The Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF) Effective Practice Guides provide information about domain-specific teaching practices that support children’s development. The guides show what these practices look like in early learning settings. They also help staff reflect on and improve their teaching practices. In home-based settings, teaching practices are the ways that home visitors work with families to provide experiences that support the child’s development and learning, engage in responsive interactions, and use the home as the learning environment.

About the Effective Practice Guides

The guides are organized around four components of learning:

• Know: Teaching practices that are effective at supporting children’s development in the sub-domain
• See: Video clips of effective teaching practices in action
• Do: Tips to try in your own program when working with children to support their development in this sub-domain, or when working with children and parents in the home-based setting
• Improve: Follows the Practice-Based Coaching (PBC) steps as a way to think about using PBC to improve domain-specific teaching practices. The steps include:
  • Planning Goals and Action Steps
  • Focused Observation
  • Reflection and Feedback

To learn how the guides connect to the domains and dimensions of the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS^®), review the ELOF Effective Practice Guide (EPG)/CLASS^® Pre-K Crosswalk.

To learn how the guides connect to the scales and dimensions of the Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers (Q-CCIIT) Tool, review the ELOF Effective Practice Guide (EPG)/Quality of Caregiver-Child Interactions for Infants and Toddlers (Q-CCIIT) Crosswalk.

How to Use the Effective Practice Guides

Teachers, family child care providers, and home visitors can use the guides to learn more about how to effectively support children's growth and development across the ELOF domains.

Education managers and child development specialists can use the guides to help teachers, family child care providers, and home visitors gain insight into what effective teaching practices look like in early learning settings. Managers and specialists can also use them to think about what supports these direct service staff might need to apply new learning in their settings.

Coaches, trainers, and other professional development staff can use the guides as they work side by side with staff to apply learning and implement effective practices in their work with children and families.

Central Domains

Last Updated: May 20, 2024