator—is unique. From its inception, the behavioral model has focused on prediction and control of the developmental process. Advances in neuroscience over the last two decades have provided new insights regarding the processes of early brain development and their long-term implications for development and learning. No group is monolithic, and data specific to communities provides a deeper understanding of children’s experiences and outcomes. These 12 principles for agile software development help establish the tenets of the agile mindset. Login to the Early Learning Accreditation Portal to take charge of your accreditation process. Even if not called play, cross-curricular and collaborative approaches such as project-based learning, inquiry learning, or making and tinkering share characteristics of playful learning.37 Giving children autonomy and agency in how they approach problems, make hypotheses, and explore potential solutions with others promotes deeper learning and improves executive functioning.38 In sum, self-directed play, guided play, and playful learning, skillfully supported by early childhood educators, build academic language, deepen conceptual development, and support reflective and intentional approaches to learning—all of which add up to effective strategies for long-term success. But integrating cognitive, emotional, social, interpersonal skills and self-regulatory competencies better prepares children for more challenging academic content and learning experiences.28 In brief, the knowledge base documents the importance of a comprehensive curriculum and the interrelatedness of the developmental domains for all young children’s well-being and success. Science is clear that children can learn multiple languages as easily as one, given adequate exposure and practice, and this process brings cognitive advantages.24 In groups in which children speak different home languages, educators may not be able to speak each language, but they can value and support maintaining all languages.25. Group projects with documentation, including photos, videos, child artwork and representations, child dictations, and/or children’s writing, are also important tools for encouraging reflection and for revisiting concepts over time.63. As such, children with disabilities (or with the potential for a disability) have capacity to learn; they need educators who do not label them or isolate them from their peers and who are prepared to work with them and their families to develop that potential. Find a sponsorship opportunity that’s right for you and help support early childhood educators, parents, and other professionals. Search an ECE degree directory, explore professional standards, and join our community of practice. Beginning in infancy, educators who follow children’s lead in noticing their interests and responding with an appropriate action and conversation (including noting when interest wanes) are helping children develop self-confidence and an understanding that their actions make a difference. Development and learning advance when children are challenged to achieve at a level just beyond their current mastery and when they have many opportunities to reflect on and practice newly acquired skills. Recognizing the value of the academic disciplines, an interdisciplinary approach that considers multiple areas together is typically more meaningful than teaching content areas separately. Educators can also encourage children’s continued exploration and discovery through the words they use. Human beings, especially young children, are motivated to understand or do what is just beyond their current understanding or mastery. Engage with our policy agendas, advocacy resources, and current initiatives. Search an ECE degree directory, explore professional standards, and join our community of practice. Support access to high-quality early childhood education programs and opportunities and resources for educators. Read about this initiative focused on equity in early childhood and find other equity-related content. Become a leader in your professional association. Connect with professionals in your community at conferences, networking events, advocacy efforts, leadership opportunities and more! For example, one recent study found that children will think a child who receives more positive nonverbal signals from a teacher is perceived as a “better” or “smarter” reader than a child who receives more negative nonverbal signals, regardless of that child’s actual reading performance.50. Join NAEYC’s team and help us advance the education of young children across the country. Educators contribute significantly to the child’s development by providing the support or assistance that allows the child to succeed at a task that is just beyond their current level of skill or understanding. Tiered intervention approaches can be helpful in identifying children who might benefit from additional instruction or support.64 These approaches, often in collaboration with early childhood special educators and early interventionists, are most effective when they are implemented in a way that is continuous, flexible, dynamic, and focused on the range of critical skills and proficiencies children need to develop and to enable their full participation in the classroom/group community.
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