MTEL Early Childhood flashcards
MTEL Early Childhood · Build recall with a focused review session.
34 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Phonemic awareness
- The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words, such as blending /c/ /a/ /t/ into cat or segmenting cat into three sounds.
- Alphabetic principle
- The understanding that spoken words are made of phonemes that map onto letters, allowing readers to decode printed words by connecting letters to sounds.
- Concepts of print
- Knowledge of how print works: reading left to right, top to bottom, returning to the next line, and understanding that words are separated by spaces and carry meaning.
- Consonant digraph
- Two consonants that represent a single sound, such as sh in ship, ch in chin, th in thin, and wh in when. Contrast with blends, which keep both sounds.
- Invented spelling
- A developmental stage in which young children spell words by representing the sounds they hear, such as writing 'luv' for love, before learning conventional orthographic patterns.
- Miscue analysis
- Examining oral reading errors to determine whether the reader used meaning, structure, or visual cues, informing instruction on decoding and comprehension strategies.
- One-to-one correspondence
- The counting principle that each object in a set is paired with exactly one number word, preventing skipping or double-counting during counting activities.
- Cardinality
- The principle that the last number named when counting a set tells how many objects are in that set, a key early number concept.
- Subitizing
- The instant recognition of the quantity of a small set without counting, typically up to about four objects, supporting early number sense.
- Decomposing numbers
- Breaking a number into smaller parts, such as 5 as 3 and 2, which builds the foundation for addition, subtraction, and place value understanding.
- Nonstandard units
- Measurement tools such as cubes, paper clips, or hand spans used to measure length or weight before formal units like inches or centimeters are introduced.
- Three-dimensional shapes
- Solids such as sphere, cube, cylinder, and cone, described by attributes including faces, edges, and vertices, and distinguished from flat two-dimensional shapes.
- Scientific inquiry cycle
- A process of observing, asking questions, predicting, investigating, recording data, and communicating results, used to structure hands-on science learning.
- Complete metamorphosis
- A life cycle with four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult, as seen in butterflies and beetles, in which the young look different from the adult.
- States of matter
- Solids keep a fixed shape, liquids take the shape of their container but keep volume, and gases fill any container, changing state with heating or cooling.
- Weather instruments
- Tools used to measure weather: thermometer for temperature, rain gauge for precipitation, wind vane for direction, and anemometer for wind speed.
- Living versus nonliving
- Living things grow, need food, water, and air, reproduce, and respond to their environment; nonliving things lack all of these characteristics.
- Compass rose
- A symbol on a map showing cardinal directions-north, south, east, and west-used to orient the map and describe location.
- Goods versus services
- Goods are physical items people make or grow and then buy, while services are actions people perform for others, such as teaching or repairing.
- Needs versus wants
- Needs are things required for survival, such as food, shelter, and clothing; wants are desired items that are not essential for living.
- Community helpers
- People who provide services in a community, such as firefighters, police officers, doctors, teachers, and mail carriers, each with distinct roles and tools.
- Preoperational stage
- Piaget's stage from about ages two to seven, marked by symbolic play, egocentric thinking, and difficulty with conservation and logical classification.
- Zone of proximal development
- Vygotsky's term for the gap between what a child can do alone and what the child can do with adult or peer assistance, where scaffolding is most effective.
- Scaffolding
- Temporary support provided by an adult or more capable peer that is gradually withdrawn as the child gains competence with a task.
- Parallel play
- A play stage in which young children play side by side with similar materials but do not coordinate their activity, typical of toddlers.
- Conservation
- The understanding that quantity stays the same despite changes in appearance, such as water poured from a wide to a narrow glass; absent in preoperational children.
- Formative assessment
- Ongoing assessment during instruction, such as observation or questioning, used to adjust teaching and support learning rather than to assign a final grade.
- Criterion-referenced assessment
- An assessment that compares a child's performance to a defined standard or learning objective, rather than to the performance of peers.
- Backward design
- A planning approach that begins with desired learning results, then identifies acceptable evidence of learning, and finally designs instruction and activities.
- Differentiation
- Adjusting content, process, or product based on students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles so each child can access the same learning goals.
- Culturally responsive teaching
- Instruction that incorporates students' home cultures, languages, and experiences into curriculum and interactions, making learning relevant and affirming.
- Funds of knowledge
- The skills, experiences, and knowledge families hold at home that educators can draw on to connect school learning with students' lives.
- Mandated reporting
- The legal duty of educators to report suspected child abuse or neglect to designated authorities; the educator reports but does not investigate.
- Cephalocaudal development
- The pattern in which motor control develops from head to toe, so infants gain control of the head and neck before the trunk and legs.