The National Association for the Education of Young Children recently revised its Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP), the standard for early childhood care and education. Josh Thompson and Zlata Stankovic-Ramirez explore how DAP has evolved over time and what guidance it provides early childhood educators regarding the interaction between…

It is difficult to get a good grasp of the topic of kindergarten entry assessment because there are such great differences in the purpose for the instruments, how they are constructed, and how the data is used. Even so, in many states and communities, there is cause for concern. Until the paradigm of education moves from a preoccupation with…

Addresses three issues regarding developmentally appropriate physical education: what it means; what teachers must know (change occurs in an orderly, sequential fashion and is age and experience related); and how teachers can implement it (be skilled observers of movement and be clear about the purpose of the task). (SM)

This study explores the relationship between cognitive, motor, social and personality development of 3-year-old children and the age of their entry into preschool, which ranged from 10 to 45 months. 247 children from 17 preschools in different regions of Slovenia, all implementing the same National Curriculum, participated. Preschool teachers…

Many young adolescents, possibly as many as half, feel boxed in and bored in their middle schools. Research suggests that schools, parents, and the rest of the community must do more to make middle schools places where young adolescents thrive. In spite of the emergence of the junior high school and later the middle school in the 20th century,…