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Early Learning Guidelines

Across all five domains

4-year-olds

Stage Infants Toddlers Preschool Early elementary
Age 0–9 months 8–16 months 15–24 months 24–36 months 3-year-olds 4-year-olds 5-year-olds 6-year-olds 7-year-olds 8-year-olds
Domain All domains I. Approaches to Learning II. Physical Well-Being, Health and Motor Development III. Social and Emotional Development IV. Communication, Language, and Literacy V. Cognitive Development
Show Both What educators might observe Ways educators might support the child's development
I

Approaches to Learning

A

Curiosity and Interest

Child approaches the world with curiosity and develops knowledge about specific topics.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Learns details about a topic of interest, (e.g., after reading a book about sharks, reads more books about sharks and learns the names of many sharks)
  • Collects objects that they are interested in, for example, sticks
  • Tries to reproduce things they are interested in (e.g., looks at a book about a castle and then tries to build a castle in the block area)
  • Asks for explanations of how things work (e.g., asks where the water in the faucet comes from)
  • Makes connection between their experiences at home and in school (e.g., says, “I have paints at home too!”)
B

Initiative

Child pursues their own goals.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Gathers the materials that they need for a simple project, such as making imaginary soup
  • Finds their own clothing in their cubby and puts it on
  • Makes a plan for what they want to create (e.g., plans to draw a house)
  • Makes a choice about which area of the classroom they want to play in
  • Makes a new friend by playing alongside or with them and engaging in conversations
C

Persistence and Attentiveness

Child focuses on tasks and perseveres in accomplishing them.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Makes a bead necklace of their name and sorts through all the letters until they find those needed
  • Puts blocks away in their designated places until every block has been put away
  • Listens to a storybook read to the whole group from start to finish
  • Asks for help from a caregiver to complete a task
D

Creativity and Inventiveness

Child uses their imagination to create and invent.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Engages in detailed pretend play with peers
  • Makes objects that they need for pretend play (e.g., makes a boat out of a cardboard box)
  • Tries several ways to create the object they have in mind (e.g., child experiments with different foundations until they have found the one that will hold up a block bridge)
  • Develops techniques for painting and drawing (e.g., makes fast and slow strokes, or thick and thin lines)
  • Hears peers speaking a different language and makes up nonsense words and says they are speaking that language
II

Physical Well-Being, Health and Motor Development

A

Large Motor Skills

Child uses and coordinates their large muscle groups.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Runs smoothly around obstacles, stops and starts, plays tag
  • Jumps for height and distance
  • Hops on one foot
  • Balances on one foot for a few moments
  • Pedals tricycle while navigating corners and obstacles
  • Walks up and down stairs, alternating feet, without support
  • Climbs down playground ladders
  • Squats without falling over
B

Small Motor Skills

Child controls the small muscles in their hands and wrists.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Strings small beads onto laces
  • Builds a tower of 10 or more blocks
  • Hits nails and pegs with a hammer
  • Forms shapes and designs out of clay (such as cookies with chips or snakes with eyes)
  • Buttons medium-large buttons when dressing themselves
  • Cuts along a line
  • Pulls tape off a dispenser, then attempts to tape items to a page or form tape into a ball
C

Sensory Integration

The child uses sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, proprioception (deep pressure), and vestibular function (balance) to perceive and respond to the world around them.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Not able to see close up as well as they can far away
  • Jumps off platforms
  • Experiments with different kinds of slides and ways to slide
  • Roughhouses with peers
  • Swings and holds balance without falling off
D

Self-Care

Child cares for their physical well-being.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Independently uses the toilet
  • Independently washes hands before eating and after using the toilet with minimal reminders
  • Dresses themselves, but may need help with zippers, snaps and buttons
  • Communicates to educator about their own feelings of being hungry, tired or ill
  • Brushes their own teeth
  • After a couple of weeks at school, knows the morning routine such as placing their backpack into their cubby and hanging up their coat
E

Healthy Sexuality

Child develops a healthy relationship to their body, pleasure, and others. This healthy sense of self is supported and demonstrated through respectful, caring, and loving relationships with families, educators, and other children.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Asks questions about their bodies and the bodies of others
  • Curious about birth, reproduction, and how families are made (e.g., child may ask, “Where did I come from?” or “What makes a baby?”)
  • Plays “doctor,” taking off clothes and examining peers’ genitals
  • Seeks bodily pleasure (e.g., may want to cuddle when they wake up from nap or enjoy dressing up in silky dresses)
  • Masturbates either with their hands or through rubbing their genitals against surfaces like pillows or chairs
  • Uses “potty talk” to test limits and make people laugh
III

Social and Emotional Development

A

Trusting Relationships with Adults

Child develops trusting relationships with nurturing adults.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Asks for help in completing projects that they are interested in but that are beyond their physical capabilities (e.g., asks caregiver to tape corners of cardboard construction together)
  • Carries out actions to please adults at times (e.g., cleans up at clean-up time)
  • Expresses feelings about adults (e.g., “I love Auntie because she always plays with me.”)
  • Follows educators’ guidelines for appropriate behavior in different environments
B

Sense of Belonging

Child experiences a sense of belonging in environments that link, extend, and affirm the child’s family and community. Child expresses comfort and joy with human diversity.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Identifies self as a member of a group (e.g., refers to our family, our school, our faith, or our culture)
  • Begins to show evidence of internalized superiority or internalized oppression based on race, ethnicity, class, gender, religion, ability status, family structure, body size, and/or language
  • Adjusts behavior to different settings (e.g., family vs. learning environment)
  • Compares similarities or differences of others (e.g., height, hair color, or skin tone)
  • Seeks out people and objects in the learning environment that affirm their sense of belonging (e.g., educator who shares their home language, family photo, item from home)
  • Develops their own theories about what causes differences in ability, gender, and skin color
  • May mask fear of differences with avoidance and/or silliness
C

Sense of Self

Child develops a sense of self through noticing and developing their own interests, preferences, and abilities. Child increasingly develops self-awareness, confidence, family pride, and positive social identities.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Describes family members and the structure of their family
  • Describes self by physical attributes, abilities, and feelings
  • Experiments by trying new activities and testing their abilities
  • Identifies feelings, likes, and dislikes, and expresses own ideas and opinions; begins to be able to explain why they have them
  • Becomes aware of and explores the meaning of their racial, cultural, gender identities; understands that they are a member of various social groups that have names (e.g., White, Black, African American, Dominican, Muslim, boy, transgender, etc.)
  • Children begin to internalize gender stereo-types and may begin to conform to society’s gendered expectations for their own behavior and/or express gender biases (e.g., only boys play with blocks or only girls wear dresses)
D

Empathy

Child forms deep, caring, human connections by imagining what someone else may be thinking or feeling and responding with care. Child recognizes unfairness and understands that unfairness hurts.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Expresses how another child might feel (e.g., “I think Tanya is sad because she is crying.”)
  • Shows concern about fairness within peer group
  • Develops awareness that some racial, cultural, gender, and linguistic identities are unfairly valued more than others in society
E

Cooperation and Negotiation

Child navigates friendships with peers through cooperation and negotiation.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Assigns roles in play
  • Uses different turn-taking strategies (e.g., bartering, trading, or waiting for a turn)
  • Uses simple strategies to solve problems, either individually or in a group
  • Negotiates with other children to solve a problem
  • States a position with reasons (e.g., “I don’t want to play blocks right now because I want to draw.”)
F

Emotional Self-Regulation

Child expresses and manages their feelings and impulses.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Tries to express strong feelings verbally, but then may resort to physical expression (e.g., breaking toys)
  • Acts out and resolves emotions in dramatic play
  • Explains the reason behind their emotions
  • Uses vocabulary for complex emotions, such as disappointed, frustrated, embarrassed, or thrilled
  • Advocates for what they want and what they like
  • Identifies some things that help them feel better when they are upset
G

Rhythms, Rules, and Routines

Child follows the rhythms, rules, and routines of the learning environment.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Adapts to changes in daily schedule (e.g., “Today is Wednesday, and we have our art lesson with our visiting artist.”)
  • Predicts what comes next in the day, when there is an established and consistent routine (e.g., “After nap we have a snack, then my Mom comes to get me.”)
  • Demonstrates understanding of the consequences of own actions on others (e.g., “I gave Anna the toy and so she feels better.”)
  • Waits for turn during group activities
IV

Communication, Language, and Literacy

A

Speaking

Child will develop the ability to speak and/ or sign in increasingly complete, complex, precise, and varied ways.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Uses past and future tenses (“Yesterday we went to the park, where I’m gonna have my birthday party!”)
  • Talks about a variety of topics for different purposes
  • Demonstrates more complex sentences and precise vocabulary in areas of interest, explaining, for example, “No, that’s not a digger, it’s an excavator!”
  • Emergent multilingual learners may ask to participate in activities using short sentences or approximations, for example, “Can I play?” or “I play?”
B

Listening and Understanding

Child will develop their ability to listen and understand complete, complex, precise, and varied language.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Answers open-ended questions
  • 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.”)
  • Extends/expands the thought or idea expressed by another
  • Engages in conversation that develops a thought or idea (e.g., talks about a past event)
  • Listens to others in a group discussion for a short period; gains information through listening
C

Social Communication

Child uses language to relate to others according to the social expectations of their family, community, and culture.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Adds to a conversation by retelling a similar experience (“I love ice cream too, and I had some vanilla yesterday.”)
  • Initiates an exchange to provide information or to clarify (“My teacher said today is Monday. On Mondays I go to karate!”)
  • Takes turns on topic in an extended exchange, and shows knowledge of the speaker/listener role
  • Switches language or mode of communication as appropriate with family member or person with whom they are speaking
  • Tells stories with chains of events and actions
  • Uses terms that have meanings that are dependent on context, such as “this,” “that,” “here,” and “there”
  • Experiments with the effects some words (such as “Poo-poo head”) can have on others
D

Engaging with Stories and Books

Child enjoys, attends to, understands, and makes meanings from spoken and written language of storytelling and books.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Looks for and finds texts that are enjoyable to look at or read from a library
  • Participates in dialogue about stories, images, or texts in preferred language (e.g. says, “ También me gusta .”)
  • Talks about characters in stories or texts, such as something funny that characters said or did
  • 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 )
  • 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?”)
E

Phonological Awareness

Child develops the ability to recognize and manipulate the different sounds in spoken language(s).

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Demonstrates rhyme recognition, such as identifying which words rhyme from a group of three like hat, log, and cat
  • Recognizes phonemic changes in words, such as noticing the change in “Old Mc- Donald had a charm”
  • 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.”
  • Notices and identifies words that start with the same sound
F

Composing

Child uses materials and/ or language to make meaning for themselves and/or an audience.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Uses visual art materials (e.g., drawings, paintings, sculptures, and collages) to express ideas, knowledge, and feelings
  • Begins to form letter shapes that resemble the script of their home language
  • Attempts to write own name
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Dictates a story to an adult to transcribe in their home language
  • Uses environmental print to communicate (e.g., draws orange circle with an “M” inside to tell about their trip to the Met’s game)
G

Creating and Interpreting Multimedia Texts

Child views, creates, and makes meaning of visual communication and multimedia documentation, which includes drawings, collections, photographs, videos and displays.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • 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)
V

Cognitive Development

A

Understanding Stability and Change

Child recognizes and develops the ability to explain how material objects change and how they remain stable.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Plays hide-and-seek, fully hiding body, but laughing or otherwise staying in touch with playmates through sound
  • Plays with their shadow, trying to step on it or get away from it
  • Has difficulty imagining that their adult family members were once children
  • Investigates the permanence of death through observation of insects and animals and in dramatic play; will ask questions about where the insect or animal may go
B

Representing

Child uses symbolic thought to represent.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Constructs and experiments with longer, complicated storylines in dramatic play
  • Invents storyline and initiates play with a peer (e.g., “Are you coming to my restaurant? Can I take your order?”)
  • Negotiates roles with peers (e.g, “I’ll be the papa and you are baby bear.” “NOOO. I’m the sister bear. And you are my brother.”)
C

Memory and History

Child develops the ability to store, retrieve, and share information about past experiences.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Reenacts multiple sequential scenes from personal experience, books, and media
  • Includes specific details of events when recreating them (e.g., pretending to add turmeric and paprika when cooking in the sand box)
  • Knows significant events from their family history (e.g., “Abuelito came from the Dominican Republic.”)
  • Describes significant changes in their own lives over time (e.g., “I used to live with my Auntie. Now I live in Mommy’s house in Buffalo.”)
  • Understands that things were different a very long time ago, but is unsure how long ago this was (e.g., “When grandma was little, were dinosaurs alive?”)
D

Investigating and Exploring

Child becomes a scientific thinker by manipulating objects, asking questions, making observations and predictions, and developing generalizations.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Uses feelings and imagination to understand the results of a science experiment (e.g., “Maybe the caterpillar just felt like becoming a butterfly.”)
  • Uses sources other than the adult to gather information, such as books and peers
  • Brainstorms solutions based on background knowledge (e.g., “Be quiet so the birds will come!”)
  • Asks a series of questions about their observations (e.g., when observing a worm on the sidewalk the child asks, “Where did it come from? Why doesn’t it have eyes? How will it find its way home to its family?”)
  • Asks “why?” but then rejects answers not to their liking
E

Understanding Cause and Effect

Child understands and explores the causes and effects of actions and events.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool

What educators might observe
  • Uses clues and background knowledge to find causes (“She’s wearing a coat so it must be cold outside.”)
  • Identifies objects or conditions that affect other objects (“The food coloring makes the water blue” or “The cold turned the water to ice.”)
  • Makes predictions, sometimes using unrelated information (“I think the gold car will win. Gold is for winners.”)
  • Uses the word “because” to show relationship between past and future events
  • Distinguishes between some magical and scientific causes, but still believes in magical causes
G

Math

1. Comparing and Categorizing

Child recognizes some similarities and differences between familiar and unfamiliar people, objects, or experiences.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
What educators might observe
  • Sorts by a given attribute, forming categories
  • Uses comparative words (e.g., faster, slower, louder)
  • Identifies the measurable attributes of objects such as length or weight and describes them using the appropriate vocabulary (e.g., small, big, short, tall, empty, full, heavy, light)
  • Lines up objects in order to determine which is longer
  • Fills large containers with cups of water and counts how many cups fit in each container

2. Number Sense and Quantity

Child understands and explores numbers and quantity.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
What educators might observe
  • Attempts to count to 20 by ones
  • Recognizes the number of objects in groups of four without counting
  • Accurately counts five to 10 objects in a line and answers the “how many” question with the last number counted
  • Can match a number of objects with a written numeral 0 to 5 (0 representing a count of no objects)
  • When asked for five of something, counts out five objects
  • Compares groups of one to six objects by matching (e.g., gives each child a bagel and says that there are the same number of bagels as children)
  • Counts the number of objects in a group so they can compare and say which has more, up to five objects; however, if the objects in one group are larger, may say that group has more (e.g., says three large trucks are more than five small cars

3. Patterning

Child develops the ability to identify, describe, extend, and create patterns.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
What educators might observe
  • Describes simple AB patterns (e.g., when the teacher claps then stomps, child names whether to clap or stomp next)
  • Extends visual patterns; continues building a line of blocks that an older child has begun (e.g., triangle, triangle, square, triangle, triangle, square)
  • Identifies repeating patterns in numbers ( “10, 20, and 30 all end in 0.”)

4. Spatial Sense and Geometry

Child understands how objects, points, lines, and shapes fit in space.

4-year-olds – See this age across all domains Preschool
What educators might observe
  • Uses blocks to build in multiple directions, with multiple points of contact between components
  • Builds arches, enclosures, corners, and crosses
  • Follows a model to create simple shapes out of lines (e.g., organizes sticks to make a triangle or rectangle)
  • Slides and turns pieces to make them fit in a simple puzzle
  • Calls a shape a rectangle because it “looks like a door,” rather than naming sides and angles
  • Calls a variety of open or closed pointy shapes “triangles”
  • Experiments with combining shapes to make a new shape (e.g., in the block area, accidently puts two triangles together to make a square, and then repeats this action intentionally)

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