ABSTRACT
This book is chock full of ideas to contemplate and strategies to implement in your program. Chapter experts shared the latest research and recommendations based on their various professional roles. The authors are united in their support for responsive developmentally appropriate practice—an approach to education fostering young children’s identities in a community of learners, considering all aspects of development and various learning styles and capacities. Developmentally appropriate beliefs about learning start with the relationship between teacher and child, as well as child-to-child interactions, in a social environment and are the driver in emphasizing the importance of social-emotional learning as the foundation for achievement. Ideas presented show how to practice skillful observation to interpret behavior, as well as language, to ensure capacity building in the social world of the school. This developmentally responsive approach calls for respectful interactions with young children and their families from diverse cultures, languages, ethnicities, abilities and socio-economic situations. You learned how collaboration with families, which connects childcare and education settings, makes children feel safe and secure. For families, your efforts to learn about them and their goals for their children secures a foundation for lifelong appreciation of family involvement in various educational settings.
