Curriculum: Birth to Five

Diane Trister Dodge, Teaching Strategies, Inc.

Diane Trister Dodge, President of Teaching Strategies, Inc., has more than 35 years’ experience in early childhood education. Her experience includes: writing curriculum and training materials used both nationally and internationally in programs serving children from birth through age eight; developing award-winning written and audiovisual materials; managing national training programs and conferences; and delivering presentations, keynote addresses, and sessions at conferences for teachers, trainers, and administrators throughout the United States and abroad. Under the auspices of Teaching Strategies, Dodge directs projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Head Start, and Army Child Development Services. She develops and disseminates comprehensive early childhood education curricula, guides for administrators and trainers, and self-instructional CDA training materials for teachers and caregivers. Dodge won the Silver Apple Award for the videotape The Creative Curriculum (1989) and the Bronze Apple Award for the videotape Caring and Learning (1991) from the National Educational Film and Video Festival. She also won the Golden Eagle Award from the Council on International Non-theatrical Events for the videotape Individualizing in Head Start (1987).

"No matter how appropriate and comprehensive a curriculum, it will remain simply a book on a shelf unless it is used to plan the program and to serve as a focus for staff development."

— Diane Trister Dodge

Presentation Highlights

This presentation addresses the following three questions: 1) What is the value of using a curriculum? 2) What does it mean to implement a curriculum? and 3) How should a curriculum address the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework?

Curriculum

Curriculum is a roadmap and should be both a vision of what the program looks like and framework for making decisions. At each stage of development, there are issues of central importance to the healthy growth and development of young children that should be considered.

Curriculum is a framework for planning within a program, individualizing for each child, and developing effective teaching strategies.

Features of The Creative Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers

• Relationships—It emphasizes relationships and responsive caregiving.
• Room Arrangements—It focuses on room arrangement as the setting for child-initiated learning.
• Consistent with the Head Start philosophy—It allows programs to infuse the following into the daily program and into the curriculum as a whole:
  • Elements of their community;
  • Input from families; and
  • Information about each group of children.

Implementing a Curriculum—(4 Phases)

1. 1. Developing a plan
2. 2. Introducing the curriculum
3. 3. Providing ongoing support staff
4. 4. Evaluating and fine-tuning the program

Assessment

The focus of ongoing support should be on helping teachers to observe and use what they learn from individual children and groups of children for the purpose of making needed modifications to ensure effective curriculum. Because assessment is an integral part of implementing a curriculum, the assessment tools used should be compatible with the program’s curriculum.

Head Start Child Outcomes Framework

Chosen Curriculum—Program leaders should be sure that the curriculum they choose - specifically the goals and objectives of the curriculum, the assessment tools, and the teaching practices - address the Head Start Program Performance Standards and the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework, as well as other critically important aspects of children’s development (e.g. social, emotional, and physical skills).

The Creative Curriculum—The goals, objectives, and developmental continuum of The Creative Curriculum are consistent with the Head Start Program Performance Standards and the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework. The continuum includes forerunners (pre-cursor skills) to show that all children, even those not developing at a typical rate, have strengths on which we can build.

Parent Involvement

Parent involvement enriches the curriculum and has always been a central component of The Creative Curriculum. When families are involved in curriculum planning and the assessment process, children have an increased opportunity to thrive.

Staff Development

To achieve quality programs and positive outcomes for every child, investment in staff development is critical.

Presentation Handout

Print version of Diane Trister Dodge's 3-page Handout

The National Head Start Child Development Institute Curriculum Panel - The Creative Curriculum®

What is the value of using a curriculum?

• A comprehensive curriculum creates a vision of what an age-appropriate program looks like and provides a framework for making decisions about how to achieve that vision. Curriculum puts the pieces of developmentally appropriate practice together and provides a way to meet the Head Start Program Performance Standards and address Program Outcomes.
• At each stage of development in early childhood there are issues of central importance to the healthy growth and development of children. Therefore, we have created two distinct frameworks: one for working with infants and toddlers, and one for working with preschool children. We base these frameworks on the works of Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget, among others.
• Infants and toddlers are most involved with building Trust and Autonomy. The Creative Curriculum for Infants & Toddlers emphasizes the importance of building responsive relationships among caregivers/teachers, children, families, and the community in the context of daily routines and activities. The curriculum outlines what children learn during the first three years, the experiences through which children achieve these learning goals, what staff and parents can do to help children reach these goals, and the materials and setting needed to support implementation.
• The Creative Curriculum for Early Childhood builds on what we know about how preschool children learn at the stage that Erikson calls Initiative and what Piaget terms Preoperational Learning. The framework for decision making describes the philosophy, goals and objectives, how to set up the environment, the teacher's role, and the parent's role in children's learning. With this framework in place, the interest areas of the classroom become the laboratory for the children to investigate, reconstruct, and share what they are learning as they build concepts and skills in literacy, math, science, social studies, the arts, and technology.
• Our curriculum frameworks invite community input. Consistent with Head Start philosophy, they are not prescriptive. Rather they allow programs to infuse elements of their community, input from families, and information about each group of children into the program.

What does it mean to implement a curriculum?

• No matter how appropriate and comprehensive a curriculum, it will remain simply a book on the shelf unless it is used to plan the program and as a roadmap for staff development. To implement a curriculum effectively, staff must have an understanding of important child development concepts, a vision of what the program should look like, and the skills to use the curriculum framework to plan the program and promote the development of each child.
• There are four phases in implementing a curriculum: 1) developing a plan; 2) orienting staff and families and getting the program in place; 3) ongoing support for staff to assist them in gaining a deeper understanding of the curriculum, promoting the growth and development of each child, and involving families in meaningful ways; and 4) evaluating and fine tuning the program to better meet the needs of children, families, and staff.
• Providing on-site support is the single most effective way to ensure that the curriculum is being implemented as planned, and that children are making progress. Supervisors should allocate time to meet regularly with staff, discuss teacher's observations of children, and help them plan for each child and for the group. Because assessment is an integral part of implementing a curriculum, the assessment tools used should be compatible with the program's curriculum. We have, therefore, developed tools for ongoing assessment designed specifically for The Creative Curriculum. They are tied to our goals and objectives and give teachers practical guidance on what to look for, how to document what they see, and how to use what they learn in planning for each child and for the group.
• Parent involvement enriches curriculum. When families are involved in curriculum planning and in the assessment process, children and staff benefit. To support programs in this effort, we have developed parent books to share the approach of each curriculum framework, and letters that programs can adapt that describe each aspect of the program and build a partnership with families. Our assessment tools promote a partnership by involving families in setting goals and developing plans for their child. And we outline workshops that staff can offer families on the Curriculum.

How does the use of a curriculum address the Head Start Outcomes Framework?

• Programs should be sure that the curriculum they choose—specifically the goals and objective of the curriculum, the assessment tools, and teaching practices—address the Head Start Outcomes Framework as well as other important aspects of children's development, such as social, emotional, and physical skills.
• Our revised goals and objectives for the preschool curriculum and our new tool, The Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum, address the eight domains of the Head Start Outcomes Framework. The Curriculum outlines goals in four areas: social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development. The chart below shows one example of how Creative Curriculum objectives address Head Start Domains and Elements, and what teachers might do in the classroom.

• Reporting Outcomes: Teaching Strategies is developing a software application to collect and aggregate data from our assessment tools so that programs can document outcomes for individual children, groups of children, and the overall program. The application will soon be available on disk and for downloading from www.TeachingStrategies.com. This software application will reflect the eight domains of the Head Start Child Outcomes Framework as they relate to the goals and objectives of the Developmental Continuum or the Child Development and Learning Checklist. The software will allow program administrators to generate reports of overall progress of groups of children based on the curriculum goals and/or progress in each of the Head Start Domain areas as well as the required domain elements and indicators.

Teaching Strategies, Inc., PO Box 42243
Washington DC 20015
http://www.TeachingStrategies.com
800-637-3652

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