Pre-Kindergarten Standards for

Listening and Speaking

Standard One: Habits

  1. Talking a lot
  2. Talk daily for various purposes
  3. Engage in play using talk to enact or extend a story line (for example, taking on different roles, using different voices, solving problems)
  4. Playfully manipulate language (including nonsense words, rhymes, silly songs, repetitious phrases)

d. Express ideas, feelings, and needs

  1. Listen and respond to direct questions
  2. Ask questions
  3. Talk and listen in small groups (during playtime or mealtime or more formally at workshop areas or craft tables)
  4. Share and talk daily about their own experiences, products or writing (for example, explaining their pictures or “reading” their writing attempts
  5. Talking to One’s Self

a. begin to make spontaneous and audible corrections to their own behavior, actions, or language

b. talk to themselves out loud to make plans, guide behavior and actions, or monitor thinking

  1. Conversing at Length on a Topic

a. initiate and sustain a conversation with comments or questions through at least four exchanges

b. recognize the topic of the conversation and make topic-relevant responses (for example, “I know Ernie. Yeah, on Sesame Street, but I like Bert better”)

c. recognize invitations to converse versus questions intended to elicit a brief response

c. listen to others and avoid “talking-over”

  1. Discussing Books

a. gather around a book and pay attention to the reader and the book

b. know the front-to-back progression of a book and left-to-right progression of print

c. know that words and pictures convey meaning

d. pose and answer specific questions about the text (for example, word meaning, recounting, and recalling, describing, naming: Q:”What did Billy need to fix?” A: “His wagon. I have a red wagon too.”)

e. recite familiar refrains from book(s) that have been heard several times

f. if asked, use the text to predict what might happen next (for example, Q: What do you think happens next? A: He’s going to miss the bus)

g. discuss character motivation (for example, “Kitty didn’t go to the party because she was sad”)

h. identify a favorite book and tell why they like it

Standard Two: Kinds of Talk and Resulting Genres

  1. Narrative

a. give a simple narrative (with adult prompting if necessary), recounting two or more events that are not necessarily in chronological order (for example, “Puppy chase me, and he lick my knee” or “We rided the merry-go-round. Mommy took us. We got our tickets”)

b. recount knowledge gained through observation, experience or text.

c. orient the listener by giving some setting information about people, objects, and where and when events occurred (for example, “I had a shot once. With a needle. He [doctor] gave me a big hole in my arm.”)

d. describe information and evaluate or reflect on it (for example, “I went down the blue slide. It was real fun.”)

e. include quotations (for example, “He went, ‘Get out of here,’ and I said, ‘No I won’t.’”)

f. mark the end of the story directly or with a coda (for example, “That’s what happened.”)

  1. Explaining and Seeking Information

a. seek or provide information by observing; looking at books; or asking teachers, parents, and peers

b. request or provide explanations of their own or others’ actions, speech or feelings

c. explain their own or others’ intentions and thinking when asked (for example, Q: Why is the milk out? A: For cereal. I want some cereal)

d. give simple, one-sentence explanations, with supporting details or evidence (for example, “I cut my knee because I fell.”)

e. request or provide explanations of word meanings (for example, “What’s your highness?”)

f. use all their senses to describe physical characteristics of objects, self and others

g. describe objects, self and others in terms of location and position

h. use gestures and sounds when they don’t have descriptive words (for example, describing an accident scene, “They took him in that….that…RRRR-RRRR. It was LOUD!”

  1. Getting Things Done

a. listen to, comprehend and carry out directions with three to four simple steps (for example, “Go to the cubby, hang up your sweater and bring your lunch back.”)

b. give directions that include several sequenced steps

c. ask for clarification to carry out more complicated directions (for example, while baking, “What comes next?”)

d. use actions or pictures to augment language (for example, demonstrating how to cut the paper or open a container)

e. engage in brief conversation (three to four exchanges) to negotiate sharing, planning and problem solving)

  1. Producing and Responding to Performances

a. attend a performance (for example, watching and listening to a performance 10 or more minutes long)

b. describe the experience and/or their reaction to the performance (for example, “I was scared” or “I liked the clown. He was funny.”)

c. ask questions about things that they don’t understand (for example, “Why is Tiny Tim so sad?”)

d. join in appropriately

e. draw from a rehearsed repertoire to give a brief performance (for example, in highly practiced forms like the “ABCs” “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “I’m a Little Teapot”)

f. as performers, look at the audience as appropriate

g. speak, sing, or act, in loud enough voice

h. speak, sing, or act out a few sentences

Standard Three: Language Use and Conventions

  1. Rules of Interaction

a. know and be able to describe rules for school interactions (for example, using “inside” voices, taking turns, raising a hand to speak)

b. learn rules for polite interactions (for example, saying “please” and “thank you”)

  1. Word Play, Phonological Awareness and Language Awareness

a. listen for and play with the rhythm of language (for example, clapping to the words in a chant or rhyme)

b. recognize and enjoy rhymes (for example, nursery rhymes)

c. play with language through songs, alliteration, and word substitution (for example, Ring Around the Rosy, Five Little Monkies)

d. play with words and their meanings (for example, a three-year-old changes the expected to the unexpected, “Daddy, doggie meow!”)

e. experiment with unconventional uses of words (for example, “soda in my arm” for an arm falling asleep)

f. recognize and enjoy metaphorical language

g. in a string of sounds or words, listen for and identify the first, middle, or last sound or word in the string

h. in a string of sounds or words, listen for and identify the missing sound or word

i. try oral blending of familiar word parts (for example, “If I say hop….scotch,’ ‘butter…..fly’ or ‘valen….tine’ what do I haave when it comes together?”)

j. build letter recognition (names and shapes only)

k. recognize violations of word order

l. engage in sentence play

m. transition from speech to print (for example, provide the words or label for a picture, dictate words of a story, or begin to use letters and words)

  1. Vocabulary and Word Choice

a. add words to familiar knowledge domains

b. sort relationships among words in knowledge domains

c. add new domains from subjects and topics they are studying (for example, in math, shapes like circle and triangle or in science, reptiles like snake and lizard)

d. learn new words daily in conversation

e. learn new words daily from what is being explored or read aloud

f. show a general interest in words and word meanings, asking adults what a word means or offering definitions

g. recognize that things may have more that one name (for example, “Fluffy is a cat, the cat is a pet, the pet is an animal.”)

h. categorize objects or pictures and tell why they go together (for example, group the following objects into toy or food categories: ball, skates, grapes, kite, bread, milk)

i. increase vocabulary of verbs, adjectives and adverbs to exercise options of word choice

j. use some abstract words and understand that these words differ from concrete things, places or people

k. use verbs referring to cognition, communication, and emotions