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Running head: DAP PAPER

DAP Paper

Teri Miskin

Brigham Young University – Idaho

10/1/19
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Developmentally appropriate practice or DAP for short is an idea in child development

that is used to care and nurture for a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive

development (“Developmentally Appropriate Practice”, 2019). DAP is meant to focus on each

child as a whole and each aspect of a DAP lesson plan should be developmentally appropriate,

age appropriate, and culturally appropriate. To me this means that each child is special and learns

at their own pace even with individuals their own age. For this paper I will be mainly focusing

on pre-school aged children. I am going to be describing two different types of pre-schools, first,

one that is not developmentally appropriate, and second, one that is developmentally appropriate.

Imagine you walk into the classroom of your daughters first day of pre-school. The room

is poorly lit and nobody comes to greet you. You stand there for a minute trying to figure out

what to do or where the teachers are. You decide to help your daughter take her coat off and go

sit at one of the small tables. Other parents and children start to show up and are greeted with the

same cold shoulder and just as you did try to figure out what to do when entering the room.

Finally, a teacher comes out from the back room but she still doesn’t really give you or any of

the other parents the time of day as she frantically sets up some activities around the room. After

sitting with your daughter for a while you finally get up and decide to introduce yourself to the

teacher. She awkwardly talks to you as you as her what her general teaching methods are and

what she has planned for the day. She hesitates for a minute and gives you a very vague answer

in response. She says “I don’t really have too much of a teaching method, I do however plan to

go over the alphabet, eat snack, and then clean up and hopefully the day will be over by then.”

You are shocked by her answer as there is no play time or wiggle room but the teacher walks

away before you can ask any other questions.

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You realize that there is no real guidance when it comes to the lesson plan or child-

teacher relationships. The class starts and you decide to stay for a little bit and observe, the

teacher obviously feels uncomfortable about you sticking around and she paces while talking to

the children. The lesson starts about the alphabet and clearly these children aren’t understanding

what is being taught and are hardly paying attention as they wiggle in their chairs. You can tell

the teacher didn’t plan the curriculum in many ways since she stood there and lectured for most

of the time. By the end of the alphabet she turns to the children and says, “snack time!” the

children get excited because they have been sitting in one spot for so long. There was no follow

up, no group activities, and no assessment to see if the children even knew what was going on.

The end of the day rolls around and you are still there observing because of how awful the pre-

school day went. You try talking to the teacher again but she is too busy cleaning up that she

doesn’t talk to you. This is an example of a program that is not developmentally appropriate.

Now let’s talk about a developmentally appropriate pre-school! It’s 7:50am and you

arrive to pre-school on your daughters first day. You walk up to the door only to be greeted by a

lovely young woman with a big smile who talks to you and your daughter. She guides you to a

cubby that has your daughter’s name on it and helps your daughter take her coat off. After this

another kind young lady comes over and helps direct your daughter to the rug in the middle of

the room where they are singing songs to welcome all the students. You feel comfortable enough

to walk away from your daughter since you can see she is already having a great time and really

bonding with the students and teachers around her. You decide to confront the head teacher and

ask her what her general teaching methods are and what she has planned for the day. She warmly

tells you, “Since today is the first day of school we will be having many different activities

around the room for the children to explore, we will be singing songs and getting to know the
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children and assessing where they are at individually. We want to plan the best program for your

sweet daughter so today is very flexible while we get to know each student.” She tells you her

teaching method is direct but also very flexible. The teacher then tells you it’s time to start the

class as she guides the students into an opening circle. You can tell this teacher knows what she

is doing and the children are loving it. The curriculum is planned in many different ways and is

set up to help the children learn and grow. You leave to let your child be alone and learn and

grow in this wonderful environment. When the day ends you go to pick up your daughter and she

can’t wait to tell you about the wonderful day she had and everything she learned and all her new

friends. The teacher comes to you and tells you what a wonderful daughter you have and all the

great things she did in the day. You are impressed with the communication that has taken place

and the relationship the teacher has created with you and your daughter. This is an example of a

developmentally appropriate pre-school.

As we can see there is a vast difference when it comes to developmentally appropriate

practice. The first example was taken from some of my experiences when I attended pre-school

and the awful memories I have of it compared to the amazing pre-schools I have been able to

shadow since being a child development major. DAP has so many benefits on young children, as

I mentioned before, DAP helps children grow at their own pace, feel comfortable while doing it,

and also grow to be a wonderful individual. DAP is meant to help a child as a whole and help

them to be a well-rounded person instead of shoving learning down their throats.

I believe children, as well as families feel more comfortable and are able to grow together

when DAP is used in a classroom. The environment is more inviting which helps put parents to

ease as they drop their child off for the day. Pre-school can be stressful for young children but

DAP can help them to be open and feel at home. DAP can reduce learning gaps for when the
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child moves to the next grade. It also helps children to have a say and choose how they want to

learn which makes learning more personal to them. Children are able to learn how to handle

daily situations as well as solve problems by themselves (Shipley, "Early Childhood Education:

Implementing Developmentally Appropriate Practices into Literacy Instruction").

Teachers are also able to benefit from DAP. Teachers are able to get to know more about

the child and parents on a more personal level so that lessons can be planned to really help

students rather than hinder them. I am so thankful for DAP and I know that it can help children

no matter their age or where they are at academically.

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References

Developmentally appropriate practice. (2019, September 20). Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmentally_appropriate_practice.

Shipley, T. (n.d.). Early Childhood Education: Implementing Developmentally Appropriate

Practices into Literacy Instruction. Retrieved from

http://www.wholechildeducation.org/blog/early-childhood-education-implementing-

developmentally-appropriate-practice.