Reggio Emilia Inspired Approach to Learning

The Reggio Emilia Approach is an innovative and inspiring approach to early childhood education which values the child as strong, capable and resilient; rich with wonder and knowledge. Every child brings with them deep curiosity and potential and this innate curiosity drives their interest to understand their world and their place within it.

The Reggio Emilia Approach originated in the town (and surrounding areas) of Reggio Emilia in Italy out of a movement towards progressive and cooperative early childhood education.

References:
An Everyday Story

Further Reading:
Reggio Kids

The Hundred Languages of Children

The belief that children use many different ways to show their understanding and express their thoughts and creativity. These languages, or ways of learning, are all a part of the child. Learning and play are not separated.

The Reggio Emilia Approach emphasises hands-on discovery learning that allows the child to use all their senses and all their languages to learn.

http://www.aneverydaystory.com/beginners-guide-to-reggio-emilia/main-principles/

The symbolic languages include: drawing, sculpting, dramatic play, writing, and painting are used to represent children's thinking processes and theories.  As children work through problems and ideas, they are encouraged to depict their understanding using many different representations.  As their thinking evolves, they are encouraged to revisit their representation to determine if they are representative of their intent or if they require modifications. Teachers and children work together towards an expressed intent.


The Hundred Languages of Children

The child
is made of one hundred.
The child has
A hundred languages
A hundred hands
A hundred thoughts
A hundred ways of thinking
Of playing, of speaking.
A hundred always a hundred
Ways of listening of marveling of loving
A hundred joys
For singing and understanding
A hundred worlds
To discover
A hundred worlds
To invent
A hundred worlds
To dream
The child has
A hundred languages
(and a hundred hundred hundred more)
But they steal ninety-nine.
The school and the culture
Separate the head from the body.
They tell the child;
To think without hands
To do without head
To listen and not to speak
To understand without joy
To love and to marvel
Only at Easter and Christmas
They tell the child:
To discover the world already there
And of the hundred
They steal ninety-nine.
They tell the child:
That work and play
Reality and fantasy
Science and imagination
Sky and earth
Reason and dream
Are things
That do not belong together
And thus they tell the child
That the hundred is not there
The child says: NO WAY the hundred is there

The Hundred Languages of Children-Loris Malaguzzi
Founder of the Reggio Approach


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