About the Reggio-Emilia Approach

• The Reggio-Emilia Approach is not a recipe - It is an educational experience.
• Reggio-Emilia embraces the search for answers to life beginning at birth and sees the full potential in each child.
• Educators help develop the cognitive map within each child.
• Children are allowed to follow their own interests.
• The child is an active participant in learning and is a competent protagonist and initiator who interacts with their environment.
• The environment is the third teacher.
• The teacher, parent, and child are collaborators in the process of learning.
• Learning should be made visible through documentation.
  • Teachers use a variety of documentation methods, such as cameras, tape recorders, and written observations, to track children’s thoughts and ideas as they play together or work with materials.
  • Documentation shows learning that occurs in an individual moment throughout the course of a project.
  • Children’s individual growth and learning are compiled into personal portfolios. These portfolios may include photographs, quotes from the child, teacher observations, artwork, and writing samples.

Principles

• The Image of the Child
  • Children are viewed as competent, curious, full of knowledge, and interested in connecting to the world around them.

• Teachers as Partners
  • Teachers are viewed as facilitators of children’s learning experiences. As partners, they listen, document, challenge, and organize children’s learning in a collaborative relationship with other colleagues.
• An Emergent Learning Process
  • Ideas are shared, work is exchanged and opportunities are created to extend and build upon theories that are uncovered. In this way of working, projects may occur which last days or months.
• The Role of Parents
  • Parents are an essential component of the school. They are an active part of their children’s learning experiences and help to ensure the welfare of all the children in the school.
• The Role of the Environment
  • The environment serves as another teacher through the conscious use of space, color, light, displays of children’s work, and attention to nature and detail.
• Many Languages
  • Children act on a variety of materials: clay, wire, drawing media, paper, etc. They learn the ABC’s of each material which they use to express their ideas, theories and feelings about the world in which they live.
• The Three Subjects of Education
  • Children, parents, and teachers have rights: 1) the right to safety, care and welfare, 2) the right to be involved, and 3) the right to grow professionally.
• Collaboration and Interaction
  • Children, parent and teacher collaboration, and interaction make everything possible.
• Documentation
  • The learning process between children and teachers is captured, made visible, and then shared in order to support wondering, researching, and learning among teachers and children.
• Time
  • Time is influenced by the interests and activities that children bring to life within the school. This in turn impacts schedules, groupings, and routines.

The Hundred Languages of Children

This poem by Loris Malaguzzi, the founder of the Reggio-Emilia approach, beautifully conveys the important roles imagination and discovery play in early childhood learning...