|The Montessori, Steiner and Reggio Emilia Model’s||
The Reggio Emilia Model: Learning though collaboration and environment.
Above: Map showing Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Reggio Emilia, Italy has become noted for its development of an early-years system of education, developing an approach referred to as the ‘Reggio Emilia approach’ (Pope Edwards, 2002) to teaching and learning.
Essentially, one of the prominent features of the Reggio Emilia educational model is the strong emphasis on children being promoted to make sense of their world and actively share their ideas and thoughts with others around them. Hall, Horgan & Cunningham (2009) support this by suggesting that in a Reggio Emilia classroom ‘Young children are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through all of their available ‘expressive, communicative, and cognitive languages’ (p. 7).
The Reggio Emilia learning model ‘identifies a third teacher between child, teacher and parent: the environment’ (Strong-Wilson & Ellis, 2007, p. 40). The child does not only rely on educator and parent guidance to support them in their learning, but also the physical space that surrounds them to help them to develop more enhanced understandings of their world. All three work in correlation, enhancing the learning experience of the child.