Examples Of Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Imagine sitting in a classroom, surrounded by children the same age as yourself. While sitting there, you begin to pay attention to your teacher but along with your classmates you have no clue what she is teaching. The teacher pays no attention to the student’s capabilities and interests. As a result, the students may begin to feel frustrated, powerless and degraded. As a future teacher, these are some of the things we want to try to avoid. To avoid this, we want to make sure the way we are teaching falls under DAP- developmentally appropriate practice. Developmentally appropriate practice is defined as ways of teaching that engage children interests and adapt for their age, experience and ability to help them meet challenging and achievable

Throughout my observations at The Young Scholar Pre-school and Kindergarten, I acknowledged and observed all five of the guidelines for developmentally appropriate practice. The first developmentally appropriate practice that I observed was under the guideline: creating a caring community of learners. In my classroom, there was a situation when a little girl was a very touchy person. She enjoyed giving hugs to her classmates and teacher very much. Miss Yost had to remind the little girl that her behavior was only appropriate at certain times and only if the other students felt comfortable with it. With this example, Miss Yost set clear and reasonable limits on children’s behavior and apply those limits consistently. Another example that I observed under this guideline was when Miss Yost overheard an argument between two of the boys in her classroom. She then pulled them aside and listened to what they were arguing over. One of the boy’s was upset because he was not sharing his headphones during choice time. Miss Yost

After every day, Mrs. Swan sends home the work that the child has worked on throughout the day, along with her personal comments on the assignment. This offers the parents a look inside at the day in the classroom and to show the parents that the children’s progress is ongoing, strategic and purposeful. Secondly, Mrs. Swan informed me that each teacher has a progress report for each individual child for the end of the year. This progress report addresses whether or not each child has or has not reached the developmentally appropriate goals for their age. These end of the year assessments are assessments that emphasize the things that a child excels on and the things that the child struggled with throughout the year. Lastly, the NAEYC states that in addition to the assessment made by teachers, input from families as well as children’s own evaluations of their work are part of the program’s overall assessment strategy (2009). At Young Scholar, the teachers and guardians of each child meet to discuss each individual child’s progress and development through their year at Young