Child will develop the ability to speak and/ or sign in increasingly complete, complex, precise, and varied ways.
What educators might observe
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Puts two or more words together to express more complex thoughts (e.g., “All gone bubbles,” “Mommy eat,” “I want,” or “I no want.”)
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Uses past tense in simple sentences that may contain errors, such as “I goed to school.”
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Uses the possessive, though not always correctly, (e.g., “Her Julia.”)
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Starts to label different items with an adjective such as a big chair or blue ball
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Emergent multilingual learners will play with using more than one language in a single sentence or conversation (e.g., “More leche please.”)
Child will develop their ability to listen and understand complete, complex, precise, and varied language.
What educators might observe
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Answers/asks simple questions (Note: child’s answer may not be a response to what was asked, but may instead involve what they want to talk about in the moment)
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Demonstrates understanding of simple directions in familiar context by responding appropriately (e.g., “Give daddy the cup, please.”)
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Responds to directions that include verbs (e.g., run, jump, reach, open)
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Understands statements with descriptive words for time (e.g., “After we clean up, we’ll go to the bathroom.”)
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Understands words and phrases associated with family life in their home language
Child uses language to relate to others according to the social expectations of their family, community, and culture.
What educators might observe
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Sustains conversation about a single topic for one or two turns
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Makes a request or response (e.g., “I can,” “Yo quiero”, or “I want.”)
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Repeats part of what the educator said to continue the conversation
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Uses translanguaging, such as “That’s my abuelita.”
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Uses single and paired words to command, indicate possession, express problems, and gain attention
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Answers questions such as “What’s that?” and “Where is it?”
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Begins using language to engage others in pretend play
Child enjoys, attends to, understands, and makes meanings from spoken and written language of storytelling and books.
What educators might observe
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Contributes language from the text at the expected time (e.g., calls out “Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!” during a group reading of that book)
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Asks for or picks out favorite story to read at bedtime or during play
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Starts to point to words in the book and pretends to “read” them aloud
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Spends time looking at books by themselves
Child develops the ability to recognize and manipulate the different sounds in spoken language(s).
What educators might observe
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Imitates substitution of the first sound in a word to rhyme (e.g., substitutes the initial sound of the name of friends to play a rhyming game or sing “Willaby Wallaby Woo.”)
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Plays with sounds of words in context, and makes silly substitutions
Child uses materials and/ or language to make meaning for themselves and/or an audience.
What educators might observe
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Uses objects such as stuffed animals or action figures to act out simple stories (e.g., going to bed and waking up)
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Organizes visual materials (e.g., play dough, paint, collage); may not intend to represent something or may change what they are representing throughout the process
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Pretends to be a character (e.g., puts on cape and flies like Superman)
Child views, creates, and makes meaning of visual communication and multimedia documentation, which includes drawings, collections, photographs, videos and displays.
What educators might observe
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Makes connections between a display of objects or images of personal experiences
