Reggio Emilia

1 Where it came from

In 1963, teachers and parents in the Reggio Emilia area of Italy, working with a local teacher named Loris Malaguzzi, founded the first formal school of what became the approach. Reggio Children, the organization that now shares it, traces its roots back to the mid-1800s and credits Malaguzzi, the city council and ordinary citizens with building the city's network of infant-toddler centers and preschools. Every municipal preschool has had an atelier (studio) and an atelierista (studio teacher) since the end of the 1970s, and the city says the approach is now engaged with in more than 145 countries and territories.

2 The big ideas

• A capable child. Reggio Children describes every child as having "strong potentialities" and rights, growing through relationships with other children and adults.
• The hundred languages. From Malaguzzi's poem: children think and express ideas in many ways (drawing, sculpting, building, dance, talk, play), and school should welcome all of them, not only words and numbers.
• The environment as a teacher. The room itself, with its light, materials and displays of children's work, is arranged to invite curiosity and collaboration.
• Documentation makes learning visible. Photos, transcripts of what children said, and their drawings and models are collected and displayed so teachers, children and families can reflect on the thinking.
• Families take part. Parents are partners in the school's life, not visitors.
• Teachers work together. Several adults share each group, and a coordinating team helps them reflect and plan.

3 What a lesson looks like

A Reggio-inspired morning: a few four-year-olds noticed puddles reflecting the sky after rain last week, and the teachers wrote down what they asked. Today a small group is in the atelier with mirrors, flashlights and colored film, testing where reflections go. One child draws what she thinks happens inside a puddle; another builds a "puddle" from foil and blue paper; two more argue about whether the sky is really in the water. A teacher sits close, asks "What do you think would happen if…?", and records their words on a clipboard and in photos. Later the group will look at their own drawings from last week and decide what to try next, and their families will see the project on the wall at pick-up. There's no fixed daily schedule we could find published, but days are built around this kind of slow, shared investigation, plus play, meals and rest.

4 Reading and math

Reggio has no separate reading or math sequence that we could find in Reggio Children's own materials. Letters, writing, counting, measuring and shapes come up inside projects as some of the hundred languages: children might write labels for a model, count the puddles on a walk, or measure a shadow. How individual Reggio-inspired schools handle phonics or counting varies and isn't documented in the sources we read, so ask any school directly.

5 The adult's job

The teacher is a co-researcher: listening to children, noticing what interests them, offering materials and questions that push their thinking further, and documenting what happens. The atelierista, a teacher with an arts background, works with children in the studio. Several adults share a group and meet to reflect on the documentation together and plan the next step of a project.

6 How progress is checked

Documentation is the assessment. Teachers collect photos, children's words and work over time and use them to reflect on each child's thinking and to plan. There are no grades or tests in the approach.

7 Strengths and criticisms

8 What the research says

Plainly: thin. In this research we found no randomized or quasi-experimental study of Reggio Emilia's effect on children's learning or development. One commercial site says the approach has no dedicated trial evidence "partly by design", since it isn't a fixed program to test, but that is a low-confidence source. What exists is description: Reggio Children's own account of its principles and decades of documented projects. If you choose Reggio, choose it for its values and the quality of a particular school, not on the strength of outcome studies.

9 How to try it

1. Listen for a question. For a few days, write down what your child or class asks and wonders about. Pick one question that keeps coming back.
2. Offer materials, not instructions. Put out paper, clay, blocks, recycled boxes, a flashlight or a mirror near the question and see what children do with them.
3. Write down their words. Record what children say about their work, word for word. Read it back to them the next day and ask what they want to try next.
4. Let it run. Keep a project going for a week or more instead of changing themes every Monday.
5. Make the learning visible. Pin up drawings, photos and quotes together on one wall or in a folder, and share it with families.

10 Using Peabody with it

• Preschool observations and portfoliosA place to note what you see and print a child's portfolio, which echoes Reggio documentation; it is your record, not the child's.
• Preschool themes with their booksStarting points and picture books for a project, to adapt once you know what your children are curious about.
• DrawAn open drawing space with no right answer; useful for an older preschooler, but paint, clay and real materials matter more in Reggio.
• Peabody's libraryFree stories to read together about whatever a project is exploring.

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