Techniques for Improving Instructional Support
Watch this three-part video series to learn about ways staff can improve instructional support and effective teaching practices. Find helpful resources to support this work.
Teaching Practices
Effective, nurturing, and responsive teaching practices and interactions are key for all learning in early childhood settings. They foster trust and emotional security; are communication and language rich; and promote critical thinking and problem-solving. They also support social, emotional, behavioral, and language development; provide supportive feedback for learning; and motivate continued effort. Teaching practices and interactions are responsive to and build on each child’s pattern of development and learning. They can be measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS®) and other adult-child interaction tools. These observations may then be used to support professional development. Teaching practices also include how schedules and routines are carried out, how settings are managed, and how children’s challenging behaviors are addressed.
Focus on Instructional Supports: Resources to Help Head Start Programs
View this webinar for Head Start grantees undergoing monitoring visits during the 2019–2020 year. Discover resources grantees can use to help them focus on improving instructional supports for children.
Promoting Adult-Child Interactions that Support Higher-Order Thinking and Language Skills
Find resources to help education staff implement effective teaching practices, including interactions that facilitate concept development.
Connecting Research to Practice: Tips for Working with Infants, Toddlers, and Their Families
This series of briefs provides an accessible and usable overview of research on topics related to early learning and child development. They also include resources for families.
Preschool Teaching Practices
Use the resources on this page to strengthen preschool teaching practices.
Infant/Toddler Teaching Practices
Use the resources on this page to strengthen infant and toddler teaching practices
Engaging Interactions and Environments
These 15-minute In-service Suites are a professional development resource for staff in busy, active early childhood centers and programs. They are organized around one topic or big idea and address effective teaching and assessment practices.
Engaging Interactions: Scaffolding Children's Learning
“Scaffolding” means to provide children with just the right level of support to help them successfully complete a task. This webinar shares three main scaffolding strategies.
Engaging Interactions: Using the Scientific Method
Use the scientific method’s five steps to help expand children’s understanding of their environment.
Schedules and Routines in AIAN Programs
Daily schedules and routines help keep you organized. Research shows they also influence children’s social and emotional development. Learn how to develop your classroom schedules and routines in ways that will help you create and sustain a lively but well-organized classroom.