PBS.com recently featured the Ben Samuels Children’s Center at Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ – an inclusive childcare center that follows a developmental model in their classrooms.
Much like The PLAY Project’s priciple to ‘meet the child where they are,’ one early childhood teacher at the Children’s Center describes their developmental approach in this way: “We meet the child at her current level of growth and learning. This means that we take the child’s lead and learn from the child what she can do and where she needs some help. The main goal is to help children to be active learners who learn by exploring their environments — watching, listening, playing and communicating with others.”
You can read more about why this center chose to follow a developmental approach here, and you can read about the benefits of using a developmental approach in an inclusive childcare center here.