For a great portion of the history of the American education system, multiage education was the norm in one-room schoolhouses throughout the nation. The current graded, curriculum-centered approach in the U.S. appeared during the mid-nineteenth century with the rapid economic development and massive immigration into the country. Concurrently, some…

Inspired by Lilian Katz's lectures and books, the staff of Hollywood Elementary School in southern Maryland embraced Katz's philosophy of developmentally appropriate programs, project learning, and multiage grouping. This paper describes Hollywood's journey as a school community to implement these strategies, discussing the multiage organization…

This reference guide describes the implementation and use of mixed-age classrooms in Oregon. Those schools that wished to be included provided information on a prepared form. Responses from 94 elementary schools from 23 counties are presented. Each school's profile includes information on school statistics, a description of the program, how the…

The multi-age teams (MATs) at one Georgia middle school fostered continuous, individual student progress unachievable in more conventional classrooms. In MAT groups, assignments to classes were based on students' interests, abilities, performance, and other maturational factors, regardless of chronological age. Opportunities for remediation and…

Describes characteristics of a high-quality school-age care program: resourceful, caring staff; recognition of the importance of peers; opportunities for mixed- and same-age grouping; children's selection of activities and experiences; guidance for children's social and emotional development; and environments that encourage a wide variety of…

At Mary Harrison Primary School (Toledo, Oregon), staff spent months crafting a shared vision statement and restructuring plan based on recommended developmentally appropriate practices for early childhood programs. The school's child-centered program now features multiage classrooms, individualized instruction, cooperative learning, a schoolwide…

This packet contains four separate documents designed to help elementary schools develop their own action plans for implementing the KERA (Kentucky Education Reform Act) Primary Program, a developmentally appropriate program for young children supported by the Kentucky Department of Education. Fully implemented primary programs are to include the…

As the demand for quality intergenerational care increases, it is imperative that intergenerational care providers exhibit developmentally appropriate practice across the lifespan. This paper defines intergenerational programming and discusses the emergence of intergenerational studies as integrating the fields of early childhood education and…

Recognizing that primary education needed to be changed in order to make it research-based and developmentally appropriate, a group of teachers in Wyoming developed a multi-age, team-taught class, called the Primary Education Program. The first year's class included 3 teachers and 60 students in kindergarten through first grade, and the second…

In June 1990, the state of Kentucky passed its innovative Education Reform Act, which totally restructured the finance, governance, and curriculum of its public schools. One of the major provisions of the act was the mandate for Kentucky's primary schools to change from the traditional placement of children of the same age in kindergarten, first,…

Evaluated effectiveness of a multiage learning project in terms of an assessment of classroom quality, and teacher concerns about multiage grouping and computer use in the classroom. Found that participating teachers modified their classrooms to make them more developmentally appropriate, and they increased their use of computers for their own…

Examines the similarities between high-quality, fully implemented Montessori programs and other developmentally appropriate programs for young children. Focuses on the Montessori philosophy, human relations within the learning environment, the curriculum, areas of the Montessori classroom, relations between home and program, and the developmental…