Helping Families to Understand the Curriculum
As you begin to develop reciprocal relationships with families, you will want to share information about developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) with regard to curriculum; this will provide a foundation for further discussion (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Gestwicki, 2011).
For example, programs and teachers can:
- Include a statement in promotional or informational materials that curriculum for young children is based on research about child development and is designed to complement and support how they learn best.
- Invite parents to tour the classroom, emphasizing features that reflect DAP, such as displays at the child’s eye level, carefully organized and labeled materials that promote independence, and a variety of materials that appeal to children in different ways.
- Provide resource information about DAP in a notebook or parent library.
- Post information in the classroom about developmental characteristics relevant to the age of the children in the group.
- Create and display printed labels for classroom centers that briefly describe how activities promote development in different ways.
- Include a statement on interest inventories or family questionnaires that information gathered is used to construct goals and make decisions about curricular activities.
- Establish a communications notebook or log that goes back and forth between home and school.
- In parent-teacher conferences, describe a specific example of a decision you made that was based on an observation about each child’s development (Seplocha, 2007).
- Enlist parents’ support and input to establish learning and social/emotional goals for individual children (Kaczmarek, 2007).
In short, building relationships with families should include the use of multiple strategies that clearly communicate the importance of knowledge about child development as the foundation for learning. By sharing information about how children learn, one creates a logical context for providing visual documentation about what they are learning.