CURRICULUM COMPONENTS
HighScope goals for young children.
- To become independent, responsible, and confident — ready for school and ready for life.
- To learn through active involvement with people, materials, events, and ideas.
- To learn to plan many of their own activities, carry them out, and talk with other children and their teacher about what they have done and what they have learned.
- To gain knowledge and skills in important academic, social-emotional, and physical areas of development including: language and literacy; logical thinking in the areas of number, classification, seriation, space, and time; initiative and social relations; creative representation (visual and dramatic arts); and movement and music.
The HighScope approach to preschool education is a unique process that has been tested and researched since 1962. Our approach incorporates five elements based on sound developmental practices for children and effective program management strategies for adults.
Active learning.
Children are involved in direct, hands-on experiences with people, objects, ideas, and events. They carry out their intentions by actively engaging with materials and interacting with peers and adults. Teachers plan around 58 key developmental indicators in child development that strengthen children’s emerging intellectual, physical, social, and emotional abilities.
Adult-child interaction.
Teachers establish a safe and nurturing classroom environment where children can be happy and busy pursuing their interests. Adults observe and interact with children at their level to discover how each child thinks and reasons. They support children’s initiatives and developing abilities. Adults share control of all learning experiences with children. They encourage children to solve problems with materials, turn to one another for help, collaborate in creative activities, and learn how to resolve conflicts with one another through negotiation.
Learning environment.
Classroom furniture and equipment are arranged and labeled in several clearly defined interest areas. This organization allows children to independently find, use, and return the materials they need to carry out their chosen activities. The arrangement of the classroom and its materials helps children form concepts about how the world is organized. The labels and symbols form the foundation for children’s emerging reading, writing, and number skills. Children also spend time outside every day experiencing all the physical and sensory properties of the natural environment. Taken together, the indoor and outdoor environments provide children with the full range of learning settings and experiences.
Daily routine.
Each day follows a similar schedule of events, providing consistency for both children and adults. A daily plan-do-review process is at the core of the HighScope routine. This sequence gives children the opportunity to make plans based on their own interests, follow through on their intentions, and reflect on their experiences with peers and adults. Large- and small-group experiences are also part of the daily routine along with the social interaction of sharing a snack and the invigoration of being outdoors. See below for a summary of the routine.
Assessment.
HighScope teachers regularly record notes on children’s behaviors, experiences, and interests. They use these notes to assess each child’s development using the HighScope Preschool Child Observation Record. Based on these careful and objective observations, adults can plan experiences that will facilitate children’s growth and development. They also use these notes in parent meetings to help parents better understand their children’s development and how they can extend classroom learning at home. To guarantee the continued high quality of the classroom environment, teachers and staff supervisors regular assess themselves using the HighScope Preschool Program Quality Assessment.
Reprinted with permission from the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation . Please visit the High/Scope website for more information on this approach.
