What is the Reggio Emilia approach to teaching?

But a growing form of early childhood education, called the Reggio Emilia approach, is turning heads with its unique take on teaching—one that makes parents, teachers and children equal shareholders in the learning initiative.

Is Reggio Emilia still relevant today?

Today, many schools describe themselves as Reggio-inspired. Meyers says this is because the Reggio Emilia approach is intended to adapt to the children in the room—it’s about them, their specific families and their communities, not a structured model.

What is a Reggio school?

“The emphasis on community in a Reggio approach means that you need to truly represent your community—not Reggio Emilia, Italy,” Meyers says. “Officially, unlike Montessori, there aren’t organizations or agencies that certify a school as a ‘Reggio school.’

What is Reggio-inspired education?

We asked ECE experts in Reggio-inspired education to fill this picture with a little more color. What is Reggio Emilia? Broadly speaking, Reggio Emilia is an approach to early childhood learning named after the town where it originated in Italy.

As in other ways, the Reggio Emilia approach is less about the surface look and more about what is really happening between kids, families and teachers. “A Reggio Emilia inspired environment is for the children that use it,” Meyers says. “It’s an environment that the child can affect and that tells each child they belong there.”

Who can use the Reggio Emilia’s atelier?

The atelier and other spaces will be used by children and young people up to 18 years of age, a step which highlights the town of Reggio Emilia’s commitment to all young people and not just children of pre-school age.

How can Reggio approach help children’s creative development?

“A child may be more drawn to dancing to tell their stories than drawing, for example, and there is room in a Reggio approach to be excited about that and help them translate that strength into new areas.”

Why did Reggio Emilia build its first nursery school?

Two factors can be seen to have had a fundamental and far-reaching effect. It was the parents and citizens of Reggio Emilia who, in a show of collective responsibility and the desire to create a better society for their children, occupied a disused building that they turned into the first nursery school.