Guidelines for Selecting Appropriate Preschool Curricula

NAEYC has summarized the components of effective curricula in a joint position statement with the National Association of Early Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE). In Guidelines for Appropriate Curriculum Content and Assessment in Programs Serving Children Ages 3 Through 8, the following 20 standards are put forth (p. 10):

1. The curriculum has an articulated description of its theoretical base that is consistent with prevailing professional opinion and research on how children learn.

2. Curriculum content is designed to achieve long-range goals for children in all domains--social, emotional, cognitive, and physical--and to prepare children to function as fully contributing members of a democratic society.

3. Curriculum addresses the development of knowledge and understanding, processes and skills, dispositions and attitudes.

4. Curriculum addresses a broad range of content that is relevant, engaging, and meaningful to children.

5. Curriculum goals are realistic and attainable for most children in the designated age range for which they were designed.

6. Curriculum content reflects and is generated by the needs and interests of individual children within the group. Curriculum incorporates a wide variety of learning experiences, materials and equipment, and instructional strategies, to accommodate a broad range of children's individual differences in prior experience, maturation rates, styles of learning, needs, and interests.

7. Curriculum respects and supports individual, cultural, and linguistic diversity. Curriculum supports and encourages positive relationships with children's families.

8. Curriculum builds upon what children already know and are able to do (activating prior knowledge) to consolidate their learning and to foster their acquisition of new concepts and skills.

9. The curriculum provides conceptual frameworks for children so that their mental constructions based on prior knowledge and experience become more complex over time.

10. Curriculum allows for focus on a particular topic or content while allowing for integration across traditional subject-matter divisions by planning around themes and/or learning experiences that provide opportunities for rich conceptual development.

11. The curriculum content has intellectual integrity; content meets the recognized standards of the relevant subject-matter disciplines.

12. The content of the curriculum is worth knowing; curriculum respects children's intelligence and does not waste their time.

13. Curriculum engages children actively, not passively, in the learning process. Children have opportunities to make meaningful choices.

14. Curriculum values children’s constructive errors and does not prematurely limit exploration and experimentation for the sake of ensuring "right" answers.

15. Curriculum emphasizes the development of children's thinking, reasoning, decision-making, and problem-solving abilities.

16. Curriculum emphasizes the value of social interaction to learning in all domains and provides opportunities to learn from peers.

17. Curriculum is supportive of children's physiological needs for activity, sensory stimulation, fresh air, rest, hygiene, and nourishment/elimination.

18. Curriculum protects children's psychological safety, that is, children feel happy, relaxed, and comfortable rather than disengaged, frightened, worried, or stressed.

19. The curriculum strengthens children's sense of competence and enjoyment of learning by providing experiences for children to succeed from their point of view.

20. The curriculum is flexible so that teachers can adapt to individual children or groups.

Back to Response