NAEYC Standards in Early Childhood Education and Development - Paper Example

Introduction

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) is an established non-profitable early childhood education association for United States educators and other stakeholders in the education sector to focus on improvement and development of the services for young children below eight years. NAEYC has set ten predetermined standards to be utilized for early childhood programs for helping families choose the right care centers for their kindergarten kids (Daniel, 2012). The standards include: Standard one is on relationships. The program entails promotion of positive relationships among young children and adults to encourage sensation of every child's individuality in their worth and sense of belonging fostering the contribution towards community members responsibilities towards the children's best association with others. The Standard two deals with the curriculum.The program's stipulation on the implementation of the curriculum as significant goals for the promotion of learning and developmental needs for young children dealing with their cognitive, emotional, physical, language, and social needs. Through the development of a well-planned curriculum, layout helps guide the educator's balance and plan the activities for the holistic development of young children in kindergarten and preschool. The curriculum has the goals for the content used for the learning activities as well as the routines and schedules for children's learning activities and the materials for utilization to ensure effectiveness.

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The third standard deals on teaching. The program dictates the pedagogical development, culture, and linguistic for appropriateness and effectiveness for the teaching approaches to ensure the contextual position in the curriculum goals for all learning needs. The teaching needs of the NAEYC standard outlines the difference in the learning capacities, needs, styles, interests, and backgrounds in the appropriateness of recognizing the instructional approaches administered by different teachers to help children learn. Standard four deals with the assessment of child progress where the program needs for systematic, informal, and formal evaluation methodologies helps gather holistic development progress of the children in preschool. The assessment occurs in reciprocal results in communication with the families in the sound decision-making process.

The program Standard five on the health needs to promote the nutrition and health protection of young children to ensure that the learning environment supports safe and healthy child-friendly environment. The program safeguards the staff and the children are safe from illness and injuries.

Standard six shows the staff competencies, preparation, and support that the program offers educators support on the educational qualification, professionalism, and knowledge commitments for promoting learners with the necessary learning and development needs with the integration of background diversity and interests. The program on standard seven dealing with families has special interests in fostering child development through a collaborative relationship with each child's NAEYC program. The program needs to establish an effective relationship for mutual trust and respect in the involvement of the children and their families in the growth and development of the children's development. The program Standard eight on community relationships dictate the establishment of the whole community's relationships in support for achieving the goals of the program. Standard nine on physical environment deals with the program needs a safe and healthy environment for the outdoor physical environment on the provision of facilities and materials for comfortable, healthy, and safe learning and plays environment. Standard ten dictates on the leadership and management the program requires effective management and operation policies, procedures and systems for strong and fiscal management of quality experiences.

The learning portfolios enhance reflection as the principal of students' learning as an instrumental function to stimulate reflection on the students' development. The concept of reflection is a guiding principle in learning development. Learning portfolio provides an assessment methodology to gauge students' learning and development criteria in the complexity of the learning process. Therefore, the assessment methods are used to justify the teaching and learning process as a measure for an insightful understanding of knowledge acquisition and students' behavior in the contribution of learning development. In the learning portfolio also referred to as professional development self-development through reflection is an important element of teaching practice for teacher-students (Daniel, 2012). In the realization of the training process or portfolio process in professional development, student teachers need to identify self-evaluation measures to assess their level of competence in child development and welfare. Student teachers need to acquire necessary skills in professional development as well as ensure integration of policy recommendations for effective child development strategies and smooth teaching and learning process.

Conclusion

Conclusively, teacher education needs to enlighten on the essence of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) on teaching and learning process as well on the professional development. The process of learning development in the mode of the portfolio scheme is essential for student teachers to draw self-evaluation methodologies to feature their assessment on teaching and learning process checking on their acquisition skills and teaching or instructional competence. Therefore, teacher professionalism and the integration of the NAECY standards in the teaching and learning portfolio for student teachers need to ensure that learners ability and professionalism feature the essential needs for the pedagogical process in child development, especially in early childhood education. Teachers are mandated to increase their learning portfolio to remain up-to-date on the growing learning needs of young children in their professional development or learning portfolio.

References

NAEYC. 2001. NAEYC standards for early childhood professional preparation. Washington, DC: Author.

Daniel, Jerlean1. (2012). A Letter to NAEYC Members. YC: Young Children, vol. 67, no. 4, Sept. 2012, p. 90. EBSCOhost, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=85350257