Praxis Pre-Kindergarten Education cheat sheet

Phonological awareness is the umbrella skill (syllables, rhyme, onset-rime, phonemes); phonics is the mapping of letters to sounds and comes after oral phonemic work.

Phonemic awareness tasks progress from blending and segmenting to deletion and substitution; identifying initial sounds is easier than final sounds, which are easier than medial vowel sounds.

Print concepts to check: front/back of book, direction of reading (left-to-right, top-to-bottom), return sweep, difference between letters, words, and spaces.

Alphabetic principle: letters represent sounds; teach letter names and sounds together, favoring sounds for decoding and names for spelling and alphabetizing.

Vocabulary tiers: Tier 1 everyday words, Tier 2 cross-domain academic words (predict, observe), Tier 3 domain-specific terms (hibernation, evaporate); explicit instruction targets Tier 2 and Tier 3.

Dialogic reading sequence: PEER (prompt, evaluate, expand, repeat) and CROWD prompts (completion, recall, open-ended, wh- questions, distancing).

Developmental writing stages: scribbling, mock letters, letter strings, invented spelling with partial phonemes, then conventional spelling; invented spelling errors are expected, not deficits.

Oral language predictors of later reading: vocabulary size, syntactic complexity, narrative retelling skill, and phonological awareness in late pre-K.

Counting principles: one-to-one correspondence, stable order, cardinality (last number names the set size), order irrelevance, and abstraction (any set of things can be counted).

Subitizing is instant recognition of small quantities (1-3, later 4-5) without counting; it underpins later addition fluency.

Number conservation: a child who says a spread-out row of 6 has more than a tight row of 6 has not yet conserved number (typical before age 6-7).

Verbal counting sequence develops in ranges: rote to 10, then 20, then decades; a pre-K child may count to 20 but only accurately tag 5 objects.

Comparing quantities: teach more/less/same with matching and one-to-one correspondence before numerals; numeral identification (0-10, then 0-20) is separate from counting.

Pattern types in order of difficulty: repeating AB, then AABB/AAB, then growing patterns; pattern units must be identified (what repeats) not just continued.

Shape knowledge: pre-K recognizes circle, square, triangle, rectangle; describes attributes (sides, corners); 3-D shapes named as ball/cube/box/cylinder/can.

Measurement and data: direct comparison (longer, heavier, taller) before nonstandard units; sorting and classifying by one attribute, then two, feeds into picture graphs.

Scientific inquiry cycle for pre-K: observe, ask a question, predict, investigate/test, record, and discuss; the teacher scaffolds language, children do the doing.

Process skills sequence: observing, comparing, classifying, measuring, predicting, inferring; inferring is the most advanced and should be modeled, not required.

Life science core ideas: needs of living things (food, water, air, shelter), life cycles (seed-to-plant, egg-to-animal), and parent-offspring resemblance.

Living vs. nonliving decision rule: living things grow, need resources, and reproduce; movement alone (a toy car moves) is not a criterion.

Physical science core ideas: properties of materials (hard/soft, sink/float, magnetic), states of matter as solid/liquid, and pushes/pulls as forces that change motion.

Earth science core ideas: weather observation and daily logging, day/night sky differences, and properties of soil, rocks, and water.

Sink/float is a property test of the object, not just weight; a large light object can float while a small dense one sinks, so predictions must be tested.

Safety and ethics: no open flame, no tasting unknown materials, handwashing after handling soil or animals, and live-animal observation without handling.

Pre-K social studies strands: self and family, community helpers, geography (maps and places), history (past/present, personal timelines), economics (needs/wants), and civics (rules, fairness).

Self-concept develops through comparison and description: name, age, family members, home language, and physical characteristics; mirrors and family photos are standard tools.

Community helpers are taught by function (who helps us and how), not by memorized titles; pair each with tools, workplace, and vehicle.

Map skills sequence: model/room map with a symbol key, then a picture map of a familiar place; cardinal directions are not pre-K expectations.

Needs vs. wants decision rule: needs sustain survival (food, water, shelter, clothing); wants are desirable but nonessential (toys, treats).

Past/present is taught with concrete artifacts and personal timelines (baby photo, now photo); abstract dates and centuries are not appropriate.

Civics for pre-K: classroom rules are few, stated positively, co-created, and tied to safety and fairness; rules apply to everyone, including adults.

Cultural responsiveness: include children's home languages, foods, and celebrations in materials; avoid a tourist approach that treats one culture as the default.