Early Childhood Education - Curriculum & Assessment

Bank Street’s Developmental Interaction Approach is based on the theories of Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, John Dewey and Lucy Sprague Mitchell, among others. The Developmental Interaction Approach stresses that the optimal educational process maximizes children’s direct and rich interactions with a wide variety of materials, ideas and people in their environment. The approach aims for actively involving children in acquiring competence. Choice, active investigation, independent pursuit and learning through discovery are dominant components of the learning climate. The curriculum is flexible within a planned framework encompassing developmentally appropriate knowledge and skills. Teachers seize every opportunity to promote cognitive development by creating a climate that encourages questioning, exploration and children’s growing understanding of patterns, rhythms and relationships in the ideas and environment around them (Nager & Shapiro, 2005).

The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool is a comprehensive, scientifically-based, research-tested curriculum, linked to an assessment system that addresses teachers' need to know what to teach and why, and how children learn best. It specifies the literacy, math, science, social studies, arts and technology content to be taught, based on published standards. Itrelates directly to the subject area curricula used in elementary schools, so children's learning in preschool forms the basis of all of the learning that will follow. Its distinguishing features are a framework for decision making and a focus on interest areas. The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool is inclusive of all children—those developing typically, children with disabilities and English language learners (Teaching Strategies, 2005).

Curiosity Corner was developed as a comprehensive school reform program by the Success for All Foundation in response to the Abbott decision. The program was piloted in the winter of 1999 and then implemented and evaluated in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001. The curriculum provides a developmental approach emphasizing language and literacy as well as physical, emotional and interpersonal development, math, science, social studies, music, movement and art. The literacy-focused, problem solving program provides teachers and children with structured thematic units that include concrete, interactive experiences with detailed instructions and materials. Effective instruction is built around the concept of cooperative learning within a carefully designed and supportive structure. Extensive training and support for teachers is integral to ongoing curriculum implementation (Success for All Foundation, 2005).

The High/Scope Curriculum, utilized in thousands of programs worldwide, is based on the work of constructivists: Jean Piaget, High/Scope’s founder David Weikart and others. The basic premise of the High/Scope Curriculum is that children learn best by doing. “Control” is shared between adults and children so that children’s creativity is encouraged, and thus their curiosity is piqued as they explore their individual interests. The teacher’s role is that of a facilitator who observes and interacts with children and, with the High/Scope Content (Key Experiences), provides high-quality experiences that keep children engaged and promotes their learning. The High/Scope Key Experiences align favorably with the State of New Jersey’s education standards for young children (High/Scope Foundation, 2005).

The Tools of the Mind project, which started in 1992, is the result of collaborative work between Russian and American education researchers based on the educational theories of Lev Vygotsky. Utilizing the Vygotskian approach, a series of tools (strategies) was created to support meta-cognitive and meta-linguistic skills as well as other skills essential to literacy development. Play is the central teaching tool, within a scaffolded learning environment that focuses on giving children the tools they need that will lead to the development of higher mental functions (Bodrova & Leong, 1996). Techniques include teacher's facilitation of children's construction of individual play plans and asking children to describe multiple, imaginative uses for open-ended objects such as blocks. Central to the approach is the use of scaffolded writing to help children recognize words as units, work with the sounds that make up words and use letters to represent those sounds. The program emphasizes that young children must build strong speaking and social skills and be able to exercise emotional and behavioral control (self-regulation) before they can learn to read.