UPTET Paper 1 key terms

Teaching that matches a child's age, individual needs and social context. It rejects pushing skills too early and instead builds on what learners can already do, using play, concrete materials and gradual challenge.

The gap between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with help from a more able person. Instruction aimed at this band, with scaffolding that is later removed, produces the most learning.

Temporary support a teacher or peer gives so a learner can complete a task just beyond independent ability. Support is faded as competence grows, shifting responsibility to the child.

Piaget's stage roughly from seven to eleven years, when children reason logically about visible objects. They master conservation, classification and seriation but still struggle with abstract and hypothetical problems.

Understanding that quantity, mass or number stays the same when appearance changes, such as water poured into a taller glass. Its absence in preoperational children explains many 'wrong' answers in primary classes.

Piaget's term for a young child's difficulty taking another person's viewpoint. It appears in speech that assumes listeners share the child's knowledge and in inability to see a scene from another position.

Two ways schemas change. Assimilation fits new experience into an existing mental pattern; accommodation alters the pattern when it no longer fits. Together they drive cognitive growth through equilibration.

An organised mental framework that guides how a person interprets and remembers experience. In reading, schema theory explains why prior knowledge about a topic improves comprehension.

A sequence from pre-conventional morality based on rewards and punishment, to conventional morality based on approval and rules, to post-conventional morality based on universal principles. Primary children typically reason at pre-conventional and early conventional levels.

Eight life stages, each built around a crisis to resolve. In the primary years the crisis is industry versus inferiority, so repeated failure or ridicule can produce lasting feelings of inadequacy.

The set of beliefs a learner holds about his or her own abilities, traits and worth. It is shaped strongly by teacher feedback and comparison with classmates, and it influences effort and persistence.

Drive to act that comes from interest, curiosity or satisfaction in the activity itself rather than external reward. It sustains learning better than marks or prizes, which can undermine it when overused.

Any consequence that increases the likelihood a behaviour will recur. Positive reinforcement adds something pleasant; negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant. Neither is the same as punishment.

Assessment used during teaching to find out what learners understand and to adjust instruction. Examples include questioning, exit slips and observation. It is diagnostic and low-stakes rather than used for grading.

Assessment at the end of a unit, term or course that judges achievement against learning goals. It produces a grade or certificate and is not primarily intended to reshape ongoing teaching.

Pre-teaching assessment that identifies specific strengths, gaps and misconceptions so instruction can be planned. It often precedes remedial work and differs from a test given to award marks.

Targeted instruction for learners who have fallen behind, designed after diagnosing the exact difficulty. It re-teaches missing prerequisites with simpler steps, more practice and concrete examples rather than repeating the same lesson.

Placing children with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups in regular classrooms and adapting curriculum, materials and assessment so they can participate fully, rather than separating them into special schools.

A written plan for a learner with special needs that records present levels, specific goals, required supports and review dates. It is prepared with parents and specialists and guides day-to-day classroom adjustments.

Planning one lesson at several levels of difficulty, pace or product so learners with varied readiness and interests all progress. It changes how content is taught, not the overall learning goal.

A persistent difficulty in a specific academic skill, such as reading or arithmetic, despite average intelligence and adequate teaching. It is not caused by poor eyesight, hearing loss or lack of schooling.

A specific learning disability affecting accurate and fluent word reading and spelling, including difficulty linking letters to sounds. It is unrelated to intelligence and responds to structured, multisensory phonics teaching.

A specific learning disability in understanding number and arithmetic, such as weak number sense, difficulty recalling facts and confusion over place value or signs. Concrete materials and structured practice help.

The ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words, such as blending or deleting a sound. It is oral, precedes phonics, and strongly predicts later reading success.

Teaching the relationship between letters or letter groups and the sounds they represent, so learners can decode unfamiliar printed words. Systematic synthetic phonics introduces a defined sequence of sound-letter correspondences.

Converting printed letters into spoken sounds and blending them into a recognised word. Fluent decoding frees attention for meaning, so slow or inaccurate decoding is a common cause of poor comprehension.

Building meaning from text by combining word recognition with vocabulary, background knowledge and inference. It includes literal, inferential and evaluative levels and improves through explicit strategy instruction.

Two speed-reading techniques. Skimming passes quickly over text for its general idea; scanning hunts for one specific detail such as a date or name. Both differ from close reading for full understanding.

An approach that treats language as a tool for real interaction. Lessons centre on meaningful tasks, pair and group talk, and fluency before accuracy, with grammar taught in service of communication.

Listening, speaking, reading and writing. Listening and speaking are oral; reading and writing are literacy skills. Primary syllabi usually integrate them rather than teach each in isolation.

A lesson design in which learners complete a meaningful task, such as planning a class outing, and study language needed for it. The task drives the lesson rather than following a grammar presentation.

The principle that a digit's value depends on its position, so 5 in 507 means five hundreds. It underpins written algorithms, decimal notation and mental strategies such as partitioning.

An intuitive grasp of quantities, their relative size and how operations affect them. Children with strong number sense estimate sensibly, choose efficient strategies and spot impossible answers.

A sequence for teaching mathematics: first manipulate real objects, then use drawings or diagrams, then move to symbols and abstract rules. It builds understanding before drill.

Any physical object, such as counters, beads, fraction strips or a geoboard, that learners handle to model mathematical ideas. Manipulatives support understanding when linked explicitly to symbols.

Studying learners' wrong answers to identify the systematic rule or misconception behind them, such as always subtracting the smaller digit from the larger. It informs targeted re-teaching.

A mathematics prompt with several valid answers or methods, for example finding numbers between 0.4 and 0.5. It reveals reasoning and encourages discussion rather than a single recalled procedure.

Learning environmental studies by carefully watching real objects, plants, animals or local events and recording what is seen. It builds firsthand understanding and curiosity rather than memorising textbook statements.

Using the village, neighbourhood, market or nearby ecosystem as the source of examples and problems. It connects abstract environmental concepts to learners' daily lives and makes knowledge immediately meaningful.

A sustained investigation, such as tracking waste at school or growing plants, carried out over days or weeks. Learners plan, collect data, discuss and present, integrating knowledge across subjects.

A stable but incorrect idea a learner holds, such as believing plants take food from soil. It resists simple correction and needs activities that create cognitive conflict with the learner's existing belief.