At Northwest Education, we eavesdrop on online discussions of educators and parents from around the country to gain perspective for, appreciation of, and insights into the day-to-day concerns of teachers, administrators, consultants, and parents. On the Early Childhood Education listserv, developmentally appropriate practices have been a hot topic. Beth Conant, a consultant with Early Intervention Technical Assistance, Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Special Education, recently contributed an insightful review of some of the typical questions about DAP asked by teachers and parents. We reprint her column with permission.
When kindergarten teachers and parents are first introduced to developmentally appropriate practices (DAP), there are questions that typically arise. The following are a sampling of some of the most frequently asked questions concerning DAP.
Q: Shouldn't we encourage parents to keep their children at home to mature for another year if the child is not ready for kindergarten?
A: By definition, a developmentally appropriate setting meets the needs of all children. A developmental curriculum is designed to fit the needs of each child, in contrast to the traditional kindergarten curriculum into which we try to fit all children. When the curriculum and program are appropriate, even those children who might have experienced difficulty in a traditional kindergarten program benefit by school participation. These are the children who most need to be in school where they are being stimulated and challenged.
Q: Why do we need to change how we teach children?
A: As educators and parents, it is our goal to prepare children for the world of tomorrow, not the world of yesterday. We are not advocating that we throw everything out that we now do with young children, but that we look more carefully at how young children learn. What we know about how young children grow and learn has increased over the past 50 years. We now must incorporate that good information into what we do to facilitate learning.
We know that the business world is looking for individuals with very different skills from those required of workers 20 years ago. The Fortune 500 published a list of most desired skills in 1990. The top five skills in order of importance were teamwork, problem solving, interpersonal skills, oral communication, and listening. In order to prepare students to assume productive roles in our society, we must address the individual learning needs of every child, not just those children who come to school fitting neatly into our curriculum. We must add to the rich legacy of skill and knowledge acquisition those skills that will enable our children to become productive adults and lifelong learners in a changing world.
Q: Students today just want to be entertained. We have to get children ready to be students, to sit still and pay attention. Isn't it our responsibility to get kids ready to meet the challenges of the next grade?
A: Many kindergarten students are not developmentally ready to sit still for long periods of time. Learning to sit still is a lot like learning to walk. Parents wait with anticipation for their baby's first steps, but they can't force the baby to walk before she is ready. The ability to sit still develops in much the same way in preschool and primary-level students. It's not that young students are bad or wish to disobey the teacher. Their developmental level makes it impossible for them to sit quietly and listen for longer than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. Usually by the time a child is in second grade her attention span has increased considerably and she is ready to begin sitting for longer periods of time.
Kindergarten students learn concepts best if we teach them in a manner which is appropriate to their developmental levels. They need many experiences which are activity-oriented and which begin with the manipulation of concrete objects. The five-year-old is still developing language skills. When we ask her to spend much of her time listening instead of interacting with peers and adults, we limit her opportunity to hear and use language.
Our responsibility is to help children to grow and learn as much as they can in the months that we have them. At each grade level, our first duty is to our children, not to the teacher at the next grade level. If we can produce kindergarten students who are excited about school and learning and who look forward with confidence to using newly learned skills in the next grade or level and beyond, we have fulfilled our main responsibility.
Q: How expensive will this approach be to implement?
A: Many districts already have much of the equipment and supplies necessary to implement DAP. In some cases, it necessitates looking at existing equipment in new and different ways, such as rearranging furniture so that interest areas are defined and desks are put together to form work surfaces; pulling manipulatives, paper, and art supplies out of cupboards and putting them in children's reach on shelves; etc.
If the district needs additional supplies or equipment, it might reallocate some of the money used to order workbooks and put it toward the purchase of developmental materials. The district might solicit used toys and manipulatives from families whose children have outgrown them. It might present a wish list to PTA and community organizations. Some equipment might be made in junior and senior high school shop classes. These concerns are really the easy part of implementing DAP.
The most costly aspect of implementing developmentally appropriate practices is providing the training, technical assistance, and time for staff to meet for planning and reflection as they make ongoing changes. These expenses may require that a district rethink how it spends training dollars. Creative scheduling may provide planning time without additional expense. One of the most important ingredients in successful implementation of DAP costs little, but requires thoughtful planning, commitment, and dedication. That ingredient is the unflagging support of a district's or program's administration.
Q: How am I going to find time to make all of these changes?
A: Change should be a gradual process taken in increments which are comfortable for those who must implement them. It is helpful if teachers have the opportunity to share ideas and to plan together. Each teacher does not have to have all of the materials necessary to implement a developmental program. A sharing of equipment and materials through rotation from teacher to teacher is an efficient way of disseminating ideas and materials. Teachers might solicit assistance from PTA and community organizations to construct or buy learning games and materials. They might use parent and community volunteers and peer tutors to provide assistance with students in the developmental program. Of course, the support of administration is absolutely necessary.
Q: What about state mandates to teach so many minutes each day of math, reading, science, etc?
A: Many states do not mandate minutes of instruction per subject area per day. They mandate that a total number of hours of instruction occur in each subject area in a year. How a teacher or district chooses to apportion those minutes is an individual choice. Some of the best instruction occurs when teachers and children become immersed in an activity or lesson which cannot be quantified by minutes expended. Arbitrary period breaks interfere with this type of immersion. As a result, districts are encouraged to meet the state mandate, but in creative ways which allow teachers to be flexible in the scheduling of subjects and activities. For example, a gross motor activity on the playground which incorporates the teaching of number concepts could be counted as minutes in physical education and mathematics.
Q: I've been in education for a long time and DAP doesn't look new to me. How is DAP different from what we did in kindergartens back in the '40s and '50s?
A: Developmentally appropriate practice doesn't look different from the kindergarten classroom of the '50s. Many of the materials and activities are the same. The difference lies in the fact that in the developmentally appropriate classroom, the needs of all children are met. In the '50s, if a child arrived in kindergarten reading, she stepped back and participated in all the pre-reading activities in which the other children were involved and put off learning to read until first grade.
In the developmental kindergarten, a child who is ready to read and enjoys reading is taught reading skills. The child who is not ready to learn his letters is involved in prereading activities which develop visual, auditory, and motor skills which will prepare him to learn letters later. Individual differences are met through skill groups and learning areas which are stocked with materials that meet a variety of learning styles and levels.
Q: If we're teaching students at many different levels in kindergarten, what happens to them when they get to first grade?
A:Students have always been sent to first grade from traditional programs at many different skill levels. There never has been a magic wand that transformed a class of diverse learners into a homogenous group.
The danger is that teachers may forget that this diversity has always existed. When a different approach is implemented, this diversity may be attributed to the approach. A developmentally appropriate approach need not end because children have moved on to first grade. A mismatch between curriculum, teaching strategies, and child development may be present throughout the primary grades.
Q: I teach in a district which is integrated with equal numbers of African American and European American students. How does developmentally appropriate practice apply in my circumstance?
A: The inclusion of instruction around multicultural issues should be an important component of any approach. All children develop in a sequential, predictable pattern, regardless of ethnic background. Developmentally appropriate practice addresses individual learning needs and styles whatever the ethnic background of the child.
Q: Isn't this approach really just "dumbing-down" the curriculum so that slower children can catch up?
A: If a program is truly developmental, it takes children from where they are developmentally and provides experiences to challenge each of them.
In a developmental classroom, much less time is spent teaching children in a whole group. The classroom provides a balance of whole group, small group, and individual activities with periods of quiet work and active exploration. It is equipped with a wide variety of rich learning materials which children use in different ways depending on their prior knowledge, their interests, and/or the teacher's determination. Children are encouraged to actively explore these materials and interact with children and adults in the room in order to acquire skills and knowledge, and explore interests.
Materials are concrete, three-dimensional, and open-ended, allowing children to use them differently based upon their developmental level. For instance, blocks may be manipulated and stacked by young children, but become rich resources for exploring number relationships, geometry, and other math concepts for older children. Each child is seen as an individual with unique strengths and needs. It is the teacher's role to identify those strengths and needs and to tailor opportunities and challenges for learning and growth for each child no matter what her developmental level.
Send further questions about DAP to cokids@nauticom.net
To subscribe to ECE-L, send a one-line e-mail message that reads: subscribe ECE-L followed by your first and last name (not your login name). Send the message to: listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu
This document's URL is:
Home | Up & Coming | Programs & Projects: Northwest Education | People | Products & Publications | Topics
© 2001 Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory
Date of Last Update: 9/28/01
Email Webmaster
Tel. 503.275.9500
