Effective Teaching Practices

Nurturing and responsive teaching plays a vital role in enhancing every child’s development. It fosters trust and emotional security, provides positive feedback that encourages learning, and creates a language-rich environment. It also nurtures curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and supports all areas of development.

Infants and Toddlers (Birth-36 months)

For infants and toddlers, developmentally appropriate practice is built on responsive relationships. A responsive caregiver anticipates infants’ needs, reads infants’ cues (facial expressions, movements, and vocalizations) and responds promptly with warmth. Nurturing relationships with infants and toddlers and their families is crucial for children’s healthy development and the effective implementation of developmentally appropriate practice.

Spend one-on-one time with each child throughout the day to learn their preferences, temperament, and natural rhythm.
Support children’s autonomy and emotional development by offering infants and toddlers choices between two items or activities. Make sure they are real choices and that it doesn’t matter which one the child chooses.
During routines and play, narrate what you are doing (self-talk) and what the children are doing (parallel-talk). Tell the children what will happen next. Giving toddlers an advance 5 minute warning and count down to a transition helps them adjust to the change and better regulate their emotions.
Label people and objects in the environment, and use books to build language skills by pointing to pictures, labeling them, and asking questions about the characters.
Clarify unfamiliar words by relating them to familiar objects or actions.
Use songs and fingerplays to introduce rhymes, anticipation, and predictability. Encourage participation in book reading by having toddlers complete a rhyming phrase.
Organize environments to encourage pretend play, using props and open-ended objects. Connect play to familiar stories and real-life situations, and engage with children by asking questions to extend their play.
Encourage creative expression with rhythm instruments, scarves, art, and playdough.
Encourage sensory exploration with activities such as sensory bottles and a “touch and feel” table that allows infants and toddlers to develop sensory awareness through textures, sounds, and sights.
Imitate sounds, gestures, and facial expressions to support interaction. Model positive social interactions like taking turns during play.

Preschool (3-5 years old)

To implement developmentally appropriate practice with preschoolers, provide learning experiences that inspire wonder and joy. Plan activities that encourage children to express their uniqueness. Tailored experiences based on children’s individual development and interests foster a love for learning and build a positive sense of identity and belonging. This approach ensures children feel valued and understood.

Gain a deep knowledge of each child, their family, culture, and language.
Support higher-order thinking skills and language development.
Talk with children during meal times and routines to model language skills and encourage children to listen and communicate with each other.
Get on a child’s level. Provide conversation starters, such as interesting things to see, hear, and touch.
Comment on their words and actions. Request information by asking open-ended questions that invite children to explain, elaborate, and share their thought processes.
Ask how and why questions, such as “How did you do that?” or comment “Tell me more,” to encourage rich language and conversation.
Wait for children to respond, then offer expansions with more information and new and interesting words. Rephrase children’s language with more sophisticated vocabulary and sentences. Invite more turns to keep the conversation going.
Introduce new words before reading or storytelling, and teach words contextually. Scaffold children’s thinking and understanding.
Model flexibility and persistence to help children develop a growth-mindset.
Provide developmentally appropriate challenges so children can learn to persist and focus on achieving goals.
Offer meaningful praise that helps children grow. This goes beyond “good job”. Tell them specifically what you noticed. Give detailed, positive feedback.
Introduce STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) activities that encourage exploration and experimentation. For example, children can build simple structures with marshmallows and toothpicks. For preschool, technology includes tools such as scales, measuring tape, and magnifying glasses.
Help children develop scientific reasoning by teaching the Scientific Method to extend their knowledge and build on their natural curiosity. Use the senses to make observations and notice details, ask questions about the world, predict the outcome with informed guessing, test it out with an experiment, and discuss observations and results.
Play games that reinforce categorization, such as sorting shapes or classifying fruits and vegetables. Encourage children to identify the item in a group that is different, enhancing their understanding of categories.

Sample Activity Videos: (Toddler Level)

Sample Activity Videos: (Preschool Level)

Make Learning Meaningful: Link new learning to the children’s previous knowledge and experiences. Have discussions where children recall what happened yesterday or during a specific lesson to link the ideas. Rather than just talking to children about concepts, provide hands-on learning that allows children to see, touch and manipulate items to deepen their understanding. Try to relate concepts to children’s lives so it’s more meaningful to them and they’re more likely to remember.

Focus on Learning Goals: Before an activity, preview what children are going to learn and give them the purpose of the activity or the big idea. During the activity, remind children of the learning goal with a simple statement such as, “We are learning about the water cycle.” After the activity, summarize what the children learned.