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Table of Contents

• Starting Points for Implementing Developmentally Appropriate Practices in the Primary Grades
• The Influence of Child Care Quality on Kindergarten Success
• Position Statement on Interdisciplinary Learning, Pre-K - Grade 4
• Top 10 Signs of a Good Kindergarten Classroom

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Starting Points for Implementing Developmentally Appropriate Practices
in the Primary Grades

During a session sponsored by the Primary Grades Interest Group, at the 1995 Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, David Burchfield offered ideas which enable "schools and school systems to successfully transform practice into more meaningful and child-focused educational experiences." Burchfield suggested specific recommendations in the areas of the classroom, the school, and the community. These starting points are:

for classroom-based practitioners

1. Tap the power of play by offering children some choices, and by allowing them to be involved in planning, directing, and evaluating their work and play.
2. Connect meaningful objectives (knowledge, skills, and attitudes/dispositions) into units of study, and teach other objectives in mini-lessons and skills-based lessons.
3. Explore a learning progression or cycle, in themes and units of study, that is based on how children learn.
4. Implement a cycle in each learning time during the day that allows for planning, work/play, and sharing and closure.
5. Seek training in and implement a Writer’s Workshop in order to develop children’s authorship and writing ability.
6. Invite parents to be partners, to give input about their children, and to help set goals.
7. Consider conducting community meetings to learn to give compliments, solve problems, and plan upcoming events.
8. Practice describing individual children in an effort to make the fundamental shift away from "grade-leveled thinking" towards child-focused and child-sensitive thinking and practice.
9. Develop a balanced approach to the acquisition of reading/decoding strategies in young children and the philosophy of building on children’s strengths.

for schools and school systems

1. Involve administrators and supervisors in the development of the rationale for the implementation of developmentally appropriate practices and in inservice opportunities.
2. Provide staff in schools with opportunities to talk about children and teaching and learning.
3. Align curricular goals and instructional strategies with assessment and communication procedures.
4. Break down traditional barriers between people in schools and school systems (between kindergarten and first grade, primary and intermediate grades, special and regular education) by making inservice and conversations inclusive.

for communities involved in the care and education of young children

1. Learn more about, develop, come to understand, and be able to articulate beliefs about what children are like and how they learn.
2. Involve key community members and stakeholders in a series of workshop/conversational sessions in which members describe their children, learn about current child development theory, and discuss and come to consensus about the consequent practices that should flow from what has been learned.

Burchfield elaborates on four of the starting points for classroom-based practitioners in an article entitled "Teaching ALL Children: Four Developmentally Appropriate Curricular and Instructional Strategies in Primary-Grade Classrooms." in the November 1996 issue of YOUNG CHILDREN.

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David Burchfield is an early childhood teacher, consultant, and administrator. He is one of the contributors to Reaching Potentials: Appropriate Curriculum and Assessment for Young Children, Volume 1, and his classroom is featured on NAEYC’s video Developmentally Appropriate First Grade: A Community of Learners. He may be contacted at 309 Victoria Drive, Bridgewater, Virginia 22812, (540) 828-4436.

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The Influence of Child Care Quality on Kindergarten Success

"Every day, five million American children attend child care. Indeed, forty percent of all American youngsters spend some of their preschool months in child care."

Parents and teachers of children in the primary grades especially are aware of these increasing numbers of preschoolers, who are in child care prior to their beginning elementary school. For example, the impact which child care programs, both in the private and public sectors, have on children and their families is discussed when transition plans are developed for preschoolers as they enter kindergarten. As child care has become an essential element in the nation’s culture, current and accurate information about child care quality, costs, and child outcomes has become necessary. Now, as a part of these data-gathering efforts, research is looking at what impact the quality of a preschool child’s experiences in child care has on her/his success in the kindergarten classroom.

Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers is a comprehensive study of center child care in four states: Los Angeles County, California; the Front Range in Colorado; the New Haven/Hartford corridor in Connecticut, and the Piedmont Triad in North Carolina. Researchers from the University of Colorado at Denver, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Yale University collected and analyzed data during 1993 and 1994. In total, data were collected from 401 centers and 826 preschool-aged children attending a subsample of these centers.

In the research design an intensive, on-site study was conducted of centers in four fairly representative states with varying licensing standards and demographic and economic characteristics. Taken together, the results for a given state are representative of other states with similar characteristics.

Previously published findings from the study regarding the quality of child care services have included the following:

• Child care at most centers in the United States is poor to mediocre, with almost half of the infant and toddler rooms having poor quality.
• Only one in seven centers provides a level of quality that promotes healthy development. Child care in one in eight centers threatens health and safety. Seven in ten centers are providing mediocre care which may compromise children’s ability to enter school ready to learn. Infants and toddlers fare worse. Forty percent of the infant and toddler rooms were observed to endanger children’s health and safety. Only one in 12 infant and toddler rooms are providing developmentally appropriate care.
• The quality of child care is primarily related to higher staff-to-child ratios, staff education, and administrators’ prior experience. In addition, teachers’ wages, their education and specialized training were the most important characteristics that distinguish poor, mediocre, and good- quality centers.
• States in this study with more demanding licensing standards have fewer poor-quality centers; centers that comply with additional standards beyond those required for basic licensing (such as those required for funding or accreditation) provide higher quality services.
• Centers with extra resources used them to improve quality.

The researchers in the Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes study are, however, interested in discovering long-term effects of the quality of preschool experiences on children, as well as short-term ones. The preschool children who were observed are being followed through their kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade years in elementary school. Because of this longitudinal element, some of the data has not yet been gathered; other data have been obtained but not yet analyzed; and new findings are released periodically.

In a session entitled "The Influence of Child Care Quality on Preschool and Early School Outcomes for Children," held at the 1996 Annual Conference of the National Association for the Education of Young Children, members of the research team presented information about what kind of kindergarten year these children, in fact, experienced. An examination of the data shows that the quality of the child care, which they received as preschoolers, generally positively affected the children as kindergarteners in such areas as:

• pre-academic skills (reading and math),
• receptive language skills,
• social/behavioral skills, and
• attitudes/perceptions.

Specifically, the quality of preschool child care positively impacted language development of these children when they were in kindergarten, regardless of the quality of the kindergarten program. Another outcome is that closeness between preschoolers and their child care providers positively affected the children’s cognitive skills in kindergarten, regardless of what type of interactions they experienced with their kindergarten teachers.

Such findings as these in kindergarten, as well as the outcomes experienced in first and second grade (longitudinal data which are now being gathered and/or analyzed), are critical. It may be important to consider the research of these professionals when such federal programs as Head Start and Title I emphasize quality experiences. The outcomes may inform discussions, involving parents and teachers of children in the primary grades, as individual states develop content standards, and debate occurs about how children should meet such standards.

Published findings in the Cost, Quality, and Child Outcomes in Child Care Centers study are available in three formats: an Executive Summary ($8.00 each), a 90-page Public Report ($15.00 each), and a 500-page Technical Report ($40.00 each). The reports are available from the Economics Department, University of Colorado at Denver, Campus Box 159, P. O. Box 173364, Denver, CO 80217-3364, (303) 556-4934 {voice}, (303) 556-3547 {fax}.

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Position Statement on Interdisciplinary Learning,
Pre-K - Grade 4

Recent calls for educational reform focus on the need for curricula emphasizing conceptual learning that is integrated across traditional subject areas. Responding to this need, the major national subject-matter organizations—the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, the National Science Teachers Association, the National Council for the Social Studies, the Speech Communication Association, and the Council for Elementary Science International—met to discuss and develop guidelines for integrating the curriculum from Pre-K - Grade 4. A result of their discussions is this position statement, which outlines the principles that should guide the implementation of an integrated curriculum.

Basic to this effort is the belief that educational experiences are more authentic and of greater value to students when the curricula reflect real life, which is multifaceted—rather than being compartmentalized into neat subject-matter packages. Interdisciplinary instruction capitalizes on natural and logical connections that cut across content areas and is organized around questions, themes, problems, or projects rather than along traditional subject-matter boundaries. Such instruction is likely to be responsive to children’s curiosity and questions about real life and to result in productive learning and positive attitudes toward school and teachers.

The participating organizations believe that educational experiences should help develop children’s natural curiosity and their inclination to construct meaning. A focus on relationships across disciplines should encourage creative problem solving and decision making because it makes available to students the perspectives, knowledge, and data-gathering skills of all the disciplines. Such an instructional process should also encourage children to interact with others in a learning community where diversity of thought and culture is valued.

With the above statements in mind, the participating organizations recommend the following guiding principles.

Interdisciplinary Pre-K - Grade 4 curricula should:

1. Maintain the integrity of content drawn from the disciplines by using meaningful connections to sustain students’ inquiry between and among those disciplines. Interdisciplinary instruction should be authentic and worthwhile. It is important for students to develop familiarity with the knowledge, assumptions, and methods of inquiry used in many subject-matter areas in order to be able to select that which is most appropriate for any given situation. Major concepts and methods from the various disciplines should be taught as part of integrated units and at times that are appropriate to students’ interests and cognitive and social development.
   
   
2. Foster a learning community in which students and teachers determine together the issues, questions, and strategies for investigation. An appropriate balance should be maintained between student-initiated and teacher-initiated learning experiences.
   
   
3. Develop democratic classrooms. Select curricula and organize classrooms that will cultivate a learning community in which students develop both independence as investigators and the ability to collaborate with each other and with teachers to raise questions, investigate issues, and solve problems. Students should be encouraged to assume increasing responsibility for their learning so that they can gain confidence in their abilities to find information, understand and articulate ideas, and make decisions.
   
   
4. Provide a variety of opportunities for interaction among diverse learners—for example, discussion, investigation, product development, drama, and telecommunications. Collaborative interaction among students who differ in abilities, perspectives, experiences, ethnicity, and interests promotes learning for all students and fosters positive attitudes towards others and toward learning.
   
   
5. Respect diversity of thought and culture. Students should learn by employing a variety of learning strategies, engaging in a wide range of learning experiences, and examining many and varied perspectives.
   
   
6. Teach students to use a wide variety of sources, including primary sources, oral communication, direct observation, and experimentation. The use of multiple and diverse sources accommodates various learning styles, interests, and abilities; teaches the importance of cross-checking for accuracy and bias; and develops students’ ability to choose the most appropriate and productive sources for investigating specific questions or problems.
   
   
7. Use multiple symbol systems as tools to learn and present knowledge. These can include symbols used in language, mathematics, music, and art, as well as those that translate knowledge into tables, charts, and graphs.
   
   
8. Use wide-ranging assessments to evaluate both the processes and outcomes of student learning. Ongoing assessment during the inquiry process should lead students and teachers to determine what criteria can be used to identify quality work. Decisions about instruction should be based on a variety of formal and informal assessment strategies that move beyond the exclusive use of objective measures to include observation, portfolios, and performance assessments.
   

An interdisciplinary education which draws from the knowledge and processes of multiple disciplines should encourage students to become active learners equipped with the analytical, interpretative, and evaluative skills needed to solve real-life problems. Eliminating artificial barriers among subject areas gives students a broader context for solving real-life problems.

Single copies of this statement are available free upon request and may be copied without permission from the National Council of Teachers of English. Multiple copies are available at a bulk prepaid rate of $7.00 per 100. When ordering, refer to stock #23325. Requests may be sent to NCTE Order Department, 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096.

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Top 10 Signs of a Good Kindergarten Classroom

Kindergarten is a time for children to expand their love of learning, their general knowledge, their ability to get along with others, and their interest in reaching out to the world. While kindergarten marks an important transition from preschool to the primary grades, it is important that children still get to be children — getting kindergarteners ready for elementary school does not mean substituting academics for play time, forcing children to master first grade "skills," or relying on standardized tests to assess children’s success.

Kindergarten "curriculum" actually includes such events as snack time, recess, and individual and group activities in addition to those activities we think of as traditionally educational. Developmentally appropriate kindergarten classrooms encourage the growth of children’s self-esteem, their cultural identities, their independence, and their individual strengths. Kindergarten children will continue to develop control of their own behavior through the guidance and support of warm, caring adults. At this stage, children are already eager to learn and possess an innate curiosity. Teachers with a strong background in early childhood education and child development can best provide for children what they need to grow physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

Here are 10 signs of a good kindergarten classroom:

1. Children are playing and working with materials or other children. They are not aimlessly wandering or forced to sit quietly for long periods of time.
2. Children have access to various activities throughout the day such as block building, pretend play, picture books, paints and other art materials, and table toys such as Legos, pegboards, and puzzles. Children are not all doing the same things at the same time.
3. Teachers work with individual children, small groups, and the whole group at different times during the day. They do not spend time only with the entire group.
4. The classroom is decorated with children’s original artwork, their own writing with invented spelling, and dictated stories.
5. Children learn numbers and the alphabet in the context of their everyday experiences. Exploring the natural world of plants and animals, cooking, taking attendance, and serving snack are all meaningful activities to children.
6. Children work on projects and have long periods of time (at least one hour) to play and explore. Filling out worksheets should not be their primary activity.
7. Children have an opportunity to play outside every day that weather permits. This play is never sacrificed for more instructional time.
8. Teachers read books to children throughout the day, not just at group story time.
9. Curriculum is adapted for those who are ahead as well as those who need additional help. Because children differ in experiences and background, they do not learn the same things at the same time in the same way.
10. Children and their parents look forward to school. Parents feel safe sending their child to kindergarten. Children are happy; they are not crying or regularly sick.

Individual kindergarten classrooms will vary, and curriculum will vary according to the interests and backgrounds of the children. But all developmentally appropriate kindergarten classrooms will have one thing in common: the focus will be on the development of the child as a whole.

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The above article is number 12 in the series Early Years Are Learning Years, produced by the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Reproduction of this material is freely granted, provided credit is given to NAEYC. The organization may be contacted by mail at 1509 16th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036-1426; by telephone at (800) 424-2460; by fax at (202) 328-1846; and by e-mail (http://www.naeyc.org/naeyc/).

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This page last updated: December 13, 2007