Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Developmentally Appropriate Practice or DAP, is a term commonly bantered about in early childhood education. Simply put, DAP involves teaching children based on their stages of development. It's meeting children where they are and encouraging them on to the next level. It also includes using materials and toys that are age-appropriate and best suited for the preschool child.

At Northampton Christian Preschool we strive daily to put DAP into practice. Our curriculum is designed to fully engage children in the learning process and help them achieve realistic goals. In addition we are careful to include all areas of development: physical, intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual.

Below are a few examples of children engaged in developmentally appropriate learning.

 

Each of these girls is actively at play without the direction of a teacher. It's important for young children to learn how to pretend and engage their imaginations. Our little artist above is free to experiment with the painting materials and discover on her own how the paint is absorbed onto the paper.


Materials and toys facilitate learning. 

Age appropriate toys look like this. 

Not this. Do you see the difference? 

This is a DAP way to teach children beginning writing. 

This is best reserved for First Grade. 

This is how a preschooler learns math. 

This is how a second grader learns math. 

Now there's nothing wrong with a child playing with commercial cars or using a coloring book or a school-aged pencil, especially at home. But at school we want to provide children with open-ended materials that have many uses and are designed for their little hands and minds. 

I have oversimplified DAP to give you just an idea of what the term means. Volumes of research has been conducted on the subject over the past decade or two, most notably from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. 

Northampton Christian Preschool will continue to provide developmentally appropriate experiences for our children and to adapt our curriculum to the best practices of the field. Our chief goal is to prepare your child for a lifetime of learning.