Developmentally Appropriate Practice: Curriculum and Development in Early Education

This book has helped Me gain a greater love and respect for children. This book has helped Me tremendously

For many early childhood professionals, Bredekamp and Copple's DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE PRACTICE (DAP) is the bible for those who teach young children. For others, their breakdown of the concept remains convuluted, complex, and difficult to implement in many school settings. This is the gap that this book heroically attempts to fill...and succeeds on many levels. As a scholar on homeless young families, I was first familiar with Carol Gestwicki's excellent HOME-SCHOOL RELATIONS. It comes to my delightful surprise to find her having penned this gem. The arrange of the book from the beginning is right on target: by developmental domains. After a well written first section beginning with defining DAP, connecting it from the start with play, and closing with how both determine curriculum, Gestwicki goes to the all important physical domain taking the reader into the familiar theories and child developmental ideas yet keeping DAP as the underlying context through which to understand each concept. In fact, each section's chapters are arranged developmentally (from infancy to early elementary children). She continues this same approach through the social/emotional section and language cognitive section. What you ultimately get in this book is a combination of a close examination of DAP, a child development overview, and a curriculum text. Its an amalgamation that truly captures the essence of DAP: teaching from a developmentally perspective, not from a standards-based educational (SBE) perspective. I would be eager to see how this book works in an early childhood curriculum course. It does not necessarily cover early childhood approaches to the traditional areas (Math, Science, Literacy, etc.), only has a scant one chapter on the familiar curriculum models (Montessori, High Scope, etc.), and does not really cover the conventions of a traditional early childhood classroom (small group, large group, etc.). Still, DAP is much more than these conventions; this book offers what DAP truly tries to capture: nuturing children developmentally based on their strengths, weaknesses, and cultural background. This can take on many many forms. It begins and ends there that idea. Not bad....

The book was in great condition and it came as soon as it possibly could. I am very happy with this experience since it is my first and it will not be my last.