Developmental Education for Young Children

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Bert van Oers

   Pages 1-9

3. Developmental Education: Core Issues

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 11-11

      PDF

   2. Developmental Education: Foundations of a Play-Based Curriculum

      • Bert van Oers

      Pages 13-25

   3. Responsible Teaching

      • Willem Wardekker

      Pages 27-39

   4. Developmental Education for Young Children: Basic Development

      • Frea Janssen-Vos, Bea Pompert

      Pages 41-63

4. Good Practices of Developmental Education

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

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   2. Learning to Communicate in Young Children’s Classrooms

      • Dorian de Haan

      Pages 67-86

   3. Assessing Vocabulary Development

      • Renata Adan-Dirks

      Pages 87-104

   4. Dynamic Assessment of Narrative Competence

      • Chiel van der Veen, Mariëlle Poland

      Pages 105-119

   5. Promoting Abstract Thinking in Young Children’s Play

      • Bert van Oers, Mariëlle Poland

      Pages 121-136

   6. Teaching Arts: Promoting Aesthetic Thinking

      • Lieke Roof

      Pages 137-147

   7. Every Child Is Special: Teaching Young Children with Special Needs

      • Barbara Nellestijn, Isabel Peters

      Pages 149-163

   8. Fostering the Teacher-Parent Partnership

      • Frea Janssen-Vos, André Weijers

      Pages 165-186

5. Implementing the Play-Based Curriculum of Developmental Education

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 187-187

      PDF

6. Implementing the Play-based Curriculum of Developmental Education

   1. Coaching the Transition Towards Developmental Education: Exploring the Situation with Teachers

      • Lorien de Koning

      Pages 189-205

   2. Creating Knowledge and Practice in the Classroom

      • Bea Pompert

      Pages 207-221

   3. Evaluation of Learning and Development

      • Ester van Oers

      Pages 223-238

   4. Teaching Reading by Writing

      • Bea Pompert

      Pages 239-252

   5. Learning to Communicate About Number

      • Niko Fijma

      Pages 253-269

Developmental Education is an approach to education in school that aims at promoting children’s cultural development and their abilities to participate autonomously and well-informed in the cultural practices of their community. From the point of view of Cultural-historical Activity theory (CHAT), a play-based curriculum has been developed over the past decades for primary school, which presents activity contexts for pupils in the classroom that create learning and teaching opportunities for helping pupils with appropriating cultural knowledge, skills, and moral understandings in meaningful ways. The approach is implemented in numerous Dutch primary schools classrooms with the explicit intention to support the learning of both pupils and teachers. The book focuses especially on education of young children (4 – 8 years old) in primary school and presents the underpinning concepts of this approach, and chapters on examples of good practices in a variety of subject matter areas, such as literacy (vocabulary acquisition, reading, writing), mathematics, and arts. Successful implementation of Developmental Education in the classroom strongly depends on dynamic assessment and continuous observations of young pupils’ development. Strategies for implementation of both the teaching practices and assessment strategies are discussed in detail in the book.

• cultural-historical theory
• curriculum
• dynamic assessment
• early childhood education
• good practice
• implementation
• play
• school innovation
• subject matter learning
• teaching

• , Dept. of Theory & Research in Education, VU University, Amsterdam, Netherlands

  Bert van Oers

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