Guidelines at a Glance

Guiding Principles

The Guiding Principles below shaped the Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines. These Principles are about children and the environments that best support children’s growth and development. They were adopted from two highly regarded resources, Neurons to Neighborhoods and The Irreducible Needs of Children. Colorado Early Learning and Development Guidelines are based on the following principles:

• Nature and nurture affect children’s development. All children are shaped by the interaction between their biology and their experiences.
• Culture influences every aspect of human development and is reflected in childrearing beliefs and practices designed to promote healthy adaptation.
• The growth of a child’s self-regulation is important to the development of knowledge and skills in all domains of development.
• Children are active participants in their own development. They naturally explore and learn to master their environment.
• Relationships are the building blocks of healthy development.
• Young children develop and learn at different times and in different ways. This makes it difficult to tell the difference between normal variations in development from temporary disorders and long-term impairments.
• Development is rarely a smooth process. There are times when children develop and learn quickly. There are other times when a child forgets skills they seemed to have mastered. Brief disruptions in development and learning are common for most children.
• The timing of early experiences can matter, but, more often than not, the developing child remains vulnerable to risks and open to protective influences throughout the early years of life and into adulthood.
• The course of development can be altered in early childhood by effective interventions that change the balance between risk and protection, thereby shifting the odds in favor of more adaptive outcomes.

The Guidelines promote environments that foster growth in young children, which include:

• Ongoing nurturing relationships that provide the basis for physical and emotional well-being.
• Physical protection, safety, and regulation for children’s security.
• Experiences that are tailored to individual differences so that children have choices and are respectful of others' choices.
• Developmentally appropriate experiences that build children’s skills.
• Stable, supportive communities and cultural continuity.

Key Sections

The Colorado Early Learning and Developmental Guidelines are divided into three sections by child age:

• Birth to age three
• Ages three to five
• Kindergarten to third grade (Ages five to eight)

Each of these sections describes child development for children within the age band. This information in each section covers all areas of development. An area of development, also called a domain, includes a set of related capabilities, skills, and knowledge. A domain is an area of development such as physical health, social (how children interact with others), emotional (how children express their feelings), language and literacy (how children learn to communicate and read), cognitive (how children learn), and approaches to learning. For example, the social and emotional domain describes how children develop the ability to express their emotions and interact with adults and other children; the language and literacy domain describes how children develop the skills to speak and read.

This graphic orients readers to how the Guidelines are organized by domain across age ranges. The inner circle represents development for children birth to three years old. The middle circle outlines development for children three to five years old. The outer circle outlines development for children five to eight years old and aligns with the Colorado Academic Standards.

Within each age range, there is a description of what skills and abilities a child can typically do at a certain age and what adults can do to support the child’s growth and development. It is important to understand that each child learns and develops at his or her own individual pace and the Guidelines are intended to be used as a framework to help parents, caregivers, child care providers, and any adult who interacts with young children to easily incorporate the Guidelines into their everyday activities. Since each child is unique, caregivers and parents should talk with a health care provider or other trusted professional about any questions or concerns.