The Child Development Center practices the High/Scope educational approach for working with young children. This child centered approach is based on Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory of child development blended with the best teaching practices.

What Is High/Scope?

High/Scope is an “active learning” educational approach that seeks to meet a child's needs on all levels social, cognitive, physical, and emotional. With this approach children are mentally and physically active using their whole bodies and all their senses to explore and learn about their world. It views play as children’s work – a time when children are planning, testing, questioning, and experimenting to construct their own knowledge about people, objects, events, and ideas.

High/Scope is consistent with the best practices recommended by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), Head Start Performance Standards, and other guidelines for developmentally based programs. High/Scope, however, has unique features that are different from other early childhood programs. These include

A daily “plan-do-review” sequence (Research shows that the planning and reviewing are the two components of the program day most positively and significantly associated with children’s scores on measures of developmental progress.)

The second feature is the High/Scope key developmental indicators. These are the social, intellectual, and physical experiences that are essential to young children’s optimal growth.

The High/Scope Key Developmental Indicators

Infant/Toddler Key Developmental Indicators (birth through 2 ½ years old)	Preschool Key Developmental Indicators (2 ½ through 5 years old)
Sense of Self Social Relations Creative Representation Movement and Music Communication and Language Exploring Objects Early Quantity and Number Space and Time	Creative Representation Language and Literacy Initiative and Social Relations Music and Movement Classification and Seriation Number Space and Time

 

The Benefits of High/Scope Approach

Help children become independent, responsible and confident

Give children and adults opportunity to invent and discover together as they explore materials and ideas and experience events

Minimize adult-child conflicts

Maintain children’s interest by allowing them to do what is important to them

Give children the opportunity to develop skills in which to take care of their own needs and solve problems

Help child develop executive skills (self control)

Help children gain knowledge and skills in content areas such as creative representation, language and literacy, initiative and social relations, movement and music, classification and seriation, number, space and time