Developmentally Appropriate Practice

This page adapted from Basics of Developmentally Appropriate Practice by Carol Copple and Sue Bredekamp, endorsed by NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children).

When working with children, an effective teacher begins by thinking about what children of a given age and developmental level are like.  Young children learn best in certain ways. 

DAP means teaching young children in ways that:  meet children where they are, as individuals and as a group; and help each child reach challenging and achievable goals that contribute to his or her ongoing development and learning. 

A child's relationships with nurturing, responsive adults are very important for learning.  Positive teacher-child relationships promote children's social competence, emotional development, and also academic learning.

In all learning environments, children learn best when they are actively involved.  Whether is is play, exploration, experimentation, and interaction with people and objects, children are always trying to make sense of those experiences.  Children under age 7 are most comfortable in the concrete world they experience with their five senses.

Young children are constantly working to figure things out on their own terms.  Even when learning what a word refers to, a child must sort out what that word does and does not include.  They often come up with ideas that are quite different from what adults think they have conveyed.

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The Developmentally Appropriate Practioner Guidelines

• Creating a caring community of learners
• Teaching to enhance development and learning
• Planning appropriate curriculum
• Assessing children's development and learning
• Developing reciprocal relationships with families

Children learn best when they can connect knew knowledge to what they already know.  For example, books about babies or new siblings will interest those preschoolers, many of whom have younger siblings.  Another example is children being able to visualize and learn about wolves by thinking about the dogs they know.