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Ms. Robinson, a teacher in a pre-K classroom, places a variety of materials on the floor and asks her students to solve a problem. Using any of the materials they want, can they build a bridge across the space between two tables? The purpose of the activity is to foster the children's problem-solving skills, sustained attention, and social and communication skills-a reas of development described in the Early Learning and Development Standards Ms. Robinson uses to guide her teaching.
As Ms. Robinson observes the children, she sees that some are building on their own while chatting with their peers about unrelated topics; some are watching their peers and then quietly trying to build their own bridge; and still others are exchanging ideas with peers and then building a bridge together. Are the children who are working together not able to do the task alone, or are they demonstrating collaborative skills? Are the children who are trying to do it alone unable to seek help from their peers, or are they demonstrating individual initiative? Are the children who are chatting about other topics distracted from the task, or are they demonstrating social skills? Are the children who are silent lacking the verbal skills to engage their peers, or are they demonstrating keen attention skills? What can Ms. Robinson learn about the children in this context?
This example demonstrates how thoughtful teachers seek to understand children's behaviors, motivations, approaches to learning, and individual differences. In an early educational environment characterized by youngsters from increasingly diverse backgrounds, teachers know that children differ and seek to tailor their teaching to build on children's behaviors, preferences, prior experiences, and funds of knowledge. Fully understanding children's words and actions in the classroom, which are shaped by the many assets they bring with them from their unique cultural experiences, is a goal that practitioners and scholars are pursuing with new intensity (NASEM 2018).
In addition to understanding children's different approaches to learning, almost all teachers of infants through prekindergartners are also expected to follow their state's Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS), which define uniform expectations for what children should know and be able to do before kindergarten. Standards commonly describe, for example, how children should demonstrate initiative in the classroom, how...