Early Child Education: The Reggio Approach To Early Education

The Reggio Approach derives its name from its place of origin, Reggio Emilia, a city located in Emilia Romagna in Northern Italy. Shortly after World War II, Loris Malaguzzi, a young teacher and the founder of this unique system, joined forces with the parents of this region to provide childcare for young children. Inspired by the need for women to return to the workforce, this education system has developed over the last 50 years into a unique program that has caught the attention of early childhood educators worldwide. The Reggio Emilia approach to early education is committed to the creation of conditions for learning that will enhance and facilitate children's construction of their powers of thinking “through the synthesis of all the expressive,
They see children as full of potential, competent and capable of building their own future (Kreft, n.d.).An image that affirms the child's role as a "protagonist of his or her own growth" but also emphasizes children's yearning from the very earliest years for relationships and the need to negotiate "with everything the culture brings them." They believe in a child who has a fundamental right to ‘realize and expand their potential’. Choosing to see children as the subject of rights rather than needs is a choice which extends also to the way in which children with special needs are regarded.
Fundamentally, in Reggio, such children are termed as having special rights. Reggio Emilia employs a wholly inclusive policy where such children are included in all levels of mainstream education. When a child with special rights is present in a particular class, that class is assigned an extra educator, but crucially the educator is considered to be extra support for the whole group and not just for the particular