What is a Comprehensive Curriculum?

Comprehensive curriculum is a written plan that guides the design of children’s goals for learning and
development, the experiences children will have to achieve those goals and the way in which adults,
both staff and families, will support children’s learning to achieve school success. A sound,
comprehensive curriculum is more than a resource guide that contains ideas and activities to do with
children in your classrooms or homes. It is evidence-based or relies on what research tells us about the
way in which children grow and learn and has many different parts or elements. When these elements
work together, they provide early childhood professionals with a framework that helps ensure that
children have standards-based, fun and challenging experiences that are developmentally, linguistically
and culturally appropriate (developmentally appropriate practice-DAP).

Content in a comprehensive curriculum focuses on all domains of learning: social-emotional, physical,

cognitive (intellectual), and communication (language and literacy). A curriculum that has been designed
to support children’s learning in a more specific area such as literacy or mathematics, is a valuable
resource that offers additional ideas to help children learn in that domain. It is considered a
supplementary curriculum, and while it complements a program’s selection of a comprehensive tool, it
does not replace a more expansive, broad-scope curriculum that programs must use to support
children’s integrated learning and development.

A comprehensive curriculum includes these elements:

1. Goals and Objectives

Goals tell us the intent of activities. They are designed to allow for individualization to support meeting
each child’s needs and interests and should be developed to help children learn and develop in all of the
different domains – social emotional, physical, literacy and cognitive. In fact, many activities will help
children’s skills grow in different goals at the same time.

2. Experiences for Children’s Learning

A well-defined comprehensive curriculum helps children achieve their learning goals and objectives. The
activities that children experience will encourage them to construct their understanding and knowledge
through play, active exploration, and investigation of materials and ideas. The curriculum should
promote both child-directed and teacher-directed activities; large group, small group and individualized
learning opportunities; and learning during every day routines and experiences. A strong curriculum is
flexible and will promote teachers’ use of both planned experiences and those experiences that occur
naturally as a result of children’s interests. Both indoor and outdoor environments are important
learning spaces where the large equipment, learning materials, and spatial arrangement of these
materials are key to supporting children’s learning. The way in which teachers design classroom
environments optimizes children’s interaction with materials and concepts in ways that assure children’s
growth and development, and at the same time, provides opportunities for the teacher to authentically
assess and build on those learning experiences.

3. Varied Domains of Learning

A rich curriculum will assure that children have opportunities to expand their learning and development
in all domains or areas of learning. This is known as “the whole child.” These areas include social and
emotional learning, physical development, language and literacy skills, and the cognitive areas of

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knowledge that address mathematics, science, social studies and creative expression. Experiences that
are included within the curriculum framework should be integrated or demonstrate how they can
incorporate varied domains within one activity. Technology is also a new, but important, area of learning
that should be included within a curriculum model.

4. Connection to Learning Standards

Delaware’s Early Learning Foundations for Infants and Toddlers and Preschoolers are based on the age-
appropriate expectations for children that explain what children should know and do at specific ages.
When a curriculum is aligned or cross-walked with the Early Learning Foundations, it assures that
children are receiving experiences that are based on age-appropriate standards across all of the domains
of learning and that the expectations for learning are challenging, yet realistic and attainable. A
comprehensive curriculum will also correspond to classroom or teacher assessments such as the
Environment Rating Scale or CLASS to assure classrooms plan for high quality performance that is
demonstrated in their scores.

5. Plans for Teachers

A curriculum should include ways that teachers can help children achieve or reach their goals and
objectives. Delaware’s Educational Enduring Understandings state that teachers must understand how
children learn and design learning environments that complement children’s learning needs. The
curriculum should guide teachers’ thinking about their own intentional role and include ways in which
they can purposefully provide materials, ask questions or design the environment to help children learn
through play and investigation. Delaware’s teachers use essential questions to stimulate children’s
thinking and help them transfer current knowledge to new situations (scaffolding).

6. Ways to Measure Children’s Learning

Curriculum must include an ongoing process for understanding each child’s growth and development
and progress towards meeting their learning goals. This process provides the evidence that children are
learning and should include strategies for observing and documenting children’s current levels of
development, their interests and their needs as well as analyzing that information to develop new or
modify learning objectives.

7. Diversity and Inclusivity

Activities that are linked to children’s personal experiences are more meaningful and often provide
more successful ways for them to learn. The curriculum should provide information on ways to provide
experiences that reflect the cultures and backgrounds of the children within the early learning site. The
curriculum should also be appropriate or provide for adaptations for children with varied abilities
including children that are English Language Learners or children with disabilities.

8. Family Engagement
Families and teachers work in partnership to help children achieve learning success. The curriculum
should include ways in which families share in children’s individualized goal-development, provide
information about their progress, or participate in classroom experiences. It should include ways to
assure family celebrations or events include consideration of family cultures and ethnic practices and
provide ways to make adaptations for those cultural or ethnic practices or for adults who may have
special needs. Suggestions for at-home connections will enrich the families’ understanding and supports
for children’s experiences and learning and should be provided throughout the curriculum model.

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Resources:
• Delaware Department of Education. Curriculum Resources: Essential Questions, Essential
Understanding and Design Principles. Retrieved from http://www.doe.k12.de.us/info
• National Association for the Education of Young Children and the National Association of Early
Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education. (2003) Joint Position Statement. Early
Childhood Curriculum, Assessment, and Program Evaluation. Building an effective, accountable
system in programs for children birth through age 8. Retrieved from
http://naeyc.org/positionstatements/cape
• North Carolina Division of Child Development & Early Education. North Carolina Approved Early
Childhood Curricula. (2011). Retrieved from http://nccchildcare.dhhs,state.nc.us
• Taylor, H.H., (2000). Curriculum in Head Start. Head Start Bulletin. Issue 67. Retrieved from
http://eclkc.ohs.act.hhs.gov

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 Comprehensive Curriculum Rubric

Use this rubric to review the curriculum you intend to use in your early childhood program. A comprehensive curriculum includes all of the elements and
indicators described below. Evidence of shaded elements is required for approval. Evidence of additional elements is strongly recommended.

Curriculum Element Indicator Description Yes/No Evidence

Allows for individualization to reflect children’s needs and
Goals and Objectives Individualization interests; built on children’s prior knowledge

Experiences and themes are appropriate for the age and

Age-Specific developmental range of skills children may demonstrate

Includes a balance of individual, small and large group; active

and quiet; indoor and outdoor and teacher and child-
Schedules directed activities; utilizes active learning and exploration;
utilizes routines and everyday learning opportunities

Room designs, physical space (both indoor and outdoor), and

Environment and learning centers utilize materials from all domains of
Materials learning; encourages children’s independent access to
materials; offers suggestions for adaptations to support
Experiences for
varied types of learning for all children
Learning
Allows for teachable moments or changes to schedule,
Flexibility planned activities or events to accommodate children’s
interests or needs or a unique event; offers ways materials or
activities can be adapted to accommodate children’s
individualized learning needs

Presents strategies and ideas for moving children between

Transitions experiences or activities as well as ways to introduce new
ideas or experiences

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 Curriculum Element Indicator Description Yes/No Evidence
Reflects the Whole Includes all domains of learning –social and emotional,
Child physical, cognitive and language-literacy

Offers ways children can learn varied skills or information

Integrated Experiences
Varied Domains of from one activity (integration)
Learning
Includes ways that technology can be incorporated into
classroom or home experiences as well as ways teachers can
Technology use technology to record children’s progress and learning

All domains of either infant-toddler or preschool Early

Learning Foundations are addressed including:
Infant-Toddler: Social-Emotional, Language and Literacy,
Aligned to Delaware Discoveries, Physical Development and Health
Early Learning Preschool: Social-Emotional; Approaches to Learning;
Foundations Language and Literacy; Mathematics; Science; My Family, My
Connection to Community, My World; Creative Expression; Physical
Standards Development and Health

Reflects current information about ways children learn and

develop (evidence-based); cites brain-research; evidence
Research-based exists that curriculum is effective when implemented with
fidelity; developmentally, culturally and linguistically relevant

Guides teachers’ design of schedules and experiences that

Purposeful or focus on children’s goals; emphasizes the use of questioning
Intentional techniques to help children learn; uses scaffolding or ways to
build on prior knowledge;
Offers sample lesson plans or strategies for building lesson
Sample Lesson Plans plans that incorporate children’s goals and integrate domains
Plans for Teachers of learning

Provides suggestions for related professional development or

Professional offers resources to understand the way in which the
Development curriculum is written and should be used

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 Curriculum Element Indicator Description Yes/No Evidence
Relates to Delaware Helps teachers see link to Essential Questions and Enduring
Department of Understandings
Education Curriculum http://www.doe.k12.de.us/infosuites/staff/ci/default.shtml
materials
Aligns with performance measures that allow adults to
Link to Performance understand children’s growth and skill mastery of the
Measures presented skills through authentic assessment strategies

Provides suggestions for sharing information about children’s

Families progress with families
Measures Children’s
Learning Includes ways children’s growth can be measured through
(Assessment) Observation and ongoing observation and related documentation of specific
Documentation activities

Considers measured items on classroom or teacher

Reflects Classroom
assessment scales to support quality scores and the
Observation Tools’
coordination of varied assessments
requirements
Provides suggestions for ways experiences can be adapted or
modified to accommodate children with unique learning
Adaptations needs

Diversity and
Inclusivity Encourages consideration for children and families’ culture,
ethnicity and other unique community and family
Culture characteristics as experiences and activities are developed

Provides ideas to include families in goal-planning, family

Goal-Planning educational activities and information-sharing
Includes a Family
Component Link to At-home Experiences include extension ideas that link children’s early
Learning care and education learning with at-home ideas

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