Education

Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum in Action

Name: Developmentally Appropriate Curriculum in Action
Author: Marjorie J. Kostelnik
ISBN: 9780137058075

by Marjorie J. Kostelnik

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Synopsis

Written for courses in Curriculum in Early Childhood Education and Methods for Teaching Young Children in Preschool and Kindergarten. A comprehensive overview of all the components necessary to run an effective early childhood program as a teacher, this concise new text is keenly focused on application and skill-building, utilizing several areas of child development-aesthetic, affective, cognitive, language, physical, and social-as the basis for curriculum planning. Neither a subject-based nor a materials-based curriculum, this directly applicable text instead promotes several areas of child development and incorporates subject matter areas-art, math, literacy, and science-into the developmental domains rather than focusing on the subjects themselves. The authors present six activity types (exploratory play, guided discovery, problem-solving, discussions, demonstrations, and direct instruction) in every domain. Furthermore, they provide long-form lesson plans and short form plans that illustrate these activity types in all of the curriculum chapters. Closely aligned to the current developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) guidelines, the text effectively prepares pre-service teachers for the Praxis II exam, if it is required in their state. Promoting the teacher as an active participant in education is another important characteristic of the text, with a detailed discussion of the importance of being intentional in one's teaching and what this looks like in a true classroom environment. The authors support this ideology by explaining and showing how a teacher becomes more active-one ready to make continual judgments about what to plan, how to build on children's interests and knowledge, and how to interact with children to scaffold their learning, Strongly methods-based in its approach, the text also imparts the "how to" of teaching, with a plethora of examples as to what is appropriate to teach children ages three to six years of age.