Core Professional Knowledge

Early Care and Education Content Areas

A key component of any professional development system is the identification of what every early care and education professional should know and be able to do at various levels of training, education, and role responsibilities within the early care and education field.

The seven core content areas are :

• Child Growth and Development
• Child Observation and Assessment
• Curriculum and Instructional Methods
• Family and Community Relationships
• Health, Safety and Nutrition
• Teaching/Learning Interactions & Environments
• Personal & Professional Development  

Please note that while there are seven core content areas, three strands are woven through out each one. They include:

• children with special needs
• culture and diversity
• individual and group guidance

These core content areas, as well as the Performance Areas and Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions identified for each, have been approved by Professional Development Advisory Committee (PDAC). This work continues to be guided by an overall goal to develop a set of professional knowledge, skills, and disposition competencies that will be used as a framework for professional development at different levels of education, training, and role responsibilities in the early care and education field in Illinois. All early care and education professionals are encouraged to participate in this work as PDAC continues to move toward creating an Early Childhood Career Lattice and meet its goal of creating a highly qualified workforce in Illinois.

The intent of PDAC is that the core areas and the lattice structure be used to unify training requirements for the early care and education field by providing a basis for credentials and degrees, and by providing a basis for developing a coordinated system of training and personnel development.

After careful review of initiatives and systems from other states, a task force named the PDAC has identified seven core areas that capture these responsibilities. These core content areas, and their associated Performance Area and Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions statements, are directly aligned with the following standards:

• Illinois Early Childhood Education Content-Area Standards
• Illinois Professional Teaching Standards
• National Association for the Education of Young Children’s Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation
• Illinois Director Credential competencies
• Illinois Birth to Three Standards
• Early Intervention Developmental Specialist requirements
• Child Development Associate requirements

Links for Early Care and Education
Core Professional Knowledge

• Early Childhood Content Areas for the Illinois Professional Development Network
  www.ilgateways.com/credentials/coreoverview.aspx
• Illinois Birth-to-3 Program Standards and Quality Benchmarks
  www.isbe.net/earlychi/html/03_standards.htm
• Illinois Early Learning Standards
  www.isbe.state.il.us/profprep/pcstandardrules.htm
  www.isbe.net/earlychi/pdf/early_learning_standards.pdf
• DCFS Licensing Standards
  http://www.state.il.us/dcfs/docs/406.htm
• Where We Stand on Early Learning Standards (NAEYC and NAECS/SDE) www.naeyc.org/about/positions/pdf/elstandardsstand.pdf
• Head Start Performance Standards and Other Regulations
  www.ilheadstart.org/performance.html
• Illinois Kindergarten Standards
  www.five-2-six.com/www/
• Illinois K-12 Learning Standards
  www.isbe.net/ils/

The Competencies Task Force of the Professional Development Advisory Committee (PDAC) is pleased to release a comprehensive set of Early Care and Education Content Areas for the Gateways to Opportunity. These were developed to include the standards and competencies of the many systems and credentialing bodies impacting early care and education programs throughout Illinois.

These Early Care and Education Content Areas are the result of a great deal of work on the part of the dedicated individuals who comprised the Competencies Task Force:

A tremendous thanks goes out to these individuals for their amazing commitment to bettering the field of early care and education for Illinois.