Responsive to each individual child

Our curriculum framework accurately reflects the current research, theory, and widely accepted practices in the preschool field. The framework is intended to be consistent with a broad range of curricula or specific curricular approaches. A fundamental consideration in our planning of the early education curriculum is being responsive to the competencies, experiences, interests, and needs each child brings to the preschool classroom. We therefore seek to make our curriculum one that is responsive to each individual child.

Emotions drive early learning and development

A child’s emotional state drives early learning and greatly influences learning in other domains. The pleasure an infant experiences when receiving a positive response from an adult, or when making a discovery, motivates the child to continue engaging in positive interactions and exploration. At the same time, infants and toddlers are amazingly competent. They are curious, motivated learners who actively explore the world of people and things. Infants’ and toddlers’ active engagement in learning propels their learning in all domains.

Infant and Toddler Development and its Facilitation

Four major aspects of infant/toddler development illuminate the kinds of “basic sensory, social, and emotional experiences” that are “essential for optimising the architecture of low-level circuits” in the brain. The following four aspects of infant/toddler development call for a special approach to planning and supporting their learning:

1. Infants/toddlers follow their own learning agenda.
2. Infants/toddlers learn holistically.
3. Infants/toddlers experience major developmental transitions in their first three years.
4. Infants/toddlers are in the process of developing their first sense of self.

1. Infants follow their own learning agenda
Infants actively engage in mastering different components of these competencies at relatively similar times in their development. The common path of learning and development that infants are on, however, completely depends on ongoing interaction with adults. Without adults, infants are unable to pursue their learning agenda. In fact, part of their learning agenda is to interact with adults to have essential relationship experiences. Understanding this learning agenda helps teachers interact with children ways that best facilitate the children’s learning and development.

2. Infants learn holistically
Infants and toddlers take in information continuously, naturally, and fluidly. Although they often focus on one thing at a time, that focus can change quickly. From their actions, interactions, and observations, they pick up all kinds of information that they use to build knowledge and skills. A single interaction can lead to learning about many things in many areas. Although a child may start an experience by focusing on something of interest in one domain, the physical, emotional, intellectual, social, and language components of that experience are processed almost simultaneously. The infant mines each interaction for all its information. Because infants and toddlers learn in a holistic way, they may not always focus on the content area that an adult may wish to emphasize. If adults structure interaction with the purpose of creating specific outcomes in a particular content area—for example, language or shapes—they will often miss the child’s larger learning experience.

3. Infants experience major developmental transitions in their first three years
During the first three years of life, much of a child’s life is organized around issues related to security, exploration, and identity. While children attend to all three issues throughout infancy, each of these issues generally takes centre stage at different points in development. As an issue becomes more or less prominent, developmental transitions occur. The child’s behaviour starts to change and reflects a new way of organizing experiences. Our teachers’ understanding of these developmental changes helps them adapt to and promote the children’s learning processes.

4. Infants are in the process of developing their first sense of self
Children from 18 to 36 months of age change their main focus to identity. They concentrate on issues of me and mine, notions of good and not so good, and concepts of self and other. Interactions with others lead to learning about themselves as independent, dependent, and interdependent beings. To assist children’s growth toward a sense of self in relation to others, the adult needs to switch to supporting children’s exploration of identity. Teachers help older toddlers with security and exploration by setting boundaries that guide children in learning rules of social behaviour and by letting each child know that a trusted adult will be emotionally available during stressful moments. These developmental transitions can be challenging for an infant/toddler teacher because the type of care has to shift as children go through rapid changes during the first three years of life. To orient curriculum planning, the foundations have been organized around the three major transitions. The teacher can be mindful of the children’s major focus during each developmental period (security, exploration, or identity) while planning to support learning and development in areas such as empathy, impulse control, literacy, number sense, and large motor skills.