NYSTCE Multi-Subject Birth-Grade 2 study guide
NYSTCE Multi-Subject Birth-Grade 2 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The NYSTCE Multi-Subject: Teachers of Early Childhood (Birth–Grade 2) is the content-knowledge requirement used in New York State for candidates preparing to teach the youngest learners, from birth through second grade. It is administered as three separately coded parts: Part One covers literacy and English language arts (211), Part Two covers mathematics (246), and Part Three covers the arts and sciences (245). The NYSTCE Multi-Subject Birth-Grade 2 study guide has 3 sections and about 985 words.
01Literacy and English Language Arts (Birth–Grade 2)
Literacy in the birth-to-grade-2 band is organized around a predictable progression: oral language and phonological awareness (awareness of word, syllable, rhyme, and individual sounds), then phonemic awareness (isolating, blending, segmenting, deleting phonemes), then phonics (mapping sounds to letters via the alphabetic principle ), then automatic word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. A candidate must also know concepts of print (front/back, directionality, return sweep, concept of word and letter), the distinction between narrative and informational text structure, and the writing progression from scribbling and letter-like forms through invented spelling (precommunicative, semiphonetic, phonetic, transitional, conventional) to conventional spelling.
345 words, about 2 min02Mathematics (Birth–Grade 2)
Early mathematics rests on counting principles : one-to-one correspondence, stable order, cardinality (the last number named tells "how many"), abstraction (any objects can be counted), and order irrelevance. Candidates must know subitizing (instant recognition of small quantities), composing and decomposing numbers within 10 and 20, place value (ten ones bundled into one ten), the four operations as situations (joining, separating, part-part-whole, comparison), and properties (commutative, associative, identity).
314 words, about 2 min03Arts and Sciences (Birth–Grade 2)
This domain blends science, social studies, the arts, health/safety/movement, and child development. In science , candidates need the practices (observe, ask questions, predict, investigate, record, communicate), life science (needs of organisms, life cycles, parent-offspring), physical science (properties of materials, pushes and pulls, light and sound), and earth science (weather, seasons, earth materials, day and night).
326 words, about 2 min