Welcome to the…
Professional Standards & Competencies Resource Library
The Professional Standards and Competencies for Early Childhood Educators outline the essential knowledge, skills, and practices that are foundational to high-quality early childhood education. These standards define what early childhood educators should know and be able to do in order to support the learning and development of young children from birth through age 8. They serve as a guiding framework for professional development, practice, and evaluation within the field of early childhood education.
Understanding and implementing these standards is crucial for educators as they help ensure the delivery of equitable, inclusive, and high-quality education that promotes the well-being and success of all children. By adhering to these standards, educators also contribute to the profession's commitment to continuous improvement and accountability.
Please note that while the collection of resources has been organized and tagged according to the Professional Standards and Competencies, only the most applicable competencies have been prioritized for searching and tagging purposes.
For NAEYC resources in the library, you can find policies related to reproducing, distributing, or otherwise using content here. For all other resources, please follow appropriate practices for using/citing sources.
Directions for Using the Professional Standards and Competencies Resource Library
Check out the resource library tutorial here!
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The PS&Cs Resource Library allows you to peruse ALL of the many resources available (by default) or you can utilize the provided filter and narrow down your search to target specific resources.
Check out the resource library tutorial for more info.
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By using the filtering categories, you are able to narrow your search to particular professional standards, one or more of the 22 key competencies, various ECE topics, a variety of age ranges, specific types of resources such as articles or videos or even find resources available in languages other than English.
The robust filters even allow you to choose multiple choices across categories or within the same category to further narrow your search!
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Once you have opened the various filter categories provided in the filter tool, you will notice that “all” is highlighted and checked in each category by default. This means the filter tool will not filter out any of those options within that category. If you wish to narrow your search, you simply click on one or more of the other options within the various filtering categories. Clicking will check that option. Checked options will be utilized for your search!
To remove an option, simply click it again to remove the check from the checkbox.
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The search feature is similar to any other search engine on a website. It can be used for a specific key word or phrase. Although the search may be helpful and is provided, the more robust filter tool may ultimately be more helpful in focusing and narrowing your search for resources.
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Naturally, broken links will occur. Sometimes the resource has been moved to a new web address and other times it has been temporarily or permanently removed. We welcome you to report any broken links you find here. We will do our best to replace the link when possible or remove the resource if it is no longer available.
**As of Feb. 2025, certain webpages and resources, particularly from agencies/organizations/projects that receive federal funds, have been at least temporarily removed in order to comply with federal mandates related to the Trump Administration’s Executive Orders. We will continue to monitor these resource links and update them if and when new links are available.
Start Your Search--Resource Library
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Start Your Search--Resource Library *
Sort quickly through the hundreds of available resources by using the filter tool on the left to populate the specific resources you need!
A Guide to Developmental Environments
A Guide to Developmental Environments
Learn how the conditions in places where children live, grow, play, and learn shape their developing brains and other biological systems, with lifelong implications. This is a set of resources, including working papers, infographics, and policy briefs, all which shed light on this topic.
Organization/Author: Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University
Type of Resource: Toolkit
Publication Date: Various
The New Ecology of Early Childhood: Revisiting Bronfenbrenner’s Theory in the Context of Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities
The New Ecology of Early Childhood: Revisiting Bronfenbrenner’s Theory in the Context of Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities
This working paper from the Stanford Center on Early Childhood revisits Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory in light of present day conditions and challenges.
Organization/Author: Philip A. Fisher, PhD & Joan Lombardi, PhD, Stanford Center on Early Childhood, Stanford University
Type of Resource: Article
Publication Date: 2025
OER Textbook: Understanding the Whole Child: Prenatal Development through Adolescence textbook
OER Textbook: Understanding the Whole Child: Prenatal Development through Adolescence textbook
Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that you may freely use and reuse at no cost, and without needing to ask permission. This OER text is a presentation of how and why children grow, develop, and learn.
We will look at how we change physically over time from conception through adolescence. We examine cognitive change, or how our ability to think and remember changes over the first 20 years or so of life. And we will look at how our emotions, psychological state, and social relationships change throughout childhood and adolescence.
Click here to learn more about the OER Collection from College of the Canyons.
Organization/Author: Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond, College of the Canyons OER Collection
Type of Resource: textbook, Open Educational Resource (OER)
Publication Date: 2019
Additional Resources
