Bang’s POC Pre-K Guidelines

Central to understanding emotional development is the idea of self-concept: an ever-increasing level of conscious awareness of one’s feelings, thoughts, abilities, likes, and dislikes, as well as awareness of one’s body in space. Prekindergarten children’s emerging ability to perceive these aspects of themselves at a conscious level distinguishes them from toddlers, who lack such awareness. Children begin to generate multiple answers to the question “Who am I?” which is an essential aspect of becoming competent in related areas, such as self-control and social/friendship skills. A child’s identity includes cultural and linguistic factors, and the prekindergarten environment is one of the first public opportunities for children to recognize the uniqueness of their own home culture and language as well as accept and value cultures and languages different from their own. Early childhood educators must model the mindset of diversity as an asset in the classroom, school, and community.

Prekindergarten children feel safer and function more successfully in the classroom when rules and routines are consistently implemented. A well-organized classroom with well-prepared activities helps children expand their attention span and build self-control and personal responsibility. As they encounter and overcome new and various social obstacles when interacting with peers, guidance from teachers will enable them to learn acceptable ways of dealing with social and emotional stress and/or excitement. Self-regulation skills include three subskills: behavior control, emotional control, and control of attention. Subskills only appear in this section of the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines and are represented by a lowercase letter at the end of the citation.

As prekindergarten children enter school, they start forming relationships with the adults and other children in their school environment. Effective teachers offer support and assist children as they develop meaningful and rewarding relationships. During this developmental period, children often begin to develop special friendships with peers that increase their feelings of comfort, joy, and confidence in their social world. These experiences also help build a sense of empathy and caring for others. Social and Emotional Development 14

Prekindergarten children need adult support and guidance in learning how to socially interact with others. It can be a challenge for a young child to sense other people’s emotions or to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Teachers can reinforce children’s social awareness skills by facilitating peer-to-peer and adult-to-child interactions and asking thought-provoking questions with the support of rich, socially relevant educational materials.

From birth, children begin learning by listening to the world around them. As their exposure to language(s) increases, so does their understanding. Multilingual learners understand that they are hearing two language systems from a very early age. Prekindergarten-age children are able to comprehend (with increasing accuracy) what they hear in conversations and in stories read aloud. Children demonstrate understanding through their questions, comments, and actions. Emergent Literacy: Language and Communication 19

Prekindergarten children become increasingly able to describe their wants and needs, carry on conversations with others, and share information with both peers and adults. The ability to engage others in conversations involves asking questions, listening, and responding, as well as using verbal and nonverbal communication. Additionally, multilingual learners become increasingly aware of language context. For example, a staff member with knowledge of Spanish and English learns that he can have a conversation in Spanish with a bilingual librarian but will use English to express a preference to the non- bilingual art teacher. Emerge nt Literacy: Language and Communication 20 Children who are multilingual learners may require more time to respond because they are learning and processing two languages at once. Multilingual learners may also respond in one language and use the other language to fill in a word or phrase within a sentence. Both are normal parts of bilingual development. Multilingual learners should be encouraged and expected to demonstrate their speaking/communication skills in their home language as well as in English.

Prekindergarten children must learn to vocalize, pronounce, and discriminate sounds and words within languages. Learning to accurately perceive the difference between similar-sounding words will support children’s development of early literacy skills and help set them up for future reading and writing success. Young children will continue to acquire the ability to recognize new sounds but may mispronounce some words in their own speech. Difficulty with producing some speech sounds (e.g., /l/, /r/, or /th/) is common for prekindergarten children but may improve with practice and age. Similarly, multilingual learners may need repeated, meaningful opportunities to more closely approximate the sounds of the language with which they are less familiar. Emerge nt Literacy: Language and Communication 22

Vocabulary development is one of the most important predictors of later reading achievement. Prekindergarten children experience rapid growth in their understanding of words and word meanings when they are learning in a language-rich environment. Vocabulary acquisition is largely developed by exposing children to new words through stories and engaging them in meaningful and intentional interactions with adults who incorporate new language into daily conversations. Vocabulary development occurs when educators create a space in which there are many opportunities to talk about personal experiences, read familiar stories, sing familiar songs, and play word games on a regular basis. Vocabulary knowledge reflects children's previous experiences and is increasingly refined as they learn new words and concepts through their growing knowledge of the world around them. Emerge nt Literacy: Language and Communication 23 Multilingual learners in a bilingual education program will develop vocabulary in both the program language and English via learning opportunities in each language as well as direct instruction in cross-linguistic connections. Both languages are honored and valued, and there is a diminished linguistic barrier between home and school. Educators of multilingual learners outside of bilingual programs should intentionally leverage families’ linguistic resources as a foundation for second language learning. Consider Katie, a multilingual learner who speaks mostly Vietnamese at home. During a study of fairy tales, Katie’s teacher invites Katie’s mom to read a portion of a Vietnamese version of the Cinderella tale in Vietnamese. Katie’s language and culture is validated, and Katie’s peers get to practice making meaning based on prior knowledge, pictures, etc. The class learns a few key vocabulary words from the story in Vietnamese.

Prekindergarten children become increasingly adept at using language to express their needs and interests, share ideas, and participate in conversations with their peers. The grammatical complexity of a spoken sentence expands when they have plenty of opportunities for rich conversations with other children and adults. Children’s overgeneralization of language rules, which results in the use of invented words (e.g., saying “foots” instead of “feet”), is a normal part of language acquisition. Multilingual learners may also overgeneralize across languages (e.g., saying “the dog big” instead of “the big dog” is an example of applying the Spanish language structure “el perro grande” in an English sentence). This flexibility of usage is not a sign of confusion but Emerge nt Literacy: Language and Communication 25 evidence of a developing bilingual brain. Another sign of developing bilingualism is the use of words from two languages in one sentence. For example, a sequential bilingual student learning Spanish in a dual language immersion program may say at the class party “Quiero el cookie.” This child is beginning to use Spanish to communicate thoughts and fills in the gap in vocabulary knowledge with a known English word in order to make preferences known.

The prekindergarten years are an important time for increased motivation to read and write and can be especially important for children who have not previously and do not currently have access to books. All children benefit immensely from the targeted opportunity to develop an understanding of and appreciation of written languages through early school experiences. Prekindergarten children benefit from classroom activities and environments that build on their own family backgrounds and personal experiences to create positive connections to reading and writing. These early experiences will come to define their expectations and influence their motivation to work toward learning to read and write Emergent Literacy: Reading 28 independently. These same experiences also give families a first impression of how their home culture will be acknowledged and valued within the school system. It is therefore critical that students of all cultural and linguistic backgrounds see themselves and their families reflected in books, activities, and the classroom culture in general. Children who are motivated to read and write find pleasure in looking at the covers and illustrations in books, listening and making personal connections to stories being read aloud, and mimicking reading behaviors through independent exploration of books and other forms of text. They also have an intrinsic motivation to ask about surrounding print and a desire to understand how writing works. Learning to read is a gradual, ongoing process; however, building young children’s enthusiasm for books and written text at an early age can impact their willingness to overcome potential future challenges with reading and writing.

Phonological awareness is an auditory skill that involves the understanding of the sounds of spoken language; it is the ability to detect and manipulate the sound structures at the sentence, word, syllable, and phoneme level. The overarching term refers to a continuum of skills that are universal across languages including sentence segmentation, alliteration, rhyming, syllabication, onset-rime (in English only), and phonemic awareness. Research has shown that phonological awareness begins to develop in children as young as 2.5 years old. See Appendix. Children generally develop sensitivity to large units of sound, like words and syllables first, and eventually progress to sensitivity to individual phonemes, the smallest units of sound. For example, children are able to detect and manipulate words in phrases before they can detect or manipulate syllables, and they can detect and manipulate syllables before they can detect or manipulate phonemes. Within the continuum of skills are varying levels of task complexity. To ensure learning is adequately scaffolded, task difficulty is an important consideration for phonological awareness instruction. For example, teachers should begin with easier tasks such as identification and blending (e.g., synthesis) before introducing more challenging tasks such as segmenting and manipulation (e.g., adding, deleting, or substituting). However, children do not need to master one skill or task before being introduced to or practicing another skill or task. Phonological awareness is highly predictive of success in beginning reading and writing, specifically related to automatic decoding and encoding abilities. Phonemic awareness, the most advanced skill on the continuum, facilitates children’s understanding of the individual sounds in spoken words and helps Emergent Literacy: Reading 30 them make the connection that sounds can be represented by letters in print. Therefore, phonological awareness and alphabet knowledge should work together, with skill development in one area reinforcing development in the other. Once children demonstrate mastery in both alphabet knowledge and phonemic awareness, they can benefit from the inclusion of letters in phonemic awareness activities to begin building their understanding of the alphabetic principle. Oral language proficiency in children’s native language supports the development of phonological awareness in English for first- and second-language learners. English learners draw upon their phonological awareness skills in their first language when developing phonological awareness in a second language. English learners benefit from explicit and systematic phonemic awareness instruction, specifically segmentation, blending, and manipulation. For multilingual learners who are exposed to phonological awareness instruction only in English, it is important to accept oral approximations of English sounds due to English proficiency level or articulation difficulties rather than correcting them in the moment. Non-standard pronunciation does not indicate a lack of understanding, and multilingual learners benefit more from targeted instruction rather than a quick correction. It is also important to connect activities with context, often by adding a picture. For example, if students are generating words that begin with /m/, a native English speaker has a repository of vocabulary from which to draw based on all his oracy experiences from birth. A child who is just beginning to speak English may not have a similarly sized mental word bank. Adding picture cards may remind children of words they know or will allow them to sort cards into /m/ and “other” when the teacher says the word.

Alphabet knowledge is an essential component of emergent literacy and is a strong predictor of success in learning to read and write. Alphabet knowledge includes letter recognition, letter naming, letter- sound correspondence, and alphabetization. The distinction between each component of alphabet knowledge is identified below: • letter recognition (a receptive skill): the ability to identify letters when asked to touch or point to a letter* • letter naming (expressive skill): the ability to name letters with automaticity • letter-sound correspondence: knowledge of the common sounds – the sounds that a letter represents most frequently • alphabetization: the ability to say and place letters of the alphabet in sequential order Emergent Literacy: Reading 35 Letter formation is also an important aspect of alphabet knowledge because learning how to write each letter draws children’s attention to the similarities and differences among letter shapes. To support young learners’ knowledge of letters, adults need to provide children with easy and repeated meaningful interactions with written letters and words within the context of daily experiences and engage them in activities that are fun and interesting. These experiences must integrate all components of alphabet knowledge and should include many opportunities for children to see letters within the context of written text. Relying solely on rote practice can result in frustration and negative attitudes toward learning. Knowing how letters function in writing and how these letters connect to the sounds children hear in words is crucial to children’s success in reading. Combined with phonological awareness, letter knowledge is the key to children understanding the alphabetic principle. Children will use this sound/letter connection to begin to identify printed words, such as their names and other familiar words. *Important things to note: • In English, students generally identify letter names before letter sounds. However, in Spanish, children tend to learn letter sounds before letter names. During Spanish alphabet knowledge activities, students may know letter sounds before letter names. • Children generally recognize capital letters before lowercase letters because uppercase letters are more distinguishable than lowercase letters.

Exposure to many kinds of books, both fiction and nonfiction, helps prekindergarten children build vocabulary, make connections to text, build schema, and background knowledge, and become familiar with how stories and other types of texts work. Children develop concepts of story structures, character actions, and knowledge about informational text structure which influences how they understand, interpret, and link what they already know to new information. Multilingual learners must have read aloud experiences in their home language regardless of bilingual education or ESL program participation. These experiences are opportunities to learn everything mentioned above without a language barrier. Teachers of multilingual students must communicate the importance of home language read aloud experiences to families and support them as they provide Emergent Literacy: Reading 37 these experiences at home. Multilingual learners who have experiences with stories read aloud in the home language can be prompted to make connections between texts in different languages.

Through daily experiences with a variety of print materials, young children delight in discovering the connections between spoken and written words. Frequent exposure to print allows prekindergarten children to understand that print carries meaning and encourages them to explore what print is used for and how it works. Children will begin to recognize the distinction between letters, words, sentences, punctuation marks, and images. They will also deepen their understanding of how books work, including print directionality and appropriate handling of books, and learn how to hold and care for books. These print concepts and skills can be taught explicitly, modeled through shared reading experiences, and Emergent Literacy: Reading 39 reinforced through print-rich learning environments. Print-rich learning environments incorporate labels, signs, letters, menus, magazines, digital media, and storybooks into every aspect of the day. Multilingual learners should be exposed to print in both the home language and English. Targeted instruction should be provided for students whose home language differs from English to explicitly compare characteristics of the two print systems, rather than elevate print concepts in one language over another. This will reinforce the transferability of many print concepts across both languages and help children understand key distinctions.

As young children watch adults write for many purposes, they develop the understanding that print conveys meaning and become motivated to write by engaging in drawing or scribbling to communicate. They will sketch lines and scribble “notes” in an attempt to imitate adults’ writing behaviors and begin to make connections between print and spoken words. Eventually their writing abilities will progress, and they may begin to use letters or letter strings to communicate. It is important to remember that all efforts to convey meaning in the form of scribbles, letter-like forms, or strings of letters should be celebrated. Teachers play an important role in the development of prekindergarten children’s emergent writing by encouraging them to communicate their thoughts and record their ideas.

As young children begin to understand that marks convey meaning (what they think, they can say; and what they say, they can read and write), it is important to model that writing is not simply about a product. Writing is a thought process that moves from thinking of an idea to a well-developed idea or piece of writing (one the young author is proud to share). Teachers who interact with children to compose a piece of writing over a series of days, using modeled, shared, and/or interactive writing expose children to the process of prewriting/brainstorming, writing/drafting, revising (what the writing sounds like), editing (what the writing looks like), and publishing/sharing in a way that is understandable. Children’s ability to engage in each of the stages of the writing process develops over time. Guiding children through the process of taking a piece of writing from the “thought stage” to the “sharing stage” motivates children to write and helps them see and understand the power of using print to convey meaning. Multilingual students who begin writing in two languages will also learn which language is more appropriate to use based on context and audience. Emergent Literacy: Writing 43

Foundational writing skills (also known as conventional writing skills) are important predictors of children’s future reading and writing skills. Just as children learn to talk by talking, children learn concepts of print through interacting with print. To children, it may appear that writing is simply talk that has been written down. However, there are rules that apply to writing that do not apply to speaking. These specific rules that govern how to record thoughts in writing must be learned so children can become more proficient at conveying their thoughts and actions. Shared and/or interactive writing experiences can help children better understand these conventions of writing.

Number sense is a broad term that refers to a set of prerequisite skills that are needed to perform basic math operations; it is the deep understanding of how numbers work. Number sense includes counting, number recognition, understanding quantities, composing, and decomposing numbers, and making number comparisons. It is one of the strongest indicators of overall mathematics achievement. Prekindergarten children learn number sense through play and continuous exploration in their natural environment. Prekindergarten teachers can organize experiences for children by intentionally setting up the environment to promote these experiences. The prekindergarten child has innately learned much about counting and numbers from the environment they live in. They sing songs and listen to rhymes that contain numbers and can hold up the right number of fingers to show how old they are. To strengthen their ability to count with an understanding of quantity, the classroom should be filled with opportunities to practice the counting sequence. Counting is foundational to later math concept development. To develop a strong understanding of quantity and, eventually, how to manipulate quantities (like adding and subtracting), children need an abundance of counting experiences. Prekindergarten children also begin to learn about quantities. They will understand that quantities, whether tangible or theoretical, are countable. They will also learn that numerals are used to represent the quantities. In addition to developing an initial understanding of a quantity of small groups of objects, children can compare small groups to tell if the groups are the same, if one is smaller (has less or fewer), or which group has more. An understanding of these comparisons provides an important foundation which helps the child fully grasp the relationship and correlation between one number and another at the concrete level. A strong foundation in number sense teaches children to be flexible in their problem solving. Children learn that numbers are meaningful and despite manipulation, their outcomes are constant and sensible.

This math skill develops the concept of more, less, and the same. Children make comparisons — an understanding of these comparisons provides an important foundation which helps the child fully grasp the relationship and correlation between one number and another at the concrete level. It is especially important that young children be given numerous opportunities during the school day to manipulate objects to internalize this mathematical concept.

The basis of geometry and spatial sense skills begins with a child who explores, describes, and organizes objects according to their attributes and position/location. Through intentional classroom activities guided by teachers, children notice and describe small details in the materials they see in the environment, using terms that categorize their shape and describe their relative position in space. They then progress to investigating what happens when two shapes are put together, and they can apply their ideas about location to the object’s direction and distance.

Young children can recognize differences in the measurable aspects of objects by saying things like “Her cup is less full than mine” or “My dog is heavier than your dog because he is bigger”. Classroom activities that include explorations of weight, length, and capacity should involve children in hands-on learning using measurement tools. Teachers can introduce and reinforce terms associated with measurement such as longer, shorter, heavier, and lighter. Early measurement skills begin with comparisons before progressing to using a unit to measure.

Children can sort and classify objects according to one or more of their characteristics. With guidance, they learn how to arrange a pattern so that an attribute repeats itself over and over in a predictable manner. In their interaction with adults and peers, children use foundational math vocabulary, picking up words used for comparison, position, and sequencing. As children progress, they extend their comparing skills by creating visual representations of objects in the form of graphs.

Prekindergarten children begin to explore properties of materials, positions, and motion of objects through investigations. These explorations using the senses continue as children use attributes to classify and sort objects, make observations and predictions, problem solve, question, and compare. Children learn about sources of energy by investigating and discussing light, heat, electricity, and magnetism. This builds an early understanding of life science, physical science, earth science and chemistry. Processes such as observing and recording data, posing questions, predicting, investigating, and drawing conclusions can provide experiences to support literacy, math, and the sciences.

Young children have a keen interest in studying living things, including the unique features of plants and animals, the environments in which they live, and what each living thing needs to thrive. Effective teachers provide opportunities for children to explore, observe, and investigate various organisms through hands-on experiences. Through these experiences, children are encouraged to use newly acquired vocabulary to describe and discuss their observations.

Young children are innately curious about nature and the outdoors. When given the opportunity, they love to play with earth’s materials – sand, dirt, water, and rocks. They are aware of weather conditions and wonder why the weather changes from day to day. They notice the clouds in the sky, and they observe that the sun moves across the sky each day and the moon changes shape. These concepts are all a part of earth and space science. Studying earth and space science expands young children’s Science 62 vocabulary and guides them to discover their place in the world by understanding how they can impact their environment with positive actions.

Prekindergarten children are aware of time and begin to organize their lives around it. Young children learn to depend on events and routines that occur in a regular and predictable order. They begin to understand past events and how these events relate to each of their cultural backgrounds as well as present and future activities, demonstrating evidence of their growing understanding of time, change, culture, and continuity.

Prekindergarten children learn about the world through their community. They explore the roles and relationships of consumers and producers and become aware that people produce both goods and services. Children learn that their community benefits from its members working to contribute in many different ways. Social Studies 66

Geography is taught as a part of social studies because it plays a crucial role in developing children’s awareness of relationships between people and the environment. In prekindergarten, geography is often viewed with a focus on activities that build geographic skills, such as mapmaking or drawing/describing geographical land features. Prekindergarten children begin to think about geography using location and direction. Children use direction to locate their relative position in space and to locate their home and school in their community. However, the geography discipline consists of two main categories: physical geography and human geography. While human geography is the study of the relationship between humans and their natural environment, physical geography is the study of the natural environment. Prekindergarten children should also explore the outdoors and experience the natural world. It is recommended that lessons about physical geography be taught outdoors on the school lawn, playground, or in the neighborhood nearby, when possible.

Prekindergarten children begin to understand important symbols, routines, and celebrations that represent American culture. They begin to understand what it means to be a citizen of the United States of America and a resident of the state of Texas.

Prekindergarten children explore a wide variety of materials and make discoveries about color, shape, and texture through art experiences. They learn to express what they know and begin to recognize how others express themselves through art. They begin to gain control of fine-motor muscles and practice hand-eye coordination. The majority of art experiences should be model/sample free with the focus being on the process of creating.

Prekindergarten children express themselves through singing and movement and by playing simple instruments. Like art, music is a form of experiencing, learning, and communicating with others. Children learn to experiment with musical concepts, such as volume, tempo, and sound. Their vocabulary is expanded. They begin to appreciate different types of music.

Prekindergarten children participate in expressive and spontaneous productions through creative dramatic play. Children demonstrate their unique interpretation of music, songs, and stories through movement and dramatic experiences. These experiences contribute to children’s ability to communicate more effectively and engage in cooperative play with others.

Prekindergarten children explore their physical space and understand how their bodies function in space through active movement experiences. Large-motor skills are developed first, followed by stability (e.g., turning, twisting, balancing, dodging) and manipulative (e.g., throwing, catching, kicking, striking) motor skills. Gross motor development requires thought and deliberate movement. Four-year-old children develop greater control of gross motor manipulative movements that involve giving force to objects and receiving force from objects.

Prekindergarten children participate in fine-motor manipulative movements through object-handling activities that emphasize motor control, precision, and accuracy of movement. Cutting with scissors, manipulating modeling dough, and drawing are the foundational skills needed for the demands of handwriting and other small-motor skills in later school years. Fine motor activities that help to strengthen the small muscles of the hands in preparation for writing are integrated into learning centers.

Prekindergarten children develop an understanding of health and safety issues related to their daily routines and activities. Children learn to make healthy choices in nutrition and understand the importance of well-being through exercise and rest.

Prekindergarten children learn how technology can enhance our lives. Surrounded by technology, children can benefit from becoming aware of and interacting with digital media and a variety of other available technology. They develop techniques for handling and controlling various devices, becoming increasingly confident and independent users of developmentally appropriate interactive media.