Developmentally Appropriate Practice

Fisher is nationally accredited by NAEYC and is a Denver Preschool Program rated by Colorado Shines.

The staff of the Fisher Early Learning Center is committed to living our values. As a nationally accredited early childhood program, Fisher highly endorses the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s (NAEYC) current edition (2022) of Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP). This edition is based on NAEYC’s updated Position Statement (2020). We invite our community to read this position statement here: https://www.naeyc.org/resources/position-statements/dap/contents. We stand with the Division of Early Childhood’s (DEC) Statement of Support for DAP and invite our community to review their full statement here: https://divisionearlychildhood.egnyte.com/dl/S34MIYFb94.

Developmentally Appropriate Practice defines 6 areas of practice to guide early childhood educators in defining their role, guiding their teaching, and informing their profession. These areas are: 

1. Creating a Caring, Equitable Community of Learners

Our focus on social emotional learning as a foundation supports our entire community. Our intentionality towards diversity, equity, inclusion and justice defines our commitment to this area of practice.

   2. Engaging in Reciprocal Partnerships with Families and Fostering Community Connections

We commit to viewing families and our community as our partners in education. Parent engagement is high and opportunities to participate and collaborate in the learning process is central to each family partnership. Fisher also has the Fisher Advisory Board and the Parent Advisory Committee comprised of our community stakeholders who work collaboratively and in partnership with staff to support our mission and philosophy. 

  3. Observing, Documenting, and Assessing Children’s Development and Learning

  4. Teaching to Enhance Each Child’s Development and Learning

  5. Planning and Implementing an Engaging Curriculum to Achieve Meaningful Goals

Fisher utilizes the MyTeachingStrategies (https://teachingstrategies.com/product/gold/) progress monitoring tool, which is designed for use with children from birth through Kindergarten. As the term indicates, progress monitoring is a practice that is used to observe children's growth and development over a period of time and evaluate the progress of their skills and abilities. Progress monitoring allows us to assess children's abilities, interests and needs across all domains of development and learning (Social-Emotional, Physical, Language, Cognitive, Literacy, Mathematics, Science and Technology, Social Studies and The Arts.) Furthermore, as we observe and document children's abilities and skill levels, we are better informed to plan curricular activities that will complement and challenge their growth and development. Fisher participates in the Colorado Department of Education Results Matter program, a statewide program that promotes the use of ongoing, developmental, observation-based assessment in early care and education settings. Results Matter serves as Colorado's unified child outcomes measurement system for many early childhood programs and services. 
For more information about Results Matter visit http://www.cde.state.co.us/resultsmatter
Teachers are empowered to individualize all curriculum choices to meet the needs of all children. Teachers use close observation, reflection and assessment to guide their decisions in individualization.

  6. Demonstrating Professionalism as an Early Childhood Educator

Fisher has 12 professional development days in the school year during which teachers receive training and time to reflect and collaborate on their teaching practice. Additionally, through the generosity and participation of our families with PAC fundraising, teachers are afforded opportunities to participate in local and national conferences for early education including the NAEYC, Zero to Three , DEC, RMECC and Courage to Risk conferences. 

Many teachers are also currently pursuing advanced degrees in Early Childhood, School Psychology, Social Work and other related fields at the University of Denver.