The Pre-K Technology Guidelines outline five domains of Applications for Pre-K. The five domains consist of Social and Emotional Development, Language and Communication, Emergent Writing, emergent Reading and Emergent Math.
The first domain Social and Emotional Development concerns the children's social and emotional development, as it is important for school readiness. These skills give children a sense of who they are and what they can do. This domain encompasses strategies such as establishing positive relationships with teachers and other children, participating in the class community, respecting others and becoming an active contributor to the community. This domain encompasses four skills: Self-Concept, Self-Control, Social competence, and Social Awareness.
The second domain of the Pre-K standards is the Language and Communication. This domain is occurs when teachers support children's language and communication development by integrating activities into daily routines, playful, and purposeful activities to encourage their use of language. This domain encompasses five strands, Listening Comprehension, Speaking Skills, Speech Production, Vocabulary Skills, and Sentence and Sentence Structure Skills.
The third domain is Emergent Literacy Writing. This domain focuses on young children beginning to learn about the forms, features and functions of writing as they watch adults write and participate in their own early writing activities like drawing and scribbling. Children's motivation to write increases when they learn their writing conveys meanings. This domain consist of four strands, Motivation to Write, Independently Conveys Meaning, Forms Letter Skills, and concepts about Print Skills.
The fourth domain emergent Literacy Reading illustrates that pre-kindergarten literacy experiences provide the foundation for learning to read. As children watch adults engage in reading and writing activities, they are motivated to learn to read and write. This domain encompasses four strands much like the Writing. Motivation to Read, Phonological awareness, Alphabet Knowledge, and Comprehension of Text Read Aloud.
The fifth and final domain of the Pre-K TEKS is Mathematics. Because children have a natural tendency toward Math, teachers can extend and support this interest by integrating math activities into daily routines and by planning brief, focused math activities in small groups. This domain is divided into five strands: Counting Skills, Adding To/Taking Away, Geometry and Spatial Sense, Measurement Skills, and Classification and Pattern Skills.
I believe the Pre-K TEKS layout the foundation for student performance in future exponentially well. These TEKS have taken the basic functions and "best practices" of technological 21st Century Students and watered them down sufficiently so that a 4 year old can begin to get a grasp for the things that are required of them in school. Students are totally immersed from the beginning of school in technology and the "ways of technological thinking!" Because the Technology Applications TEKS are a spiraling curriculum Pre-K students are hit from all different directions each year as they progress through public education with what is required of them. It is my hope, that as an educator in conjunction the State of Texas, that 13 years from now when these Pre-K students are out in the real world, we have given them the hard-core definite tools for taking on the world. I think the Pre-K TEKS do a great job of the first step toward success of that goal.
I would like to elaborate another form of spiraling or scaffolding curriculum much like the Technology Applications TEKS which are designed as a dynamic, spiraling curriculum. This summer I had the opportunity to attend a two-day workshop in which I was updated with the new English, Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) TEKS for Kindergarten through English IV. These newly revised and updated TEKS are another great example of scaffolding/spiraling TEKS. The ELAR TEKS begin in Kindergarten and continually begin to build and spiral back upon themselves until English IV. This type of curriculum makes it very easy for teachers to strive to educate her students to think critically and analyze their instruction and learning. We all know that if we expect students to think critically and analyze information that we bring to them, they have to know that information backwards and forwards. I think that the Technology Applications TEKS and the new updated ELAR TEKS do a good job of scaffolding the information so that by the time the students are ready to think critically and analytically, they have the background knowledge to do so effectively. In my opinion, scaffolding and spiraling is the only way to approach curriculum and learning standards.
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