Praxis Pre-Kindergarten Education flashcards

31 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Phonological awareness

Umbrella awareness of the sound structure of spoken language, including syllables, rhyme, and onset-rime, developing before phonics and independent of letters.

Phonemic awareness

The narrow skill of noticing and manipulating individual phonemes, such as blending /k/-/a/-/t/ into cat or deleting the first sound from sun.

Alphabetic principle

The understanding that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken words, enabling decoding and invented spelling in the pre-K years.

Dialogic reading

An interactive read-aloud method using PEER sequences and CROWD prompts so the child, not the adult, does most of the talking about the book.

Invented spelling

Young children's phonetic approximations such as 'kt' for cat; it shows sound awareness and is a normal developmental stage, not an error to penalize.

Print concepts

Conventions of written English a child must learn: book orientation, left-to-right direction, return sweep, and the difference between a letter and a word.

Tier 2 vocabulary

Cross-domain academic words such as observe, predict, and compare that appear across subjects; high-value targets for explicit pre-K instruction.

Narrative retelling

A child's ability to recount a story's characters, setting, and sequence of events, an oral-language predictor of later reading comprehension.

One-to-one correspondence

Matching exactly one number word to each object counted, the counting principle most often violated by children who recite numbers quickly.

Cardinality

The principle that the last number named when counting a set tells how many are in the whole set, not just the label of that object.

Subitizing

Instant recognition of a small quantity without counting, typically one to three items for young children and up to five with practice.

Number conservation

Understanding that rearranging objects does not change how many there are; children who lack it judge the longer row as more.

Stable order principle

The counting principle that number words must be said in a fixed, repeatable sequence, even if the child's sequence has gaps or skips.

Repeating pattern

A sequence with a unit that recurs, such as AB or AABB; children must identify the repeating unit, not merely continue the sequence.

Nonstandard measurement

Measuring with everyday units such as cubes, paper clips, or hands, which builds the idea of a unit before rulers and standard units.

Sorting by attribute

Grouping objects by one shared property such as color, size, or shape, the foundation for classifying and later picture graphs.

Two-dimensional shapes

Flat figures defined by sides and corners; pre-K targets are circle, square, triangle, and rectangle, described by their attributes.

Scientific inquiry cycle

A child-centered sequence of observing, questioning, predicting, testing, recording, and discussing that structures pre-K science investigations.

Process skills

Observable science behaviors ordered by difficulty: observing, comparing, classifying, measuring, predicting, and inferring, with inferring the most advanced.

Living versus nonliving

A classification rule based on growth, needing resources, and reproducing; movement alone does not make something living, since toys move.

Life cycle

The predictable sequence of stages in an organism's life, such as seed to sprout to plant to flower, taught with real specimens when possible.

Sink or float

A property test in which objects are placed in water; predictions must be checked because density, not size alone, determines the outcome.

Push and pull

Contact forces children apply to change an object's motion or shape; pre-K explores them through ramps, balls, and rolling objects.

Weather observation

Daily recording of temperature feel, cloud cover, and precipitation on a simple chart, building patterns and data language over time.

Properties of materials

Describable characteristics such as hard, soft, rough, magnetic, or absorbent that children test to sort and identify everyday objects.

Community helpers

People whose jobs serve the community, taught by function, tools, workplace, and vehicle, such as a firefighter, nurse, or mail carrier.

Needs versus wants

A decision rule distinguishing survival essentials such as food, water, shelter, and clothing from desirable but nonessential items such as toys.

Personal timeline

A concrete sequence of a child's own photos or artifacts from baby to now, used to build past-and-present thinking without abstract dates.

Classroom rules

Few, positively stated, co-created expectations tied to safety and fairness that apply to everyone in the room, adults included.

Symbol key on a map

A picture-and-word legend showing what map symbols stand for; pre-K uses room or playground maps before cardinal directions.

Culturally responsive materials

Books, foods, and artifacts reflecting children's home languages and celebrations as ordinary parts of the room, not a one-time tourist display.