Lesson 1.

2: Developmentally-Appropriate Practice
Lesson Summary
In this lesson, we have discussed that the curriculum is what happens for children and
should relate to sound child development principles and developmentally appropriate practices
(DAP). Besides, curriculum planners must consider four types of learning: knowledge, skills,
dispositions, and feelings. We talked about the written plan as a road map for curriculum goals
and examined a list of children's sample goals. We discussed the learning experiences and
materials used in implementing the curriculum and the roles of adults.

Learning Outcome
At the end of this unit, you will be able to:
1. explain the concept Developmentally Appropriate Practice; and
2. discuss the four major categories of learning goals.
Motivation Question
How do we make the curriculum fun for the teacher, the children and their families?

Discussion
Developmentally Appropriate Practice
The field frequently uses the term developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) that an
educator rarely forgets the real meaning of these words. Two equally essential criteria serve as
bases of DAP:
(1) what teachers know about the ways all children develop and learn, and
(2) what teachers continually learn day by day about each individual child and family.
Therefore, teachers base DAP on both age appropriateness and individual appropriateness.
Developmentally appropriate practices result from the process of
professionals making decisions about the well-being and education of
children based on at least three essential kinds of information:
1. knowledge about child development and learning
2. knowledge about the strengths, interests, and needs of each child
3. understanding the social and cultural contexts in which children live

We develop further insight in Reaching Potentials: Appropriate Curriculum and Assessment

for Young Children, volume 1 (1992, pp. 1-26) as editors Sue Bredekamp and Teresa Rosegrant
tell us some things that DAP is not. The editors explain that DAP is not a curriculum with a rigid
set of expectations, but a developmental framework and philosophy. They further clarify that DAP
supports curriculum ideas that emerge from children, families, and teachers, not just from
teachers. They also make it abidingly clear that DAP does not mean that teachers abdicate their
roles as adult leaders and allow children to manage the classroom or be in charge of the
curriculum!
The developmentally appropriate practice supports the use of ongoing goals in a framework of
careful, proper planning. It provides ample time for learning and discovering through play, but
what the learning centers initially offer is carefully preplanned by teachers to mesh with
curriculum goals. In essence, DAP supports children's emerging interests and expands on these
interests to build on children's knowledge and skills.
Curriculum is what happens, but in reality, nothing happens without planning. The definition of
curriculum must include that there will be a written plan for what will be happening. Hence, we
can say that a curriculum is a written plan or a "road map" for what will be happening in a program
and that what will happen will be based on sound child development principles, accepted
standards, and best practices in the field. Things to include in the written plan are goals, learning
experiences, materials, and the roles to be played by adults.
Goals
Road maps show two things: where you want to go and how to get there. The written plan for your
curriculum must teach these things, too. First, where do you want to go? What are your goals for
children's development and learning, and what do you, your staff, and the children's parents want
children to achieve? Most written curriculum plans start with a mission statement or a philosophy
statement that includes or is followed by the goals.
Sample Goals for Children
To express thoughts and feelings
To develop literacy, numeracy, reasoning, and decision-making skills that will form a foundation
for school success
To develop motor skills and physical health
To develop self-discipline and a sense of responsibility
• Lillian Katz, a renowned early childhood educator, discusses four significant categories of
learning goals that all early educators should consider in curriculum development:
1. Knowledge: Facts, concepts, ideas, vocabulary, stories, and other aspects of children’s
culture
2. Skills: Small units of action that occur in relatively short periods and that one quickly
observes. Children learn an almost endless number of skills in the early years, including
physical, verbal, perceptual, memory, counting, estimating, drawing, and other skills.
3. Dispositions: Habits or tendencies to respond to certain situations in specific ways.
Curiosity, friendliness, bossiness, creativity, and generosity are all examples of
dispositions.
4. Feelings: Subjective emotional states. Some feelings are innate, while others learn
them. Examples of learned feelings are competence, confidence, belonging, and
security.
Experiences and Materials
How will you "order" your experiences throughout the year so that children's learning will
proceed from simple to complex, and their mastery of skills will gradually and naturally occur.
How will you ensure that you plan a balance of activities in all learning domains? Can you list the
major types of materials that will support your children's learning experiences? When and where
will the experiences occur? All these questions should be answered and noted in your written plan
for the curriculum.
Roles of Adults
In addition to your classroom staff, other adults will support your planned experiences as
team teachers, resource persons, visitors, and volunteers. Adult roles will involve implementing
systems for planning, observation, recording (data collection), communication, record-keeping,
monitoring, assessment, and individualization. It is wise to describe these roles in your written
curriculum plan to participate, and everyone knows who does what and when they do it.

Learning Tasks/Activities

1. Access the internet and watch a short video on DAP at

youtube.com/watch?v = n44ef2GJ1es.
2. Guide Questions:
a. Did you find the video interesting?
b. Explain the important insights and learnings that you have gained from
the activity.
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3. Suppose a preschool teacher says he does not plan to drill children on numbers and the ABCs
but prefers to teach children literacy and numeracy through hands-on activities with concrete
materials. In that case, he asserts that children learn best, what will be your reaction? Explain in
2-3 sentences.
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Assessment
1. Let's find out how much you know about DAP. Write TRUE if the statement is correct
and FALSE if it is wrong.
_____a. DAP is not a curriculum with a rigid set of expectations, but a
developmental framework and philosophy.

_____b. It may mean that teachers relinquish their roles as adult leaders and
allow children to run the classroom.

_____c. It hinders ample time for learning and discovering through play.
_____d. It supports the use of ongoing goals in a framework of careful
 appropriate planning.

_____e. It is an approach to teaching grounded in the research on how young

children develop and learn and what one knows about effective early
education.

Instructions on how to submit student output

Kindly submit answers and outputs of the learning tasks and assessment in this module
seven days after finding them in the learning platform. Encode answers in a long bond paper,
providing a one-inch margin on all sides, single line spacing, with a font style of Roboto at size
12. Be sure to write your name, subject, class schedule, course instructor, and lesson number as
the header of the document. All requirements will be submitted preferably through the VSU E-
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stable or you do not have an internet connection, you may send your exercises to the office
through the ff. options: (1) courier (ex. JRS, LBC, etc.), (2) VSU guard post, and/or (3) VSU drop
boxes in your respective LGU’s. Place the documents in a sealed brown envelope labelled with
your (1) Name, (2) Subject, (3) Department, and (4) Name of the Instructor.
Faculty name and office address: DR. ROSARIO P. ABELA, DEPARTMENT OF TEACHER
EDUCATION, COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, Visayas State University, Baybay City, Leyte,
Philippines.