- Phonological awareness
- The broad ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of spoken language — words, syllables, onset-rime, and individual phonemes. It is oral and develops before phonics.
- Phonemic awareness
- The most advanced phonological skill: hearing, identifying, and manipulating individual phonemes (the smallest units of sound) in spoken words, such as blending /c/-/a/-/t/ into 'cat.'
- Phonics
- Teaching the systematic relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) so children can decode printed words. Unlike phonemic awareness, phonics involves print.
- Phoneme
- The smallest unit of sound in a language. The word 'ship' has three phonemes: /sh/ /i/ /p/.
- Grapheme
- A letter or group of letters that represents a single phoneme, such as 'sh,' 'ch,' or 'igh.'
- Onset and rime
- Onset is the initial consonant sound(s) of a syllable; rime is the vowel and everything after. In 'cat,' /c/ is the onset and /at/ is the rime.
- Consonant digraph
- Two consonants that together make one new sound, such as sh, ch, th, wh, and ph. 'Ship' begins with the digraph 'sh.'
- Consonant blend
- Two or three consonants whose sounds are each heard, such as 'bl' in 'blue' or 'str' in 'street' — unlike a digraph, each letter keeps its sound.
- Concepts of print
- Early understandings about how print works: that text carries meaning, is read left to right and top to bottom, and that pages turn front to back.
- Phonemic segmentation
- Breaking a spoken word into its separate phonemes — saying /m/ /a/ /p/ for 'map.' A key pre-reading skill.
- Phoneme blending
- Combining separate spoken sounds into a word — /s/ /u/ /n/ becomes 'sun.'
- Rhyming
- Recognizing and producing words that share the same ending sound (cat/hat). An early, easier phonological-awareness skill that signals sound sensitivity.
- Alliteration
- Repetition of the same beginning sound across words (silly snake). A phonological-awareness activity that draws attention to initial sounds.
- Reading fluency
- Reading with appropriate speed, accuracy, and expression (prosody) so that attention is freed for comprehension.
- Reading comprehension
- Constructing meaning from text — the ultimate goal of reading. Supported by vocabulary, background knowledge, and active strategies like predicting and questioning.
- Emergent literacy
- The reading and writing knowledge and behaviors children develop before formal instruction, such as pretending to read, scribbling, and recognizing logos.
- Invented (phonetic) spelling
- When a young child spells words by the sounds they hear ('lik' for 'like'). A developmentally appropriate sign of growing phonemic awareness, not an error to correct harshly.
- Sight words
- High-frequency words (the, and, was) taught for instant recognition because many do not follow regular phonics rules.
- Decoding
- Applying letter-sound knowledge to sound out and read an unfamiliar printed word.
- Encoding
- The reverse of decoding: translating spoken sounds into written letters — that is, spelling.
- Semantic cues
- Meaning-based cues a reader uses to identify a word (does it make sense?). Reading 'quick' for 'fast' is a meaning/semantic substitution.
- Syntactic cues
- Grammar-based cues a reader uses (does it sound right in the sentence?) to predict or confirm a word.
- Graphophonic cues
- Letter-sound (visual/phonics) cues a reader uses to identify a word (does it look right?).
- Expressive vs. receptive language
- Expressive language is what a child produces (speaking, writing); receptive language is what a child understands (listening, reading). Receptive usually precedes expressive.
- Open-ended question
- A question with many possible answers that promotes language and thinking, such as 'What do you think will happen next?' — as opposed to a yes/no question.
- Print-rich environment
- A classroom filled with meaningful, labeled print (signs, word walls, books, charts) that helps children connect spoken and written language.
- Read-aloud
- Reading a text to children to model fluent reading, build vocabulary and comprehension, and foster a love of books. Pausing to discuss boosts its value.
- Dialogic reading
- An interactive read-aloud style where the adult prompts the child, evaluates responses, expands on them, and repeats — making the child an active teller of the story.
- Morpheme
- The smallest unit of meaning in a language, such as the root 'play,' the prefix 're-,' or the suffix '-ing.'
- Vocabulary in context
- Teaching word meanings during meaningful activities and reading, briefly explaining unfamiliar words and revisiting them, rather than in isolated lists.
- Letter-sound correspondence
- Knowing which sound(s) each letter represents — foundational for both decoding and spelling.
- Story retelling
- Having a child recount a story's events in sequence; assesses comprehension, sequencing, and oral language.
- Shared reading
- The teacher and children read an enlarged text together (often a big book), supporting concepts of print and fluency for all readers.
- Language Experience Approach
- Children dictate a story from their own experience while the teacher writes it down, then they read it back — linking speech to print.
- Fine motor skills (for writing)
- Small-muscle control of the hands and fingers needed to grasp a pencil and form letters; built through activities like using tongs, beading, and play dough.
- Narrative vs. informational text
- Narrative text tells a story (characters, plot); informational (expository) text conveys facts about a topic. Children need exposure to both.
- Environmental print
- Familiar print in the world around children (stop signs, cereal logos) that often forms their earliest word recognition.
- Running record
- An assessment in which a teacher marks a child's oral reading to analyze accuracy and error patterns (cueing systems used).
- Comprehension strategies
- Active practices good readers use: predicting, questioning, visualizing, summarizing, and making connections.
- Stages of writing development
- A progression from scribbling to letter-like forms, to invented/phonetic spelling, to conventional spelling, as children's print knowledge grows.
- Print awareness
- Knowing that print, not pictures, carries the message and that we read words in a specific direction and order.
- Letter recognition
- Identifying and naming letters of the alphabet in both upper and lower case — a strong early predictor of reading.
- Vocabulary depth
- Knowing many words and their nuances; built through rich conversation, read-alouds, and direct word teaching in context.
- Background knowledge
- What a child already knows about a topic; the more they know, the better they comprehend related texts.
- Story elements
- The parts of a narrative — characters, setting, problem, events, and resolution — that support comprehension and retelling.
- Listening comprehension
- Understanding spoken language and texts read aloud; it precedes and supports later reading comprehension.
- Writing process (early)
- Planning, drawing, writing, and sharing; young children move from pictures and labels toward sentences over time.
- Word families
- Groups of words sharing the same rime (-at: cat, hat, bat); used to teach decoding by analogy.
- Syllable
- A unit of spoken language with one vowel sound; clapping syllables is a phonological-awareness activity.
- Modeling fluent reading
- When an adult reads aloud with expression and proper pacing so children hear what fluent reading sounds like.
- Wordless picture book
- A book that tells a story through illustrations only; supports oral language, sequencing, and narrative skills.
- Scaffolding (literacy)
- Providing temporary support — prompts, hints, modeling — that is gradually removed as a child gains skill.
- Speech-to-print connection
- Helping children see that spoken words can be written and read back, central to early literacy.
- Comprehension monitoring
- Noticing when meaning breaks down while reading or listening and using a fix-up strategy (reread, ask) — a metacognitive skill.
- Big book
- An oversized book used in shared reading so all children can see the print and join in, building concepts of print and fluency.
- One-to-one correspondence
- Matching exactly one number name to each object when counting — the foundation of accurate counting.
- Cardinality
- Understanding that the last number said when counting a set tells 'how many' — the total of the set.
- Subitizing
- Instantly recognizing the quantity of a small group (up to about 4–5) without counting one by one.
- Conservation of number
- Understanding that the number of objects stays the same even when they are rearranged or spread out — a Piagetian concept young children develop.
- Rote vs. rational counting
- Rote counting is reciting number names in order; rational counting is counting objects with one-to-one correspondence to find a total.
- Number sense
- A flexible, intuitive understanding of numbers, their magnitude, relationships, and how they can be composed and decomposed.
- Seriation
- Ordering objects by a measurable attribute, such as arranging sticks from shortest to longest.
- Classification
- Sorting and grouping objects by shared attributes (color, shape, size) — a foundational logical-mathematical skill.
- Patterning
- Recognizing, copying, extending, and creating repeating sequences (AB, ABB, AABB) — builds algebraic thinking.
- Skip counting
- Counting forward by a number other than one, such as 2, 4, 6, 8 (by twos) — a bridge to multiplication.
- Place value
- Understanding that a digit's value depends on its position (the 2 in 23 means two tens). Base-ten blocks model it concretely.
- Base-ten blocks
- Manipulatives (units, rods/tens, flats/hundreds) that physically represent place value and regrouping.
- Composing and decomposing numbers
- Breaking numbers apart and putting them together (5 = 2 + 3); builds fluency and understanding of operations.
- Joining (addition)
- Combining two or more sets to find a total — the part-part-whole meaning of addition.
- Separating (subtraction)
- Taking part of a set away from the whole, best taught first with concrete objects children remove.
- Manipulatives
- Concrete objects (counters, blocks, links) children handle to model math ideas — central to developmentally appropriate math instruction.
- Concrete-Representational-Abstract (CRA)
- An instructional sequence: first concrete objects, then pictures/representations, then abstract symbols and numerals.
- Measurement (nonstandard)
- Measuring length, weight, or volume with everyday units (paper clips, hands, cups) before introducing standard units like inches.
- Estimation
- Making a reasonable guess about a quantity or measure; builds number sense and a sense of magnitude.
- Geometry — 2D shapes
- Plane figures defined by sides and angles: a triangle has 3 sides and 3 angles, a square has 4 equal sides.
- Geometry — 3D shapes
- Solid figures such as spheres, cubes, cylinders, and cones, which young children explore through building and sorting.
- Symmetry
- When a shape has matching halves; explored by folding paper shapes to see if both sides align.
- Spatial sense / positional words
- Understanding location and direction through words like over, under, beside, behind, and in front of.
- Comparing sets (more/less/equal)
- Determining which group has more, fewer, or the same number — often by matching or counting.
- Data and graphing
- Collecting information and organizing it into simple picture graphs or bar graphs (e.g., favorite fruit) to compare quantities.
- Equal groups
- Sets that contain the same number of objects — an early foundation for multiplication and division.
- Fractions (early)
- Understanding parts of a whole through fair sharing and halves/fourths, often with food or folded paper.
- Number line
- A visual model of numbers in order, used to count, compare, add, and subtract.
- Attribute
- A characteristic of an object (color, size, shape, texture) used for sorting, classifying, and patterning.
- Counting on
- Starting from a number other than one to add (to add 3 to 5, say '6, 7, 8') — a strategy that shows number sense.
- Quantity vs. numeral
- A quantity is 'how many' objects; a numeral is the written symbol (5). Children connect the two over time.
- Math talk / mathematical language
- Encouraging children to describe their thinking and use terms like more, fewer, equal, and because to build reasoning.
- Standard units of measure
- Conventional units like inches, feet, pounds, and cups, introduced after children grasp measuring with nonstandard units.
- Tally marks
- Simple lines (with every fifth crossed) used to count and record data as it is gathered.
- Ordinal numbers
- Numbers that show position or order — first, second, third — as opposed to cardinal numbers that show quantity.
- Spatial reasoning
- Understanding the position, direction, and relationship of objects in space; built through blocks, puzzles, and positional words.
- Numeral recognition
- Identifying and naming written number symbols (1, 2, 3) and matching them to quantities.
- Part-part-whole
- Understanding that a whole quantity is made of parts (5 is 2 and 3); foundational for addition and subtraction.
- Counting principles
- Rules of meaningful counting: one-to-one, stable order, cardinality, abstraction, and order-irrelevance.
- Mathematical reasoning
- Thinking through problems logically, explaining 'why,' and justifying answers — built through math talk.
- Concrete to abstract
- The principle that children learn math best by starting with physical objects before symbols and abstract ideas.
- Sorting
- Grouping objects by a single attribute and later by multiple attributes — a foundation for classification and data.
- Time concepts (early)
- Understanding sequence and routine (before/after, morning/night) before clocks and calendars.
- Money (early)
- Recognizing coins and the idea of exchange through play stores, before computing exact change.
- Greater than / less than
- Comparing quantities to decide which is more or fewer, often by matching or counting sets.
- Repeating vs. growing patterns
- Repeating patterns reuse a core unit (AB AB); growing patterns increase by a rule each step (1, 3, 5...). Both build algebraic thinking.
- Community helpers
- People who provide services in a community (firefighters, doctors, mail carriers); a common early-social-studies theme about roles and interdependence.
- Maps and globes
- Tools that represent places; young children begin with simple maps of familiar spaces, like a classroom map, before world maps.
- Civic responsibility
- Understanding rules, why they matter, fairness, and one's duties as a member of a group or community.
- Chronological sequence
- Ordering events by time (morning to night, yesterday/today/tomorrow); built with daily schedules and timelines.
- Needs vs. wants
- Distinguishing things people must have to live (food, shelter) from things they would like to have — a basic economic concept.
- Goods and services
- Goods are physical products people buy; services are actions people do for others. A classroom store introduces both.
- Cultural diversity
- Recognizing and respecting differences in traditions, foods, languages, and customs among families and communities.
- Change over time
- Understanding that things were different in the past, explored by comparing 'long ago and today' (old vs. modern toys).
- Geography (early)
- Beginning spatial concepts — near/far, up/down, location — explored through the immediate environment before formal map skills.
- Voting / group decision-making
- Making choices as a group and accepting the majority result; a developmentally appropriate introduction to democracy.
- Personal history
- A child's own past and family relationships, often explored through 'all about me' or family-tree projects.
- Self and group membership
- Understanding that one belongs to many groups — family, classroom, neighborhood, and community.
- Social interaction skills
- Taking turns, sharing, cooperating, and resolving conflict peacefully — central to early social development and citizenship.
- Economics (early)
- Basic ideas of exchange, money, saving, and producers/consumers, often through play stores and trading.
- Rules and laws
- Guidelines that keep people safe and treat them fairly; children learn why classroom rules exist and how they help everyone.
- Family and family structures
- Recognizing that families come in many forms and that family members care for and depend on one another.
- Past, present, future
- Time concepts children develop by relating to yesterday, today, and tomorrow and to events in their lives.
- Producers and consumers
- Producers make goods or provide services; consumers buy and use them. Classroom play makes this concrete.
- Citizenship
- Being a responsible, caring, contributing member of a group or community by following rules and helping others.
- Landforms and bodies of water
- Basic geographic features (hills, rivers, oceans) introduced through pictures, sand tables, and stories.
- Holidays and traditions
- Family and cultural celebrations explored to build understanding and respect for diverse backgrounds.
- Interdependence
- The idea that people in a community rely on one another for goods, services, and help.
- Primary source (early)
- A direct account of the past — such as a grandparent describing what school was like — used to teach history concretely.
- Wants and scarcity
- Understanding that resources are limited, so people must make choices about what they get — a foundational economic idea.
- Symbols of country/community
- Recognizing shared symbols (flag, landmarks) that represent a community or nation.
- Map symbols and keys (early)
- Simple pictures that stand for real places on a child-made map, introduced after mapping familiar spaces.
- Respect and empathy
- Understanding others' feelings and treating people kindly; central to social studies and social-emotional growth.
- Roles and responsibilities
- The jobs people have at home, school, and in the community and how each contributes.
- Saving and spending
- Basic economic choices children explore through classroom stores and pretend money.
- Diversity of families and cultures
- Recognizing many ways of living, celebrating, and forming families to build inclusion and respect.
- Inquiry / scientific inquiry
- Learning science by asking questions, exploring, and investigating — the developmentally appropriate heart of early science.
- Observation
- Using the senses to gather information about objects and events; the most basic science-process skill (using magnifying glasses to study leaves).
- Prediction
- Making a reasonable guess about what will happen based on prior knowledge, then testing it.
- Scientific process (for young children)
- A simplified cycle: ask, predict, test/explore, observe, and discuss results — hands-on, not lecture-based.
- Five senses
- Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch — the tools children use to observe and explore the world.
- Living vs. nonliving things
- Distinguishing organisms that grow, need food/water, and reproduce from objects that do not.
- Life cycles
- The stages a living thing passes through (seed to plant, egg to frog); observed by planting seeds or raising classroom animals.
- Needs of living things
- What organisms require to survive — food, water, air, shelter, and (for plants) sunlight; learned by caring for a class plant or pet.
- Habitat
- The natural home where an animal or plant lives and gets what it needs; matched to animals through pictures and sorting.
- States of matter
- Solid, liquid, and gas; young children explore solid-liquid changes by watching ice melt and water freeze.
- Physical vs. chemical change
- A physical change alters form but not substance (melting ice); a chemical change makes a new substance. Early science focuses on observable physical changes.
- Force and motion
- Pushes and pulls that make objects move; explored by rolling cars down ramps of different heights.
- Magnetism
- The property by which magnets attract certain metals; explored by sorting objects into 'sticks to the magnet' and 'does not.'
- Properties of objects
- Observable characteristics (color, size, texture, weight, whether it sinks or floats) used to describe and sort materials.
- Sink and float (buoyancy)
- Whether an object stays on top of or goes under water; tested at a water table to compare materials.
- Weather
- Daily atmospheric conditions (sunny, rainy, cloudy); observed and recorded over time on a class weather chart to find patterns.
- Seasons
- The yearly cycle of spring, summer, fall, and winter and the changes each brings to weather, plants, and animals.
- The Sun and light
- The Sun as a source of light and heat; shadows change length through the day as the Sun's position changes.
- Plants — parts and growth
- Roots, stem, leaves, and flowers, and the growth from seed to plant, observed and recorded by children.
- Animals and their characteristics
- How animals look, move, eat, and where they live; matched and sorted to build classification skills.
- Classification (science)
- Grouping natural objects (leaves, rocks, shells) by observable properties — observation and sorting combined.
- Earth materials
- Natural materials such as rocks, soil, sand, and water that children explore through hands-on play and observation.
- Day and night
- The cycle caused by Earth's rotation; introduced concretely through routines and observation rather than abstract astronomy.
- Scientific curiosity
- A disposition to wonder, ask questions, and investigate; nurtured by encouraging questions and open exploration rather than giving answers.
- Recording data (early)
- Documenting observations with drawings, charts, and simple graphs (a plant-growth journal, a weather chart).
- Cause and effect
- Recognizing that one event makes another happen (a taller ramp makes the car go faster) — central to early science reasoning.
- Senses and exploration center
- A discovery station where children touch, smell, look, and listen to investigate materials safely and directly.
- Hypothesis (early)
- A child-friendly 'best guess' about what will happen, tested through hands-on exploration.
- Experiment / investigation
- A hands-on test children carry out to answer a question, such as which ramp makes a car go farthest.
- Tools of science
- Instruments children use to observe and measure — magnifiers, balances, measuring cups, and thermometers.
- Senses for observation
- Using sight, touch, smell, hearing, and (safely) taste to gather information about objects and events.
- Living things grow and change
- All organisms develop over time; observed by tracking plant or animal growth in the classroom.
- Plant needs (sunlight, water, air)
- Plants require light, water, air, and nutrients to grow — tested by comparing plants given different conditions.
- Gross motor skills
- Large-muscle movements of the whole body — running, jumping, hopping, climbing, balancing — developed through active play.
- Fine motor skills
- Small-muscle control of the hands and fingers (cutting, beading, drawing) needed for writing and self-care.
- Locomotor skills
- Movements that travel the body through space: walking, running, jumping, hopping, galloping, skipping.
- Eye-hand coordination
- Using vision to guide hand movements; built through throwing and catching, stacking, and ball games.
- Personal hygiene
- Health habits like handwashing before eating and covering coughs, taught through songs, routines, and modeling.
- Nutrition (early)
- Understanding healthy food choices, often through sorting play food into healthy and 'sometimes' foods and tasting activities.
- Personal safety
- Rules and habits that prevent injury — staying within boundaries, using equipment properly, and identifying safe adults.
- Social-emotional development
- Recognizing and managing feelings, showing empathy, and building relationships; foundational to school readiness.
- Self-regulation
- The ability to manage emotions, attention, and behavior — calming down, waiting, and following routines.
- Creative movement
- Expressing ideas and feelings through free, music-inspired movement (dancing with scarves), supporting body awareness and creativity.
- Process vs. product (art)
- Valuing the child's experience, effort, and exploration in art over a finished, adult-pleasing product.
- Color mixing
- Discovering that primary colors (red, yellow, blue) combine to make secondary colors — explored through painting.
- Primary colors
- Red, yellow, and blue — the colors that cannot be made by mixing and that combine to create all other colors.
- Rhythm and beat
- The steady pulse of music; developed by clapping, marching, or playing instruments along with songs.
- Dramatic / pretend play
- Imaginative role-play (dress-up, housekeeping) that builds language, social skills, and symbolic thinking.
- Music education (early)
- Singing, listening, moving, and playing simple instruments to develop rhythm, pitch, listening, and language.
- Integrating movement with learning
- Combining physical activity with content, such as acting out a frog's life cycle, to deepen understanding and engagement.
- Body awareness
- Knowing where the body is in space and how it moves; built through movement games and creative dance.
- Balance and coordination
- Controlling the body's position and movement, developed by walking a beam, hopping, and obstacle courses.
- Creative expression
- Giving children open-ended materials (clay, paint, collage) and choices so they express ideas in their own way.
- Active play / physical activity
- Daily vigorous movement that supports motor development, health, and the ability to focus and learn.
- Outdoor play
- Time outside for large-motor activity, exploration, and social play; vital to physical and emotional health.
- Identifying feelings
- Helping children name emotions (happy, sad, angry) and learn appropriate ways to express them — a self-regulation skill.
- Healthy habits routines
- Consistent daily practices (handwashing, tooth care, rest, exercise) that build lifelong wellness.
- Sensory exploration in the arts
- Using varied art media and textures so children investigate materials while creating.
- Cooperative play
- Playing together toward a shared goal, building turn-taking, communication, and social problem-solving.
- Manipulative (object-control) skills
- Controlling objects with the body — throwing, catching, kicking, rolling — part of gross-motor development.
- Movement and music for memory
- Songs with repeated lyrics and motions that support music education while strengthening language and memory.
- Stability (non-locomotor) skills
- Movements done in place — bending, twisting, stretching, balancing — that build body control.
- Spatial awareness in movement
- Knowing where the body is and moving safely among others and through space during active play.
- Expressing emotions through art
- Using art and movement as healthy outlets to communicate and process feelings.
- Music and language development
- Singing and rhymes that strengthen phonological awareness, vocabulary, and memory.
- Healthy choices
- Recognizing nutritious foods, rest, and exercise as part of staying healthy.
- Cooperative games
- Group physical activities that build motor skills alongside turn-taking and teamwork.
- Pincer grasp
- Holding small objects between thumb and forefinger; a fine-motor milestone supporting writing readiness.
- Tempo and dynamics (music)
- Tempo is the speed of music (fast/slow); dynamics is its volume (loud/soft) — explored through movement and instruments.