Since we looked at the NAEYC Standards yesterday, I thought we could explore the NAEYC website today. If you are not familiar with NAEYC as an organization, the website can help you navigate all that it has to offer early childhood professionals, adult educators, and child and family advocates.

Sometimes, I feel as though our field is filled with lingo and acronyms that I can’t always keep up with. The first acronym that everyone learns when studying early childhood care and education or development is NAEYC. We toss it around like a football, but how many of us know all that it has to offer?

NAEYC accredits programs for young children through an extensive and rigorous self-study, data gathering and dissemination that ultimately arrives at a site visit which will decide whether the program will achieve accreditation or not. Click here to see the process for accreditation. NAEYC also accredits Associate Degree programs (I was lucky enough to be involved in the Harold Washington College self-study and accreditation process in 2007 which resulted in our attainment of accreditation). Click here to learn more about that process.

NAEYC has its own publishing house which publishes an extensive line of books, videos, brochures and posters. Click here to see what NAEYC publishing has to offer. You may have also seen the journal “Young Children” which is the peer-reviewed professional journal published by NAEYC.

NAEYC has a lot to offer us. Take a look around and let us know what you think.