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Competency 1
Understand children and how they learn
Early childhood educators make thoughtful choices to help all children learn, participate, and get the support they need to grow and thrive. Knowledge of child development plays an important role in helping educators make these choices. When educators understand how children grow and learn, they can plan ahead for changes, set fair expectations, respond with care, and provide the right support. This understanding helps educators work with purpose and feel confident meeting children’s needs.
To fully understand child development, early childhood educators also need to learn about the cultures, values, beliefs, and goals of the families they work with. When educators connect their knowledge of development to children’s experiences, they are better prepared to make thoughtful decisions that support and extend learning.
Reflection questions
Ask yourself these as you read — there are no right answers.
- Children learn and develop best in the context of warm, nurturing relationships. Are there any steps that you might take to strengthen your relationship with one or more children in your classroom or group?
- How do you respond to children’s curiosity? What do you say and do to encourage children to see themselves as thinkers and problem-solvers?
- How do you use modeling and communication strategies to encourage children’s exploration, imaginative play, social interaction, and problem-solving?
Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.
What educators need to be effective
Things to Know
- The science that underlies young children’s development and learning.
- The negative effects of chronic stress and exposure to trauma and adversity.
- The benefits of protective factors, such as secure, responsive relationships.
- Early language development and practices to promote first, second, and multilingual language development.
- Different types of play (e.g., solitary, parallel, social, cooperative, onlooker, physical, and constructive) and ways to promote learning through play.
Skills to Build
- Recognizing developmental milestones across domains.
- Recognizing signs of developmental delay, disability, or special needs.
Habits of Mind and Dispositions
- Demonstrates humility.
- Is curious about children and their interests and motivations.
Focus areas
1A
Informed Decision-Making
Use knowledge of children and child development to make thoughtful decisions that support development and learning.
Level 1
- Gets to know every child’s strengths and interests.
Level 2
- Learns from families and uses the information families share to understand each child’s unique strengths, interests, funds of knowledge, culture, and needs.
Level 3
- Recognizes developmental milestones in children's cognitive, social and emotional, physical, and language development.
- Uses the New York State Early Learning Guidelines to understand children’s development and learning trajectories.
- Integrates information from observation and assessment, as well as from what families share, to make decisions about how to best support children’s development and learning.
Level 4
- Considers the many factors that shape development when interpreting children’s behavior. These include family and community backgrounds; language and culture; relationships with adults and peers; family and community economic conditions; children’s positive and challenging experiences; opportunities to play and learn; use of technology and media; and broader issues and policies, including structural and systemic inequities.
1B
Cognitive Development
Promote children’s cognitive development.
Level 1
- Provides consistent emotional support by responding to children’s needs and interests.
- Is aware and accessible when children are exploring on their own.
- Makes sure children can access toys and materials independently.
Level 2
- Encourages children to explore the learning environment.
- When engaging with infants, copies their sounds, gestures, facial expressions, and actions to foster imitation play.
- Uses cueing; raises infants’ and very young children’s awareness of “learning moments” by using cues such as face-to-face contact, calling children’s names, and using infant-directed language and pointing.
Level 3
- Observes children closely and steps in to provide more information to help them understand concepts.
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Intentionally uses specific practices to support children’s cognitive development:
- Labeling: For example, during block building, a teacher states, “You’re using rectangle-shaped blocks to build a tall tower. That rectangular block makes your tower taller than you!”
- Narrating: Acting like a sportscaster, an early educator describes what is happening; for instance, she states, “You’re holding the pitcher carefully with both hands. Now you’re tilting it slowly so the milk pours into your cup. You stopped just in time. Your cup is almost full.”
- Asking open-ended questions: Observing the child and considering the question that might stretch the child’s thinking, such as, “What do you think will happen when we put this rock in the water?”
- Interactive read-aloud: During a read-aloud of “The Snowy Day,” the teacher pauses and remarks, “Let’s look at the picture. What do you notice about Peter’s footprints in the snow?” Later, she invites the children’s predictions: “What do you think will happen to the snowball Peter put in his pocket?”
Level 4
- Plans activities that build on children’s interests and experiences.
- Extends conversations with children on a single topic rather than switching topics.
- Uses a rich, varied vocabulary in interactions with children.
- Highlights cause and effect with children; describes children’s actions and the result of those actions.
1C
Language Development
Promote children’s language development.
Level 1
- When working with infants, responds to both their sounds and body cues using words and facial expressions to keep a back-and-forth interaction going.
- To model strong language skills, engages children about their interests and talks with them about their experiences.
Level 2
- Helps children take turns and express their ideas.
- Has one-on-one conversations with children that model the give-and-take of conversation.
- Encourages children to listen and have conversations with each other.
- Reads simple board books with infants and toddlers.
- Reads books repeatedly to help children become more familiar with vocabulary and have more elaborate conversations about the book.
Level 3
- Uses precise language and a rich, developmentally appropriate vocabulary.
- Includes interesting things to explore in the learning environment to provoke children’s ideas and conversation.
- Has intentional conversations with children while reading books to stimulate questions and discussion about the content, related topics, and to build vocabulary and awareness of new concepts.
Level 4
- Pairs children who have strong expressive language skills with children who have lessdeveloped expressive language skills to support all children’s active participation.
- Provides augmentative or alternative communication tools, like communication boards, when needed to help children express themselves.
- Uses vocabulary children might not yet know to build on their language.
- Highlights phonological and print features of words while reading (when developmentally appropriate).
1D
Social and Emotional Development
Promote children’s social and emotional development.
Level 1
- Works to build trusting relationships with children by acknowledging their positive behavior, using gentle touch and tone, playing with them, having conversations, and smiling and laughing.
- Demonstrates respect by kneeling at a child’s level, making eye contact (when culturally appropriate), and listening closely until a child finishes talking.
Level 2
- Models appropriate behavior and helps children cooperate.
- Considers temperament when interacting with children and when planning learning experiences and activities.
- Uses verbal and visual cues to assist children with positive social behavior.
Level 3
- Models ways to express healthy pride in one’s identity and supports children in feeling pride in their own identities.
- Provides meaningful feedback and praise to help children develop social and emotional skills — describing what is observed without making generalizations, evaluations, or comparisons.
- Uses intentional interactions and explicit teaching to help children build relationships with others and play and learn productively.
- Helps children recognize their unique identities and express positive feelings about themselves, their family, and their community.
Level 4
- Effectively coaches children through situations that require them to manage strong emotions or problem-solve; names strong emotions while offering children ways to manage them.
- Seeks ways to help children feel successful and to identify and pursue their interests.
1E
Physical Development
Promote children’s physical development.
Level 1
- Encourages plenty of gross motor play, preferably outdoors, whenever possible.
- Helps children take on reasonable physical challenges.
Level 2
- Helps children master self-help skills like eating, toileting, and dressing.
Level 3
- Provides opportunities and instruction to strengthen sensory integration, gross motor, and fine motor development.
- Provides effective scaffolding to help children master motor skills.
Level 4
- Adapts physical activities, materials, and/or the learning environment to children’s skill level and developmental level.
1F
Emergent Multilingual Learners
Support emergent multilingual learners in developing their home languages and English proficiency.
Level 1
- Helps children in their efforts to communicate in English and/or their home language.
- Allows emergent multilingual learners to observe without the pressure of responding.
Level 2
- Helps children recognize that knowing more than one language is an asset.
- Encourages translanguaging that respects children’s choice of language to make meaning and build understanding and knowledge.
- Learns and uses key words in a child’s home language to communicate physical needs, request help, and express emotions.
Level 3
- Learns from families about their language and cultural background, priorities, and experiences to provide responsive support for emergent multilingual learners.
- Leverages children’s home language whenever possible and provides intentional scaffolding to help children make connections to English and to new content or concepts.
Level 4
- Collaborates with families to support home language development outside of the program or school.
- Supports smooth transitions for emergent multilingual learners and their families within and between early childhood programs.
1G
Cognitive Processes and Learning Dispositions
Promote the cognitive processes of attention, memory, perception, language, flexibility, and reasoning that children need to learn and develop positive approaches to learning.
Level 1
- Uses a soothing voice and touch to help infants and toddlers reach a calmer state.
- Models flexibility and perseverance.
- Encourages children’s ability to accomplish tasks or goals by expressing confidence in their ability to attend, persevere, and be flexible.
Level 2
- Follows a predictable daily schedule.
- Announces and helps children manage transitions.
- Acknowledges children when they exhibit self-control and self-discipline.
- Acknowledges and values children’s problem-solving attempts and successes.
- Recognizes when a child may need support but allows ample time for them to problem-solve before stepping in.
Level 3
- Learns about and provides for children’s sensory preferences.
- Ensures challenges are developmentally appropriate so children can focus and persist.
- Reads children’s cues (energy, emotion, attention, words, actions, behavior) and responds by adjusting expectations and activities.
- Extends creative play by offering new props, commenting on the play, and joining in when appropriate.
- Provides materials and tools for children that offer enough challenge without being frustrating.
Level 4
- Teaches children ways to cope with strong emotions like fear, anger, and frustration.
- Asks questions that encourage children to see things from different perspectives.
- Accepts children’s thinking, whether accurate or not, while also scaffolding their discovery of a more accurate conclusion.
1H
Trauma-Informed Practice and Holistic Well-being
Implement trauma-informed approaches that support children experiencing chronic stress, adversity, and/or trauma and support the holistic well-being of all children.
Level 1
- Works to build warm, strong relationships with every child.
Level 2
- Remains calm when caring for and teaching children, and sets a steady pace.
- Uses a soft tone of voice with children.
Level 3
- Provides a sense of structure, safety, and consistency by predictably implementing the schedule, routines, and transitions.
- Prioritizes children’s rights, needs, identities, perspectives, and experiences when making decisions related to the group or classroom.
- Teaches children strategies for calming when they feel overwhelmed or experience strong emotions.
Level 4
- Supports the well-being of children experiencing trauma, chronic stress, and adversity by promoting arts experiences that are sensitive to each child’s experiences and preferences.