DEVELOPMENTALLY

APPROPRIATE
PRACTICE
 DEVELOPMENTALLY APPROPRIATE
PRACTICE
•Methods that promote each child’s
optimal development and learning
through a strengths-based, play-based
approach to joyful, engaged learning.
Method
Is a system or a way of doing
something
OPTIMAL DEVELOPMENT
•Enabling children to grow into flourishing
persons, that is persons who have developed
(and are still developing) their given
possibilities to the full and optimally fulfil the
domains that can be said to be objectively good
for all people
 STRENGTHS-BASED APPROACH
•Allows people to see themselves at their
best in order to see their own value. Allows
a person to move that value forward and
capitalize on their strengths rather than
focus on their negative characteristics.
PLAY-BASED APPROACH
•A process for learning that is intrinsically motivated,
enjoyable, freely chosen, nonliteral, safe, and actively
engaged by young learners .
•Involves both child-initiated and teacher-supported learning.
The teacher encourages children’s learning and inquiry through
interactions that aim to stretch their thinking to higher levels.
DAP FOCUSES ON FIVE KEY AREAS OF EARLY
LEARNING PRACTICES:

•Creating a caring community of

learners.
•Teaching to enhance development and
learning
•Planning curriculum to achieve important
goals
•Assessing children's development and
learning.
•Establishing reciprocal relationships with
families.
•Creating a caring community of learners

Children and adults engage in warm, positive

relationships; treat each other with respect, and
learn from and with each other.
Teaching to enhance development and
learning
Teachers take responsibility for knowing what
the desired goals for the program are and how
the program’s curriculum is intended to achieve
those goals. They carry out that curriculum
through their teaching in ways that are geared to
young children in general and these children in
particular. Doing this includes following the
Planning curriculum to achieve important goals
Teachers consider what children should know,
understand, and be able to do across the domains
of physical, social, emotional, and cognitive
development and across the disciplines,
including language, literacy, mathematics, social
studies, science, art, music, physical education,
and health.
Assessing children's development and learning
Every child in class needs to be assessed. To properly
assess children, observations and documentation
determine a child’s abilities, interests, strengths, and areas
of development that may need additional support. The
information gathered during observations guides the
classroom routines, curriculum planning, and
implementation to ensure quality care. Assessments also
provide an opportunity to share information with families
that will build a bridge from school to home.
Establishing reciprocal relationships with
families.

The key to creating reciprocal relationships is mutual

respect and appreciation for the common goal of
providing the best experiences and resources for
children. Keeping this common goal in mind families
and early childhood organizations can openly
communicate and work toward fulfilling each other's
needs.
 BASIC
PRINCIPLES OF
DEVELOPMENT
DAP IS BASED ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF HOW
CHILDREN DEVELOP AND LEARN.
•Domains of children’s development--physical, social,
emotional, and cognitive--are closely related.
•Development occurs in a relatively orderly sequence, with
later abilities, skills, and knowledge building on those
already acquired
•Development proceeds at varying rates from child to child as
well as unevenly within different areas of each child’s
functioning.
• Children are active learners, drawing on direct
physical and social experience as well as culturally
transmitted knowledge to construct their own
understandings of the world around them.

• Children are active learners, drawing on direct

physical and social experience as well as culturally
transmitted knowledge to construct their own
understandings of the world around them.
•Development and learning result from the
interaction of biological maturation and the
environment, which includes both the physical
and social worlds that children live in.
•Play is an important vehicle for children’s social,
emotional, and cognitive development, as well as
a reflection of their development
• Development advances when children have opportunities to
practice newly acquired skills as well as when they
experience a challenge just beyond the level of their present
mastery.
• Children demonstrate different modes of knowing and
learning and different ways of representing what they know.
children develop and learn best in the context of a
community where they are safe and valued, their physical
needs are met, and they feel psychologically secure.