As early childhood implementation teams design learning experiences and interact with young children, they must consider how to help all children achieve their goals. This is the core of developmentally appropriate practice. The key is how practitioners use their knowledge to make decisions about challenging children to learn and achieve their goals (NAEYC, 2009).
 

1. Meet children where they are and then plan experiences to promote the next level of their learning and development, considering:

• The age and developmental status of a particular group of children, and then provide activities, routines, interactions, and a curriculum for this group.
• Each child as an individual within a context of family, com¬munity, cultural, linguistic norms; past experience (including learning and behavior); and current circumstances.
   

Maryam and Colin are typically developing 3 year old preschoolers in Mrs. Dal’s class in their community’s Judy Center. They each have distinct developmental strengths. Maryam can button and zip her coat, and draws 8-part pictures of people with a head and eyes, torso, arms and legs. She still descends stairs by placing both feet on each step, and is reluctant to climb playground equipment. Mrs. Dal engages Maryam in gross motor play by encouraging her to paint pictures and tell stories about what she and her friends do outside during recess.

Colin alternates feet going up and down steps, and jumps off the last step, landing easily on both feet. He holds a crayon in a fisted grasp when he draws a person as a big circle with a curved line for a mouth. Colin asks for help fastening his clothing, or leaves it undone rather than struggle with the closures. Mrs. Dal sets up special art activities for Colin and several other boys that promote fine motor skills i.e., making traffic signs for the motor speedway they build everyday in the block center.
 

2. Build on what a child already knows and introduce learning experiences that support a child to stretch a reasonable amount in acquiring new skills, abilities, or knowledge.

Provision of such support, often called scaffolding, is a key feature of effec¬tive teaching for all children. Scaffolding gives students a context, motivation, and foundation from which to understand the new information that will be introduced during the coming lesson. Examples of scaffolding include:

• Motivating a child by building on his or her interests related to a specific task;
   
• Simplifying a task into easier, “do-able” steps;
   
• Providing verbal or physical direction to help a child focus;
   
• Physically placing a child near socially responsive peers who are engaged in the desired task;
   
• Showing a child an example of the desired outcome before beginning a task;
   
• Talking with a child about he or she wants to do, with possible options for reaching the desired solution; and
   
• Modeling and clearly defining expectations for completing the activity.

(Berk & Winsler, 2009; Bodrova & Leong, 2006; Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000; NAEYC, 2009).
 

Effective early childhood implementation teams are intentional in everything they do i.e., setting up their classroom/program, planning curriculum, making use of various learning strategies, assessing children’s initial skills and subsequent progress, and communicating with children and their families.

Mrs. Dal provides Maryam and Colin with additional opportunities to practice gross and fine motor skills via “Helping Hands”, her activity board for classroom jobs. She asks Maryam to lay down the large “magic carpets” for circle time and assigns Colin to remove the wrappers from the snack straws. At other times, Mrs. Dal asks Colin to help clean-up the art table, showing him how to squeeze all the water out of a sponge by twisting the ends of the sponge in opposite directions with both hands (promoting hand coordination). She also lays out a “challenge” path for all the children (two red feet alternating with one green foot) to follow from the restroom into the classroom. Maryam, and her classmates, jump on the red feet with both feet, and then hop on one foot to the green foot.

3. Reflect on the next goals after a child reaches a new level of mastery in skill or understanding.

The cycle of adding new skills and behaviors to previously mastered ones facilitates learning in a developmentally appropriate manner. Once a child stretches to use a new or emerging action and/or interaction in a supportive context, he or she can then use the skill independently in a variety of contexts. This lays the foundation for attempting the next challenge.
 

A school readiness goal for Colin and Maryam, and their classmates, is to count to 10 by June. Mrs. Dal looks for opportunities every day for the children to count how many:

• Children line up for library,
   
• Pieces of popcorn each child receive for snack,
  
• Parents wear Redskin caps,
   
• Hands were washed in the bathroom before lunch.
   

4. Address the special needs of individual children, including children with disabilities and those who have unusual interests and skills by:

• using adaptations and specialized strategies to modify the environment, activities and routines, materials, tasks and instruction; and
   
• collaborating with family, early care and education and special education/early intervention partners.

Some children may not have typical communication, social or play skills. They express their desire to participate in subtle ways by watching, following or imitating other children. When personal assistance is necessary, consider how to scaffold support (described in # 2, Build on what a child already knows) to help a child to practice an emerging skill as independently as possible (Berk & Winsler, 1995; Bodrova & Leong, 2006; Odom, 2002).