A recent report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine emphasized the importance of choosing a high-quality preschool curriculum (NASEM 2024). Equally important is how the curriculum is implemented: It needs to include content learning and play, teacher-directed and child-initiated experiences, and associated coaching and professional development in areas where educators need growth and support. Although the report focused on preschool, the same applies to curriculum planning and implementation for all young children, including kindergartners.

The report and a recent blog series from New America highlight false dichotomies that create misunderstanding and misinformation about how to support young children’s learning and development. The reality is that program and school leaders and educators often are pulled in conflicting directions. At times, there can be a hyperfocus on one area while simultaneously ignoring other critical information. For example, in response to concerns about reading test scores, some may narrowly focus on phonological awareness without emphasizing the other key literacy components that contribute to effective early literacy curriculum and instruction. Another example is creating time for self-directed play without also attending to and planning for other playful experiences that facilitate children’s learning and growth.

Supporting early childhood educators with practical resources is a key part of NAEYC’s mission. NAEYC’s books, professional development, journals, and other resources provide extensive information and examples of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) in action. They also offer a framework for understanding that DAP often means using a variety of different approaches or modifying one approach depending on the situation (NAEYC 2022, 7).

Over the coming year, we will highlight existing NAEYC content that offers evidence-based supports along with examples of educators (including NAEYC members) navigating key questions like

• How do educators and school leaders translate research to practice in their settings?
• How do educators engage families, community members, and policymakers in conversations about a both/and approach to high-quality early childhood curriculum and teaching?
• How do educators share stories and offer evidence of an approach that incorporates both play and content learning, child- and teacher-guided experiences, and supports and resources needed to accomplish such complex work?

These are questions that NAEYC has explored throughout its publications, including the previous editions of Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8, which was originally written by Sue Bredekamp.

We begin this series of NAEYC content highlights with an excerpt from the fourth edition of Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs. It comes from Chapter 1, “Intentional Teaching: Complex Decision Making and the Core Considerations” by Bredekamp and Barbara Willer. This excerpt outlines how educators can move from either/or thinking (false dichotomies) to both/and thinking that supports children’s learning and development. Accompanying it is a vignette that demonstrates a teacher navigating these false dichotomies. This scenario comes from Chapter 2, “The Principles in Practice: Understanding Child Development and Learning in Context” by Iheoma U. Iruka.

We hope you’ll engage with NAEYC and our DAP resources for ongoing support and thought partnership in navigating false dichotomies. Next in this series:

• Highlights from an interview with Tanya S. Wright from a Winter 2026 article in NAEYC’s member magazine, Educating Young Children, on the false dichotomies emphasized in some of the science of reading debates and the need to address both comprehension and phonological awareness.
• How three NAEYC members navigate these dichotomies in daily decisions that arise in the classroom or program.

Enlarging the Frame

While polarized ways of thinking (“The best way must be either this or that”) are prevalent in education, a more productive route is to recognize that developmentally appropriate practice often means using a variety of different approaches or modifying one approach depending on the situation. There are forms of teacher-directed experiences that are not appropriate for children in preschool, kindergarten, and the primary grades. Heavy use of seatwork or lecturing with little or no time for children’s interaction, exploration, investigation, play, and choice is not effective for active young children. However, that doesn’t mean that all teacher-directed experiences are inappropriate. Such experiences in both large and small groups may be the most efficient and effective way to introduce children to skills and knowledge they could not construct on their own, such as the number line in mathematics or new vocabulary words.

Either/or choices do not serve children, families, or educators. Consider instead how both/and thinking is a more effective solution to the challenging and often polarizing issues educators face:

• Educators must be committed both to providing equitable opportunities to learn for each and every child and to viewing all children as capable of achieving at a high level.
• Educators need to both have high expectations for each and every child’s learning and recognize that some children require additional assistance and resources to make continuous learning progress toward important goals.
• Educators need to artfully apply both what they learn about individual children in sociocultural contexts and knowledge of the most current research within its limitations.
• Educators recognize the vital importance of both what they teach and how they teach.
• Educators plan and implement both teacher-guided and child-guided experiences to help children achieve important learning goals.
• Educators focus on the strengths of children with disabilities both to help them accomplish their individual goals and to help them make progress in the general curriculum.
• Children benefit both from engaging in self-initiated, spontaneous play and from teacher-planned and structured activities, projects, and experiences.
• Educators use both child-initiated play and teacher-scaffolded (guided) play to benefit children’s learning and development.
• Children benefit from both opportunities to see connections across content areas through interdisciplinary curriculum and opportunities to engage in focused, in-depth study in a content area.
• Children benefit both from predictable structure and orderly routine in the learning environment and from the teacher’s flexibility and responsiveness to children’s emerging ideas, needs, and interests.
• Children benefit both from opportunities to make meaningful choices and from having a clear understanding of the boundaries within which choices are acceptable.
• Children benefit both from constructing their own understanding of concepts and from being instructed by more competent peers and adults.
• Children benefit both from situations that challenge them to work at the edge of their developing capacities and from ample opportunities to practice newly acquired skills.
• Children benefit both from opportunities to collaborate with peers and become part of a community and from being treated as individuals with their own strengths, interests, and needs.
• Children have both enormous capacities to learn and almost boundless curiosity about the world and age-related needs and capacities (such as infants as compared with preschoolers).
• Children learn and develop both as individuals and as members of families and cultural groups.
• Children need to develop both a positive sense of their own individual and cultural identities and respect for other people whose perspectives and experiences may be different from their own.
• Children who are dual language learners need support both to acquire proficiency in English and to maintain and further develop their home languages.
• Children benefit from early childhood education programs that both promote equity and strive to eliminate racism and bias.
• Most important of all, developmentally appropriate practice provides both joyous and engaged learning for each and every child.

Math in Preschool: Scaffolding One-to-One Correspondence

Reflection Question

How would you describe the complexity of decision making as educators balance the core considerations? What are some ways educators have balanced these complexities in your own setting?

References

NASEM (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine). 2024. A New Vision for High-Quality Preschool Curriculum. The National Academies Press.

NAEYC. 2022. Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth Through Age 8.  4th ed. NAEYC.