Describe the key elements considered in curriculum development and major research efforts that have affected curriculum.

Introduction

Congratulations! Your interview went great! You have been offered a position in the preschool classroom of a public school in a farming community. The area has a growing immigrant population as well as many families who have lived there for generations. The school is small (one class per grade level) and most of the low-income and middle-class families and children know each other through agriculture work as well as neighborhood and church activities.

Your principal tells you that you will have two curricula to use: (1) a state-approved comprehensive curriculum with supplemental early literacy resources and (2) materials for second-language learners. The comprehensive curriculum provides guidelines, objectives, suggested learning centers, and materials. The second-language package, which contains specific printed materials and instructions for activities, was chosen to provide focused instruction for at-risk children. The principal says that you will make most of your own decisions about how to organize your classroom and will be able to choose topics of study that are relevant to your students.

As you explore the information and materials about the curriculum you will be using in your classroom, you may wonder how a curriculum is created in the first place and what makes one curriculum different from another. For example, if the director of your preschool says that it is a Reggio Emilia-based program or that it makes use of Creative Curriculum, what does that mean? Where did the curriculum come from? Who developed it? How does it compare with other curricula? How flexible is it? In this chapter, we will answer those questions and explore important considerations about curriculum development. We introduce many of today’s most commonly used early childhood curricula and establish a process you can use to compare and contrast curriculum features.