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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Uses past and future tenses (“Yesterday we went to the park, where I’m gonna have my birthday party!”)
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Talks about a variety of topics for different purposes
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Demonstrates more complex sentences and precise vocabulary in areas of interest, explaining, for example, “No, that’s not a digger, it’s an excavator!”
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Emergent multilingual learners may ask to participate in activities using short sentences or approximations, for example, “Can I play?” or “I play?”
Child will develop their ability to listen and understand complete, complex, precise, and varied language.
What educators might observe
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Answers open-ended questions
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Follows directions that involve a twoor three-step sequence of actions, which may not be related (e.g., “Please pick up your toys, and then get your shoes.”)
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Extends/expands the thought or idea expressed by another
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Engages in conversation that develops a thought or idea (e.g., talks about a past event)
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Listens to others in a group discussion for a short period; gains information through listening
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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Adds to a conversation by retelling a similar experience (“I love ice cream too, and I had some vanilla yesterday.”)
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Initiates an exchange to provide information or to clarify (“My teacher said today is Monday. On Mondays I go to karate!”)
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Takes turns on topic in an extended exchange, and shows knowledge of the speaker/listener role
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Switches language or mode of communication as appropriate with family member or person with whom they are speaking
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Tells stories with chains of events and actions
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Uses terms that have meanings that are dependent on context, such as “this,” “that,” “here,” and “there”
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Experiments with the effects some words (such as “Poo-poo head”) can have on others
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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Looks for and finds texts that are enjoyable to look at or read from a library
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Participates in dialogue about stories, images, or texts in preferred language (e.g. says, “ También me gusta .”)
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Talks about characters in stories or texts, such as something funny that characters said or did
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Retells a favorite story or text in play, imitating the rhythm or structure of the story/text (e.g., creating a coconut tree from a paper towel roll and using letter magnets to retell the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom )
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Asks and answers open-ended questions about the meaning of pictures or texts (e.g., “How do the colors that the illustrator used make you feel?”)
Child develops the ability to recognize and manipulate the different sounds in spoken language(s).
What educators might observe
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Demonstrates rhyme recognition, such as identifying which words rhyme from a group of three like hat, log, and cat
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Recognizes phonemic changes in words, such as noticing the change in “Old Mc- Donald had a charm”
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Provides a rhyming word such as “clay!” when given the clue “I’m thinking of something like play dough that we have out at the art area that rhymes with play.”
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Notices and identifies words that start with the same sound
Child uses materials and/ or language to make meaning for themselves and/or an audience.
What educators might observe
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Uses visual art materials (e.g., drawings, paintings, sculptures, and collages) to express ideas, knowledge, and feelings
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Begins to form letter shapes that resemble the script of their home language
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Attempts to write own name
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Combines drawing and emergent writing (e.g., child draws their friends and labels them with rows of scribbles and shapes that resemble home language or English)
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Narrates a storyline that involves multiple characters and actions that occur in a specific setting (e.g., pretend family takes a trip to the beach)
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Dictates a story to an adult to transcribe in their home language
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Uses environmental print to communicate (e.g., draws orange circle with an “M” inside to tell about their trip to the Met’s game)
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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Uses documentation of previous experiences in the learning environment to plan their play (e.g., looks at a photograph of a block building from the day before and tries to recreate the building)
