Comprehensive and Limited-Scope Curriculum

Comprehensive and Limited-Scope Curriculum

A curriculum can also be comprehensive or limited in scope. A comprehensive curriculum addresses all areas of learning, while a limited-scope curriculum focuses on a single area, such as literacy, math, or the arts (National Child Care Information and Technical Assistance Center [NCCIC], 2011). The Creative Curriculum for Preschool (Heroman et al., 2010) and The High Scope Preschool Curriculum (Epstein & Hohmann, 2012) are examples of comprehensive curricula, since they are designed to address all areas of learning. The High Scope Educational Research Foundation also offers limited-scope curricula that can be purchased separately, such as the High Scope Growing Readers Early Literacy Curriculum (2010) or the Numbers Plus Preschool Mathematics Curriculum (Epstein, 2009).

Standards

Curriculum standards are statements about what children should know and be able to do that are organized in a cohesive, systematic manner according to areas of growth and development or academic subject categories. Standards are developed by states, programs (such as Head Start), or organizations that represent different dimensions of curriculum, such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) or Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Standards should not be confused with curriculum, but they are used to guide curriculum selection and implementation as well as evaluation of student achievement. For example, CCSS mathematics standards are grade specific and “provide clear signposts along the way to the goal of college and career readiness for all students” (Common Core State Standards [CCSS] Initiative, 2010, p. 4). Teachers developing curricula for second graders, for example, would focus on four core areas:

  • extending understanding of base-10 notation;
  • building fluency with addition and subtraction;
  • using standard units of measure; and
  • describing and analyzing shapes. (CCSS Initiative, 2010, p. 17)

While these standards will apply to any classroom governed by the national math standards, they do not dictate which curriculum to use to teach mathematics.

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