<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br>The RIGOROUS DAP construct is composed of two parts: academic rigor and developmentally appropriate practices. Teachers who engage in RIGOROUS DAP recognize there is no single way to educate children. This guide provides a roadmap for teaching that helps children meet academic expectations and maintains focus on the appropriate development of the whole child.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><i>RIGOROUS DAP in the Early Years: From Theory to Practice</i> provides teachers with a roadmap for teaching that helps children meet academic expectations and maintains focus on the appropriate development of the whole child. A construct of eleven practices, RIGOROUS DAP supplies teachers with strategies for 1) making instructional decisions that meet the needs of the individual child; 2) sustaining culturally relevant practices; 3) engaging stakeholders in conversations about educating young children for school success through practices that attend to their individual, sociocultural, and developmental needs; and 4) ensuring all children experience high-level learning and succeed in school. <p/> The eleven practices comprising the construct are: <br> <ul> <li><b>R</b>eaching all children <li><b>I</b>ntegrating content areas <li><b>G</b>rowing as a community <li><b>O</b>ffering choices <li><b>R</b>evisiting new content <li><b>O</b>ffering challenges <li><b>U</b>nderstanding each learner <li><b>S</b>eeing the whole child <p/> <li><b>D</b>ifferentiating instruction <li><b>A</b>ssessing constantly <li><b>P</b>ushing every child forward</ul> <p/> An academically rigorous learning environment allows all children to learn at high levels through hands-on learning experiences that address the whole child and connect to the child's world in and out of school. A developmentally appropriate learning environment considers the children's developmental, cognitive, social, emotional, linguistic, and physical development, as well as the sociocultural worlds in which they live.<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Brian Nelson Mowry is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin. He has 25 years of service as a teacher and teacher educator in the Austin Independent School District. He currently serves as a district-level instructional specialist developing curriculum as well as supporting and providing professional development for 700 preschool and kindergarten classroom teachers. Before this, he worked as a district-level mathematics specialist for grades K through 5 and spent 11 years as a bilingual preschool and kindergarten teacher in the Austin public schools.