Child Development Standards

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE

STANDARD 1: PROMOTING CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING

JUSTIFICATION

1 a: Knowing and understanding young children’s characteristics and needs from birth through age 8: To understand young children characteristics and needs, there should be an assessment to be conducted on each child as to know the individual child’s needs based on the individual child’s characteristics; therefore, the child developmental checklist can be used to assess children’s domains to enable a child care professional to understand the child’s characteristics and therefore develops or invents intervention to meet the needs of the individual’s child.

1 b: Knowing and understanding the multiple influences on early development and learning: To know and to understand the multiple influences on early development and learning, an individual child should be observed to know those influences imparting the child’s development and learning; therefore, EDU 259-Play Observation justifies this standard because it talks and explores the observation of the individual child taking into consideration the various domains.

1 c: Using developmental knowledge to create healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environment for young children. Using developmental knowledge about the child enables the early childhood professional to create developmentally appropriate activities to meet the developmental and educational need of the child; therefore, the activity plan can be used to justify this standard.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE

STANDARD 2: BUILDING FAMILY AND COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS

JUSTIFICATION

2a: Knowing about and understanding diverse family and community characteristics. The Parents’ Handbook developed under the course, EDU 131, explores the knowledge and characteristics of the diverse family and community with reference to community partnership with schools, parents-teacher’s partnership, and among others; therefore, the Parents’ Handbook satisfies this standard.

2b: Supporting and engaging families and communities through respectful, reciprocal relationships: The Parents’ Handbook satisfies this standard because the handbook discusses various programs in supportive of families and communities for the betterment of children education, communities, and families.

2c: Involving families and communities in young children’s development and learning: The Pro-solution training for staff development in furthering of continued education in the field early childhood education under the topic: “Appropriate Precautions in Transporting Young Children” during field trips and other similar events involves parents to participate in field trips in their children’s school so that they can contribute to their children’s development and learning; therefore, the certification obtained from completing this course satisfies this standard.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE

STANDARD 3: OBSERVING, DOCUMENTING, AND ASSESSING TO SUPPORT YOUNG CHILDREN AND FAMILIES

JUSTIFICATION

3a: Understanding the goal, benefits, and uses of assessment–including its use in development of appropriate goals, curriculum, and teaching strategies for young children. The individualized Child Chart satisfies this standard in that the chart shows the strengths and weaknesses of the child based on assessment carried out on the various developmental domains. Looking at the weaknesses and the strengths of the child on the individualized child chart enables the early childhood professional to set goal and to develop curriculum in meeting the child’s educational need.

3b: Knowing about and using observation, documentation, and other appropriate assessment tools and approaches, including the use of technology in documentation, assessment and data collection. The EDU 259 Webbings, Standards, and Documentations paper satisfies this standard because the paper delineates the goal, purpose, the various methodologies involved in assessing and documenting children’s learning as to set goals in meeting other areas of needs.

3c: Understanding and practicing responsible assessment to promote positive outcomes for each child, including the use of assistive technology for children with disabilities. The individualized Child Chart satisfies this standard in that the chart shows the strengths and weaknesses of the child based on assessment carried out on the various developmental domains. Looking at the weaknesses and the strengths of the child on the individualized child chart enables the early childhood professional to set goal and to develop curriculum in meeting the child’s educational need.

3d: Knowing about assessment partnerships with families and with professional colleagues to build effective learning environments. The Child/Family Interview forms recently used for the EDU 284 Capstone Project satisfies this standard because the family members worked along with the early childhood professional in answering questions related to their children. The questions were asked to enable the early childhood professional to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the children and therefore set goals and teaching strategies to meet the needs of the children with reference to their domains. The individualized child chart helps the early childhood professional to design the lesson plan for each child.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE

STANDARD 4. USING DEVELOPMENTALLY EFFECTIVE APPROACHES

JUSTIFICATION

4a: Understanding positive relationships and supportive interactions as the foundation of their work with young children. Understanding positive relationships and supportive interactions with children in the classroom setting as the early childhood professional constitute child guidance in furtherance of nurturing the various domains of children in the learning environment. “My Philosophy of Child Guidance” explores these supportive relationships and interactions between the teacher and children in the classroom. How a teacher talks to students, how things are arranged in the classroom, how things are labeled, and among others cautiously direct students and has great impacts on their various domains. One of the paragraphs in My Philosophy of Child Guidance reads, “When children are loved and respected, it makes them to actualize their self-esteem and self-fulfillment. Caregivers’ failure to love and to respect children in their care can also change children’s behaviors and lead them to rebel against authorities. Sometimes, children misbehavior is based on how the caregivers or teachers are relating to them. The caregivers or teachers are obligated to love and to respect children the same manner they respect adults.” In this light, “My Philosophy of Child Guidance” paper meets this standard.

4b: Knowing and understanding effective strategies and tools for early education, including appropriate uses of technology. One of the areas My Philosophy of Child Guidance paper treats is guiding young children’s cognitive, social, emotional, and linguistic by the implementation of goals setting, differentiated instructions, assessment for learning, cross cultural-teaching, cooperative learning structures, and the use of integrated technology; therefore, the paper meets the standard 4 of the NEAYC Standards.

4c: Using a broad repertoire of developmentally appropriate teaching /learning approaches. The teacher’s approach to select materials that are developmentally appropriate in nurturing young children with reference to their ages, social, and cultural contexts are also being discussed in “My Philosophy of Education” document; therefore, this paper meets this standard.

4d: Reflecting on own practice to promote positive outcomes for each child. The tendency of the early childhood professional to reflect on practices, will eventually lead to self-evaluation and therefore enables the early childhood professional to correct errors made in order to improve on the positive outcomes educationally for each child in the learning environment. Reflection of practices enables the early childhood professional to develop and to design developmentally appropriate practices to held nurture each child with reference to the age characteristics of the child, the social and cultural contexts. “My Philosophy of Education” paper explores developmentally appropriate practices geared toward nurturing the various developmental domains of children; therefore, the document satisfies this standard.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE

STANDARD 5. USING CONTENT KNOWLEDGE TO BUILD MEANINGFUL CURRICULUM

JUSTIFICATION

5a: Understanding content knowledge and resources in academic disciplines: language and literacy; the arts–music, creative movement, dance, drama, visual arts; mathematics; science, physical activity, physical education, health and safety; and social studies. Understanding content knowledge and resources in academic disciplines enable early childhood professional to place materials in the environments, modifies the environment, or totally removes things from the environment based on the individualized child chart or the age group of the child. It informs the early childhood professional what activity to design and to implement in meeting the need of the individual child; therefore, the environmental change form satisfies this standard.

5b: Knowing and using the central concepts, inquiry tools, and structures of content areas or academic disciplines. It is required of the early childhood professional to know the central concepts, the inquiry tools, and the structures of the content areas or the academic disciplines to enable him or her develop the developmentally appropriate activity; in this light, the activity plan satisfies this standard.

5c: Using own knowledge, appropriate early learning standards, and other resources to design, implement, and evaluate developmentally meaningful and challenging curriculum for each child. It is necessary for early childhood professional to assess children before teaching or leaning can occur; therefore, during assessment using various tools, the individualized child chart is produced for each child based on the experience of the early childhood professional during the assessment, appropriate early learning standards, and the resources that will be used; in this light, the individualized child chart satisfies this standard.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE

STANDARD 6. BECOMING A PROFESSIONAL

JUSTIFICATION

6a: Identifying and involving oneself with the early childhood field: The volunteering work at Childcare Network in 2011, the in-service learning project at Covenant Presbyterian Pre-school in 2012, the CDA Assessment done at Kiville-Kovar Child Development Center on Milton Road, the operation of Charity Childcare Home as the Administrator, the initiation of Charity Child Development Center (Parents’ Handbook), and the present work with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School After School Program justify this standard. The artifacts included in this justification are my photos working with children, the letter of recommendation from Kidville-Kovar Child Development Center referencing my work ethics.

6b: Knowing about and upholding ethical standards and other early childhood professional guidelines: Prior to my graduation as the CDA Credential candidate, one of the requirements for graduation is the creation of the Professional Resource File. The resource file delineates on the six major goals of early childhood development and early education. Among the goals, the standard of professionalism as the early childhood educator is highlighted. They are ethical standards early childhood educator must model to be successful in the work environment. This artifact (Professional Resource File) justifies the standard.

6c: Engaging in continuous, collaborative learning to inform practice; using technology effectively with young children, with peers, and as a professional resource: The use of the Chromebook (technology) with the After School Enrichment Program’s students at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools justifies this standard. During the week, we visit the media center twice. During our visit at the media center, children are assigned to computers to browse the internet and to navigate websites geared toward their development. The artifacts included in this justification are my staff ID and the list of students names assigned to computers with numbers.

6d: Integrating knowledgeable, reflective, and critical perspectives on early education: The EDU 259 Assessment justifies this standard because it talks about the integration of knowledge through assessment, development of creative curriculum, and gives views on early education with reference to children and the using of anecdotal recording, sample drawing or self-portray of children for assessment purpose in order to develop and to reflect on various views on early education with the goal of developing appropriate activity for children development.

6e: Engaging in informed advocacy for young children and the early childhood profession: My Philosophy of Education advocates for children’s developmental domains placing emphasis on developmentally appropriate practices and classroom environment which nurtures children’s cognitive, social, physical, language, and emotional developments; therefore, this document justifies this standard for informed advocacy for young children in the learning situation.