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Standards in
Early
Childhood
Education

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Contents
1. Definition of Standards
2. Kinds of standards:
Program Standards:
Classroom Standards
Teaching and Curriculum Standards
Child Outcome Standards(SLOs)
Performance Standards
Content Standards

3. Standards based education
4. Standards-based education reform in the United States:
5. Importance of Having National Standards
6. Advantages of Setting Standards
7. Disadvantages of Setting Standards
8. The Role Standards in the Teaching-Learning-Assessment Process
9. The Purpose of Standards in Early Childhood Education:
10. Important functions and roles of Standards:
11. Critics of standards:
12. Need of educational standards
13. Impact of Standards on Classroom Teachers:
Changes to Teaching Techniques
Improved Teamwork among Instructors
Consistent Educational Requirements
Changes to Continued Education
14. Early Development and Learning Strandards for Infants and Toddlers
15. Purposes of early learning and development standards for Infants and
Toddlers
16. Early Learning and Development Standards in Pakistan
17. Nine Keys to Effective Prekindergarten Standards
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18. Suggestions
19.References
















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Standards in early childhood education
Schools shouldnt be an assembly line, but that doesnt mean they cant
make major improvements if they start acting more like business, and
better aligning the needs of the clients (students) and providers
(educators). A universal quality standard for a quality education is the
first step.
The standards movement that has altered education across the nation is
now being extended to early education. In addition to program
standards that describe the characteristics of classrooms and curricula,
most states have developed (or are in the process of developing)
child outcome standards that define expectations for preschoolers
development and learning.
In the early childhood field, there has been reluctance to
use the word standards. Child outcome standards geared to young
children are often given different names, such as building blocks,
essential learning, desired results, learning and developmental
guidelines, or learning goals. All of these describe the same thingthe
kinds of development and learning that should be taking place.

Definition of Standards
According to Collins Cobuild dictionary, a standard is a level of quality
or achievement, especially a level that is thought to be acceptable

In the field of education,
standards is a term which defines a cumulative body of knowledge and
set of competencies that is the basis for quality education. They express
what all pupils should know and be able to do, but do not dictate
pedagogy.
(MinistryofEducation,1998;Ravitch,1996)

The competency by specifying broadly, the knowledge, skills and
attitudes that students will acquire, should know and be able to do in a
particular key learning area during twelve years of schooling.
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(National Curriculum for English Language Grades I-XII, 2006)
Hence , standards spell out what students are expected to learn in each
grade and each subject. Each state Department of Education creates
standards for schools within the state. These standards become the basis
for the way teachers are trained, what they teach and what is on state
standardized tests that students take. It is used
as a reference point for planning teaching and learning programs, and for
assessing student progress.
For example, a first-grade math standard may state that by the end of
first grade students are expected to count by 2s, 5s and 10s to 100.

Kinds of standards:
In the realm of early education, it is important to distinguish among
different kinds of standards.
Program Standards: describe the resources, activities, and
instruction programs offer to help children learn.

Classroom Standards that identify classroom characteristics
such as the maximum number of children in a classroom; the allowable
ratio of adults to children; and the materials and supports available to
children and families.
Teaching and Curriculum Standards that are sometimes
described as opportunities to learn .
(e.g., children are exposed to various types of age-appropriate
literatureor educational experiences willensure that children print or
copytheir first name) or activities (e.g., children listen to traditional
tales). While program standards may influence what teachers do, they
are generally intended to guide administrators.
Child Outcome Standards(SLOs): describe the knowledge and
skills children should acquire by the end
of the year. These are built on the descriptions of the benchmarks
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and describe what students will accomplish at the end of each grade.
Most student learning outcomes progress and develop across grades
where each skill is revisited, revised and reinforced. It is important to
remember that learning outcomes within a competency or across
competencies overlap and are interrelated; progress towards one
outcome is often dependant upon progress towards another. Cumulative
student learning outcomes for a particular academic year specify what
the students will be able to do at the end of the academic year. The
outcomes are realistic, observable, achievable and measurable. Some of
the student learning outcomes might not be testable in the Board
examinations due to constraints, but considering their importance these
have been incorporated and are to be tested during formative
assessment in the classroom.
The learning outcomes of the English key learning area contribute
significantly to lifelong learning. The aim is to help students achieve
these outcomes through extended engagement with texts and language,
and by developing a variety of literacy practices over the years of
compulsory schooling. To attain a spiral build-up, all the elements in
each standard are introduced, focused, revisited, revised and reinforced.

Content Standards that define the range of knowledge and skills
that children should master. They can also extend beyond knowledge
and skills, describing the kinds of habits, attitudes, and dispositions
students are expected to develop as a result of classroom experiences.
For example, content standards can address self-efficacy or empathy.
Content standards indicate what students should know and should be
able to do. For example, students should be able to write and speak for a
variety of purposes and for diverse audiences, using conventional
grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling.

Performance Standards that describe how it can be demonstrated
that children have met the content standards.
It measures how well a student's work meets the content standard. A
performance standard has levels (4, 3, 2, and 1; or advanced, proficient,
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novice, and basic) and frequently examples of student work are provided
for each level.
Performance standards are essentially the same as rubrics. Rubrics
describe what student work must consist of to get a certain score.
Rubrics or performance standards list one of the characteristics of
student work -- for example, problem-solving in mathematics or
persuasive writing in English/language arts. All examples of problem-
solving or persuasive writing, no matter what the topic, should contain
these characteristics.
Standards based education
Standards-based education is the process of teaching, learning, and
assessment that focuses on national, state, and local educational
standards. Academic content standards are statements of what
students are expected to know and be able to do at specified grade
levels.
Standards-based education reform in the United States:
Education reform in the United States since the 1980s has been largely
driven by the setting of academic standards for what students should
know and be able to do. These standards can then be used to guide all
other system components. The SBE (standards-based education) reform
movement calls for clear, measurable standards for all school students.
Rather than norm-referenced rankings, a standards-based system
measures each student against the concrete standard. Curriculum,
assessments, and professional development are aligned to the standards.
The standards "movement" grew out of frustration in the late 1990s with
a fragmented public school system with many levels of bureaucracy
local, state, national in which expectations for students varied widely
and too few poor and minority students were achieving. The thinking
among researchers was that if clear and challenging content standards
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were set, then teachers would teach to those standards and tests would
measure if students were meeting the goals.
The results have been mixed. Student achievement has gotten better,
particularly in states such as Delaware, Massachusetts, New York and
Texas that were early adopters. But progress has not been as quick or
gone as far as many would have hoped. Although poor and minority
students have made gains, there is still a big difference commonly
called "the achievement gap" between what these students have
achieved when compared to their more affluent and white peers.
How have standards developed since they began
in the early 1990s?
The first standards to be developed were mathematics standards, written
by members of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
(NCTM). (All math teachers can become members of the NCTM.) To
write the standards, the NCTM formed committees of teachers and
university professors of mathematics and math education. They then
circulated drafts of the standards to any member of the NCTM who
wished to read and comment on them. The process of writing,
circulating, rewriting, and recirculating took eight years, until the
NCTM standards were published in 1989. The NCTM recently revised
their standards in "Standards 2000."
Other academic disciplines followed the same model as the NCTM, but
they were aided by federal funding. At the 1989 educational summit,
Congress adopted eight educational goals (see the Resources section for
more information) and provided funding for the development of
standards in major academic disciplines. Professional associations
submitted proposals to write standards in history, geography, science,
the arts, and civics. Other academic disciplines, including
English/language arts, used their own association funds to develop
standards. All of the documents went through rigorous public review,
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and at least one of them -- the history standards -- was severely criticized
by public leaders.
Because the United States is a country where education policy is set
mostly by states and local schools rather than by the federal government,
most states also embarked on their own standards-setting processes. In
most cases, there isn't much variation from the national standards,
although in mathematics, Virginia, California, and Arizona rejected the
NCTM standards and wrote "traditional" standards, meaning an
emphasis on skills and mathematical procedures rather than on problem-
solving and the ability to understand mathematical theory.
On the state and local levels, standards tend to be written more
specifically than they were at the national level. Standards are now often
written at grade levels as well as at major points such as grades 4, 8, and
12. They have also become more specific in content, so that they
sometimes seem like lists of objectives.
Standards are currently the staple of educational conversation. Textbook
and test publishers claim that their products are aligned with national
and state standards. States are trying to align curriculum frameworks and
assessments to their standards, sometimes without much success: it is
impossible for a norm-referenced test
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to align with standards. Norm-
referenced tests tell you how well students achieve compared to each
other, but standards mean that student progress must be compared to the
standard, not to how well or poorly others do.
Importance of Having National Standards
Standards are guideposts for schools. Teachers, parents and students use
them as a tool to focus on what students are expected to learn. Without
standards, districts and schools don't have goals to shoot for. By
matching what is taught in the classroom to the standards in each subject
area, students (and their parents and teachers) will know what teachers
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should be teaching, what students should be learning and what they will
be tested on.
Setting national standards allows for equal pupil opportunity. First, all
pupils are compared to the same standards. If there are no common
standards and every teacher sets his or her own standards, schools
demands on their pupils will be different. Since there is nothing for
schools to compare with, both instruction and assessment cannot be
consistent.
Second, if national standards are set, it is clear what pupils should know
at different levels of their education. Exams given by the state can
measure pupil progress towards attaining the standards. Pupils who are
not achieving the standards can be provided with early, effective
assistance.
Advantages of Setting Standards
Setting standards is an important and effective learning tool because
they express clear expectations of what all pupils should know and be
able to do with the language. They can be helpful to different
populations, such as the state, districts and schools, teachers, pupils and
parents. The following describes how setting standards can help these
different populations (Harris & Carr, 1996).
The state: For the state, standards are a common reference tool and
provide a defined framework for national testing.
Districts and schools: For districts and schools, standards provide a
focus for developing new ways to organize curriculum content,
instructional programs and assessment plans.
Teachers.: Standards help teachers design curriculum, instruction
and assessment on the basis of what it is important to learn. They
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also enable teachers to make expectations clear to pupils, which
improves their learning.
Pupils: For pupils, standards set clear performance expectations,
helping them understand what they need to do in order to meet the
standards.
Parents.:Since standards communicate shared expectations for
learning, they allow parents to know how their children are
progressing in their education.
Standards provide a focus for reform efforts -- all students must
reach them. And teachers can see how well they are doing by
looking at their progress towards standards. Focus is one of the
greatest benefits of standards; publication is another. Everyone can
see what the schools are aiming to teach and what students must
learn. What must be learned isn't a secret, kept for a small portion
of the student population and hidden from the rest. Done well,
standards can be an important tool for equity: if all kids are
required to meet the standards, all schools must work to make
children reach them, not just schools which have a majority of
middle class, college-bound students.
Because standards provide a focus, they provide a yardstick for
evaluating all aspects of schooling. Is this a good textbook? It is if it
provides opportunities to meet the standards. Is this a worthwhile staff
development workshop? It is if teachers learn techniques for getting
students to standards. And so on. All resources, materials, schedules,
personnel assignments, should be judged by this criterion: if we do this,
will our students achieve the standards?
Standards help teachers set targets and monitor achievement and
develop programs that support and improve student learning.
Standards used to assess the quality of learning assist teachers in
identifying areas for improvement in teaching, curriculum design or
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development. The provision of these standards that can make explicit for
teachers what to teach and the level of performance expected for a
particular age group and in this way can assist in meeting the demand for
public accountability at the local professional level of the teacher
(Harlen, 2005; Wilson, 2004).

How can standards help students to learn better?
Ideally, students learn better in a standards-based environment because
everybody's working towards the same goal.
Teachers know what the standards are and choose classroom activities
that enable students to achieve the standards.
Students know the standards, too, and can see scoring guides that
embody them. The students can use them to complete their work.
Parents know them and can help students by seeing that their homework
aligns with the standards.
Administrators know what is necessary to attain the standards and
apportion resources and buy materials to ensure that students are able to
reach the prescribed standards. Schools communicate the standards to
parents via newsletters, etc.

Disadvantages of Setting Standards in Other
Countrie and How the English Curriculum Deals
with These Problems
In America, concerns were raised that setting standards would lead to
centralized education and would undermine innovation at the local level.
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Setting standards was seen as an attempt to centralize a decentralized
educational system; defining standards would limit what pupils should
learn and would not allow for pupil diversity and the specific needs of
different populations.
(Fiske, 1998).
In Israel, the educational system is already centralized and the standards-
based curriculum attempts to partially decentralize it. The curriculum
defines what pupils are expected to do at different levels of performance
in four areas of language learning: social interaction, access to
information, presentation and appreciation of literature, culture and
language. Teachers will now have autonomy to decide how they want to
teach in order that their pupils achieve the standards. Teachers are
therefore encouraged to become active participants in the development
of curriculum materials that follow the principles stated in the
curriculum, and that are appropriate for their specific learning
populations.
The standards defined in the English curriculum do not weaken the
capacity of our schools or districts to respond to the diversity of their
pupil population. The aim of the document is to serve the needs of an
increasingly diverse pupil population, while at the same time sustaining
high standards of performance demanded in todays society by
employers and universities.
In some cases, there have been objections by the public regarding the
standards that have been defined. For example, the National Center for
History in the Schools, at the University of California at Los Angeles,
prepared standards for history in collaboration with scholars, teachers
and organizations. The standards were not approved, as they were
thought to be too politically biased .
(Ravitch, 1996).
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This issue has not been a problem with the English Curriculum. The
standards have been approved by the Pedagogical Secretariat in the
Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, as well as by the English
Advisory Committee, which consists of experts in the field of foreign
language acquisition.
An additional caveat is that the standards should reflect a high level of
achievement, while being realistic and relevant to the context in which
they are being taught. In California, for example, the State Board of
Education decided to innovate large-scale curriculum change. Instead of
working with the regular course sequence of algebra, geometry, etc.,
they decided to integrate the content of these subjects in a new way. This
proposed approach, however, had never been tried anywhere .
(Evers, 1997).
To avoid this problem, the writers of the standards for the English
curriculum scrutinized standards set up in different states and countries
(Foreign Language Standards, 1998; National Standards in Foreign
Language Education; Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages, 1996). These standards were then adapted accordingly for
the Israeli pupil population.
The Role Standards in the Teaching-Learning-
Assessment Process
Standards require a change in both teaching and assessment. Standards
and assessment are intertwined and need to be integral parts of the
curriculum and the program of instruction.
In traditional curricula, content matter that pupils are expected to know
is determined. It follows that the purpose of testing is to see if the pupils
have learned the specific knowledge indicated in the curriculum. Recent
approaches to how pupils learn have changed from the behavioral view
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of learning to that of cognitive learning theories, and the constructivist
approach to knowledge acquisition .
(Birenbaum, 1996; Herman, et.al. 1992).
Similarly, assessment is no longer seen as testing pupils on an
accumulation of isolated facts and skills, but emphasizes the application
and use of knowledge.
When working with standards, the assessment system needs to be
congruent with what is being tested and how. In standards-based
assessment, in addition to assessing pupils performance as compared to
that of other pupils (norm-reference assessment), pupils are assessed
against a standard (criterion-referenced assessment). This shift to
standards-based assessment helps create a culture of success, (Willis,
1996) where all pupils can achieve an acceptable level.
( Shanker, 1994).
This is in contrast to the variation in pupils learning as expected in the
bell-shaped distribution of grades .
(Wiggins, 1991).
In a standards-based curriculum, assessment is viewed not only as a final
product (summative), but also as a continual process (formative) that
provides pupil performance data to teachers and students regarding their
progress towards achieving the standards. The curriculum sets
benchmark levels of pupils achievement and progress towards meeting
the standards by describing what the pupils can do with the language.
Therefore, it is necessary to move beyond testing methods which
concentrate on memory, and develop those which measure
understanding and application .
(Genesee, et.al., 1998; Winters, 1995).
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In order to assess if pupils have achieved the different benchmarks, they
are expected to demonstrate what they can do with the language by
applying what they know about the language to real-life situations.
Assessing pupils performance focuses on their ability to actively use
language, which can be accomplished by using performance assessment
methods. Teachers need to determine which benchmarks to assess,
define the evidence of learning, create a context, decide on an audience,
develop a scoring guide and review and revise the task (Kentucky
Department of Education, 1998). This provides pupils and parents with
useful information about pupil performance towards attaining the
standards.
As has been shown, standards cannot be tested by current evaluative
methods. Moreover, schools will have to change the present method of
reporting pupils progress to parents and pupils. When working with a
standards-based curriculum, schools will be able to report pupils
progress towards achieving the standards by indicating the benchmarks
they have achieved.
The ultimate judgment on the value of standards must be whether their
use in the classroom actually improves pupil performance.
(Ravitch, 1996).
Assessment provides the information necessary to guide educators in
determining pupil progress in attaining the standards, as specified in the
curriculum. Teachers, schools and the state are accountable for pupils
learning based on the attainment of these standards. Since the standards
provide a clear and defined framework for assessment, it is therefore
possible to ascertain the extent to which the standards have been met.
In summary, the implications of a standards-based curriculum for the
learning-teaching- assessment process include:
both formative and summative assessment
a variety of assessment methods
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assessment tasks which allow the pupils to demonstrate their
knowledge, including the criteria for assessment
developmental assessment showing progress towards attaining the
standards assessment tasks which are integrated within the
learning-teaching-assessment process and do not consist of only
the final product.

The Purpose of Standards in Early Childhood
Education:
The momentum is growing for two reasons.
First, standards express shared expectations for schooling, enable
educators to focus on what they value, and provide a common language
for assessing progress toward those goals.
Second, growing evidence suggests that early schooling can have a
more significant, beneficial impact on later learning than we once
thought.
In a recent report, Eager to Learn: Educating Our Preschoolers,
the National Research Council's Committee on Early Childhood
Pedagogy concluded that the accumulation of convincing evidence from
research [is] that young children are more capable learners than current
practices reflect and that good educational experiences in the preschool
years can have a positive impact on school learning. (Bowman,
Donovan, & Burns, 2000, p. 2)
Research indicates that standards are useful for the purpose of informing
teachers work and in contributing to quality teaching and learning
experiences.
(Klenowski, 2006, 2007; Sadler, 2005; Wyatt-Smith &
Castleton, 2004).
Important functions and roles of Standards:
What to Teach
Standards serve as beginning points for teachers when they
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make decisions about what to teach.

Increased Achievement
Standards focus on essential concepts, knowledge, skills and
behaviors necessary for students to succeed in the 21st
century.
As such, they are designed to increase achievement.

Meeting Needs of Low Achieving Students
Because standards clearly address what all students should
learn, and each schools responsibility in that effort, they can
be used as a means of preventing school failure and dropout.

Increased Accountability
As standards become the basis for teaching and testing, schools
are evaluated on and recognized for how well students perform
on local and state tests.

Increased State and Federal Responsibility
Constitutionally, education is a state responsibility.
Historically and traditionally, states have delegated much of the
responsibility for education to local school districts. With
standards, the state now plays a much more prominent role in
educational affairs.

Critics of standards:
Critics of standards tend to fall into three major camps: One group
worries that standards will force teachers to "teach to tests" and focus on
rote learning rather than on more creative and individualized education.
Another group is concerned about where standards are set: too high, and
low achievers (particularly in disadvantaged communities) will become
discouraged and drop out; too low, and high achievers will not be
challenged properly. The third group has no objection to standards per
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se, but believes that they should be set by local school boards, not by
federal or state authorities.
Those who worry about "teaching to tests" express many of the same
concerns leveled at standardized testing in general: that it measures test-
taking ability rather than real-life skills, that it is biased against students
from disadvantaged backgrounds, or that it promotes memorization of
facts and interpretations rather than creative thinking. Though these
concerns may be valid when related to some of the standardized tests
used at benchmark points, standards-based teaching does not only or
even primarily rely on such tests. Achievement is also measured by
testing skill on writing or other assignments where the teacher and the
students decide in advance what type of work is good enough to meet
the standard. The students are given examples of such work to view
before they do their own work.
Fears about the level of the standards are also common. For example,
Richard Rothstein argued recently in THE NEW YORK TIMES (Nov.
10, 1999) that supporters of a common standard for inner-city schools
and suburban schools have gone too far in attacking the idea that poor
children can't learn. "To counter the earlier myth," he writes, "We have
developed a new, equally dangerous one: that social class no longer
matters in education and that all children, regardless of background, can
achieve to the same high standards if only schools demand it.... Can we
avoid the defeatist myth that schools make no difference, without
bouncing to the other extreme, that they make all the difference?"
Rothstein and similar critics argue that holding schools with largely poor
populations to the same standards as suburban schools is unfair to both:
it penalizes the students in the poorer districts for factors beyond their
control while not challenging the students in the suburban schools.
On somewhat the same lines, critics worry that holding students to
standards -- especially at points where promotion is the issue, such as
grades 4 and 8 -- will cause students to become discouraged and drop
out of school, especially in heavily minority schools where scores
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traditionally have not been high. These fears are usually expressed when
state assessments based on standards produce low scores the first time
out.
Finally, some critics of standards don't object to the idea of standards as
public statements of what students should know and be able to do -- they
object to who makes those statements. Such critics believe standards
should arise locally as community aspirations, rather than be prescribed
as national policy. They tend to use words such as "impose" when they
describe how standards are adopted. They fear that the federal
government will meddle in decisions that should be made on a local
level and take the power away from parents and local school boards to
decide what children should and should not learn. Some members of
the Coalition of Essential Schools
1
take this position.
Need of educational standards:
We need standards to ensure that all students, no matter where they
live, are prepared for success in postsecondary education and the
work force. Common standards will help ensure that students are
receiving a high quality education consistently, from school to
school and state to state. Common standards will provide a greater
opportunity to share experiences and best practices within and
across states that will improve our ability to best serve the needs of
students.
Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do help
teachers figure out the knowledge and skills their students should
have so that teachers can build the best lessons and environments
for their classrooms.
Standards also help students and parents by setting clear and
realistic goals for success. Standards are a first step a key
building block in providing our young people with a high-
quality education that will prepare them for success in college and
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work. Of course, standards are not the only thing that is needed for
our childrens success, but they provide an accessible roadmap for
our teachers, parents, and students.

Impact of Standards on Classroom Teachers:
Adopting the Standards in education will impact students, teachers and
other education professionals. Although they are designed to provide
common standards of education around the country and prepare students
for college, the initial steps of implementing the standards will fall on
teachers. Recognizing the impact they have on teachers can make it
easier to smooth the transition into new standards.
Changes to Teaching Techniques
The standards will require teachers to change their technique in
educating. Since the standards have set expectations, instructors will
need to ensure every student is prepared for the curriculum in the
following year.
According to Education Northwest,
teachers are able to determine the best way to educate the
class of students with the goal of meeting the educational requirements.
Since teachers have the freedom to create lesson plans and adjust the
teaching style to the classroom, it is possible to meet the needs of every
child and help the class keep up with the changing educational
requirements.
Since teachers will need to ensure the class is meeting the
required standards, the teaching techniques will change. Instead of
teaching to pass standardized tests and evaluation processes, teachers
will have the freedom to make changes that allow students to understand
the material. The goal is to provide the appropriate lessons for the age
group based on the Common Core State Standards for the subject.
Teachers are able to determine the best way to keep students attention,
teach the material and ensure the class understands the required material.
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Improved Teamwork among Instructors
The standards will impact teachers when it relates to teamwork
and communication between different age groups and educational levels.
According to CoreStandards.org,
a key goal of the standards is getting teachers, students and parents
to work together toward a common goal. When the educational changes
are first implemented, teachers will need to work together to determine
the best way to help students catch up or adjust to the new educational
requirements.
Since the criteria have more rigorous educational standards than many
previous educational requirements, it will require teachers to work on a
plan to help students catch up to the standards without overwhelming
them with information.
Instructors in different age groups and educational levels can work
together to create a plan to incorporate more material without confusing
the students. Although the standards impact teachers when it comes to
teamwork, the ability to manage the situation with different grade levels
will help students succeed during the initial years of change.
Consistent Educational Requirements
The Standards are designed to help teachers by providing consistent
educational requirements and styles.
According to CoreStandards.org,
the rigorous content is designed to build upon previous
knowledge and has clear requirements for education. Since the teachers
have clear and consistent standards to follow, the ability to create plans
that focus on the required information will simplify the process of
educating students.
Although the standards are clear, teachers will have the ability to adjust
lesson plans as long as all of the material is covered throughout the
course. The consistent requirements provide the goals that teachers need
to achieve throughout the year. When changes are made to the lesson
plans, it is easier to get back to the goal because of the consistency.
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Changes to Continued Education
The impact to teachers will also relate to continuing education and any
further degrees a teacher might pursue throughout the school year.
According to CoreStandards.org,
Professional programs and college education for teachers will
change to provide educators a better understanding of student
requirements at different grade levels. Since the continued education and
new college programs will focus on providing teachers with the right
tools to meet the core standards, it will be easier to implement them in
the classroom setting.
Teachers will find that continued education will be altered to provide
better tools based on the state standards and common core requirements.
As the programs focus on meeting the rigorous standards, instructors and
students learning new teaching techniques will face stringent criteria to
get through the program.
The Standards will impact teachers by altering the requirements students
must meet before moving into the next grade. Although the standards are
a change, teachers will have the tools to provide the best education for
young students and the freedom to work around the needs of the
classroom.
Early Development and Learning Strandards for
Infants and Toddlers:
Goal 1: Infants and toddlers experience environments where their
physical health is promoted.
Early Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Infants and Toddlers Begin
to Develop:
a.Increasing awareness, understanding, and appreciation of their
bodies and how they function.
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b. Increased coordination (e.g., eye-hand movements)
c. Emerging self-help and self-care skills for eating, drinking,
toileting, resting, sleeping, washing, and dressing.
d. Positive attitudes towards eating, sleeping, toileting, and active
movement.
Goal 2: Infants and toddlers experience environments where their
social and emotional well-being is nurtured.
Early Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Infants and Toddlers Begin
to Develop:
a. Emerging skill in self-regulation.
b. An increasing capacity to pay attention, focus, concentrate, and
be involved.
c. A growing capacity to tolerate and enjoy a moderate degree of
change, surprises, uncertainty, and potentially puzzling events.
d. A sense of personal worth and the worth of others, and
reassurance that personal worth does not depend on todays
behavior or ability.
e. An increasing ability to identify their own emotional responses
and those of others.
f. Confidence and ability to express emotional needs without fear.
g. Trust that their social-emotional needs will be responded to.
h. A trusting relationship with nurturing and responsive caregivers.
i. The ability to respond and engage in reciprocal interactions.
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j. Emerging capacities for caring and cooperation.
Goal 3: Infants and toddlers experience environments where they are
kept safe from harm.
Early Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes Infants and Toddlers Begin
to Develop:
a. Increasing awareness of what can harm them.
b. Increasing confidence that they can participate and take risks
without fear
of harm.
c. Comfort in expressing their fears openly with trust that their
fears will be taken seriously.
d. Ability to respond to caregiver instructions related to safety
Purposes of early learning and
development standards for Infants and Toddlers:
There are multiple purposes of early learning and development
standards for Infants and Toddlers:
1. Create a foundational understanding for families and teachers of
what children from 3 through 5 years of age are expected to know
and do across multiple developmental domains.
2. Improve the quality of care and learning through more
intentional and appropriate practices to support development from
3 through 5 years of age.
3. Provide support for a qualified workforce.
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4. Enhance the states early childhood services by aligning
preschool standards with existing guidelines or standards for
younger and older children.
5. Serve as a resource for those involved in developing and
implementing policies for children from 3 through 5 years of age.
Early Learning and Development Standards in
Pakistan:
The formulation of early learning and development standards helps to
build consensus on objectives for children and to build a measurable
base for these objectives. The process of developing and implementing
standards can help to advance child-related agendas and to lobby for
child-well being. . ELDS can thus be used in a variety of ways to
improve instruction, parenting skills, amend behavior, teacher
preparation, curriculum development and publics knowledge of
childrens development to evaluate programmes and to monitor national
progress.
In Pakistan, access to services standard is diverse in nature in
public and private sector. The children from disadvantage and
economically deprived segment have little access to ECE services. It
does not ensure the quality education. The goal of pre-primary education
(ECE) is to create age appropriate interactive learning opportunities for
4-5 years age child in order for her/his preparation for primary school
irrespective of childs physical, mental and social status in the primary
educational institutions throughout the country. The development of
uniform ELDS would facilitate the achievement of this goal.
Nine Keys to Effective Prekindergarten Standards
Many of the conditions needed for successful standards-based reform
apply to all grade levels, including prekindergarten.
27

This section describes nine keys to effective standards. For each, it
addresses the particular considerations or conditions
that must be addressed to make child outcome standards appropriate and
effective in the preschool years.
Standards should represent values that make sense
to childrens families and communities.
Standards identify the knowledge and skills that teachers
should spend the most time on. They define not only shared
expectations, but also shared notions about what matters for
children. In this way, standards represent the values of the
people who set them.
For preschoolers
When young children are involved, families and
communities tend to be especially concerned about the values that
underlie outcome standards. After all, it is during the early years that
children begin to develop empathy and understand basic moral precepts.
It is during the preschool years that children form the secure
relationships with adults that allow them to venture off and explore;
begin to interact cooperatively with peers; and slowly increase their
capacity for self-regulation. Early childhood programs therefore track
childrens progress across the developmental spectrum, including the
very important social and emotional domains. Expectations of children
tend to reflect deeply held assumptions and values. It is therefore
especially important to engage families and communities in discussions
that help to shape preschool standards.
Standards should be evidence-based.
Standards are sets of detailed explanations and illustrations of
what children should know and be able to do in a particular
area, by a specific time in a childs education. Standards need
to be evidence-based. That is, they need to be based on the
best evidence of what young children can learn.
In addition, they should be based on research showing that
28

particular outcome standards, implemented as part of the curriculum and
ongoing teaching and assessment, can contribute to positive outcomes
for the children for whom they are intended.
For preschoolers
Research has shown that young children are more capable than was once
thought. Psychologists and cognitive scientists have shown that
preschoolers are active learners who are predisposed to certain kinds of
knowledge. But in many areas there is not enough evidence to identify
reasonable expectations for young
children. Research is particularly thin in relation to standards
for children with disabilities and other special needs. In the absence of
such research, existing sets of pre-K standards rely on the practical
experience of early childhood educators and the academic content taught
in higher grades.
In many cases, these two perspectives are not properlybalanced,
resulting instandards that eitherunderestimate oroverestimate thelearning
potentialof young children.
Standards should be comprehensive.
Standards should cover the full range of knowledge, skills,
habits, attitudes, and dispositions that children need to
master. They should encompass all of the major branches
of knowledge that contribute to childrens capacity to
reason, create, communicate, solve problems, and maintain
their health. Comprehensive standards include content
standards (defining the range of knowledge and skills
that children should master) and performance standards
(defining how it can be demonstrated that children have
met the standards).
For preschoolers
To be comprehensive, outcome
standards must take into account the five domains of school
readiness identified by the National Education Goals Panel.
Physical well-being and motor development
Social and emotional development
Approaches toward learning
29

Language development
Cognitive and general knowledge
Young childrens learning is heavily dependent on the
development of language, thinking, and cognitive and
socio-emotional skills that are taken for granted in higher
grades where the primary emphasis is placed on content.
In early childhood, the development of these foundational
skills (skills that lay the foundation for later learning) is just
as important as mastery of content matter. For example,
there is a growing body of evidence indicating that cognitive
and emotional self-regulation play a key role in influencing
rates of learning and school readiness. For preschoolers,
standards that address foundational skills should therefore
be articulated with as much specificity as the content
standards.
Standards should be specific, yet still allow
flexibility as teachers implement them.
If a standard covers a broad area of learning or development
it must to be broken down into more narrow benchmarks.
However, the benchmarks should not be too specific
to allow for teachers flexibility in implementing different
curricula or using different instructional strategies. For
example, a benchmark that says: retells from memory a
familiar book about farm animals appears overly specific.
For preschoolers In some areas, the lack of specificity
that can weaken standards for older students can also
undermine preschool standards. There is a particularly
strong need for specificity as standards and benchmarks
are written for preschool language and literacy development.
As one recent study observed, age appropriate and
well-written clear benchmarks have a crucial role in bringing
effective literacy practices to preschool programs.
Preschool outcomes need to be stated in terms of skills,
rather than activities.
In other areas of early learning, the requirement of specificity
30

can be problematic because many of young childrens competencies
are developing in concert. It is often difficult to isolate learning
outcomes in a single area. It is often better to describe a learning
outcome in a way that is specific to a particular domain of development,
even if that means repeating the standard (perhaps with different
emphasis) as it relates to another domain. This will help teachers to
better focus on the outcome of a childs learning in choosing appropriate
assessments, materials and activities.
For example, while being able to participate in dramatic
play is a learning outcome that combines a young childs
achievements in the areas of socio-emotional, cognitive,
and language development, supporting each of these areas
presents teachers with different demands in terms of assessing child
performance or planning instructional interventions.
Standards should allow for a coherent
educational experience.
When there are too many outcome standards, education
becomes fragmented as teachers jump from one area to
the next, never spending enough time to offer the range
of experiences young children need to really learn. Those
who set outcome standards for preschoolers should strive
to avoid this problem.
Coherence also means that standards for one grade or level
should align with the next. Standards should create a
continuum that flows from prekindergarten through high
school graduation or beyond. In K-12, content-specific skills
and knowledge can generally be presented sequentially. As
children progress through school, expectations build on the
outcome standards set for the previous grade.
For preschoolers Today, the need for the continuity
from prekindergarten education through higher education
(often referred to as P-16 education) appears to be widely
accepted among educators. At the same time, it is clear that
very few of the content area standards apply meaningfully
to very young children, and continuity should not occur
31

at the expense of making preschool standards inappropriate.
Placing preschool standards on a continuum of learning
outcomes is a challenging endeavor for a number of
reasons.
Early childhood development does not always follow a
linear path. It is not always straightforward to work
backwards from a higher grade. One cannot simply take
an outcome expected by the end of third grade and stipulate
that one-fourth of this standard must be reached by the
end of the prekindergarten year. In this respect, preschool
outcomes differ from most academic standards set for older
students.
Continuity from preschool to elementary school standards
is especially challenging because existing outcome standards
for the kindergarten year tend to be problematic.
Kindergarten outcomes generally have been set using the
working backwards approach. They are typically included
as a part of a larger grade band, such as K-2 or K-4, and
they are stated in terms of what should be accomplished by
the end of the highest grade. For example, by the end of kindergarten,
children may be expected to know the first
30 of the 100 most common vocabulary words that should
be mastered by the end of second grade. This seems
reasonable, but few of the 30 words are likely to appear
in the books children encounter in kindergarten (although
they become more common as children move through
elementary school). Basing preschool standards on a
faulty kindergarten standard would be detrimental.
Because kindergarten outcomes tend to be modeled
on second- or fourth-grade standards, they often ignore
the developmental needs of 5-year-olds. For example,
the domains of oral language development and socioemotional
development are often given inadequate attention.When kindergarten
standards do not focus sufficiently on foundational skills, aligning
expectations with kindergarten outcomes can have an adverse impact
32

on preschool child outcomes.
Standards should make sense to teachers and help
them with their day-to-day work.
Since the goal is to affect what children learn, standards
only work if the skills and concepts children are expected
to master are the same skills and concepts they are taught
in the classroom and the same skills and concepts that are
measured by assessments. Teachers must to be able to
orient the educational experiences they offer to the skills
and content specified in the child outcome standards.
For this to happen, the content of the standards must
be developmentally appropriate, and standards should be
specific enough to allow teachers to know what is expected
of their students.
Teachers should be able to align curriculum and classroom
assessments with the standards. This alignment is crucial to
the effectiveness of standards. As analysts have observed,7,19,20
standards-based reform can be expected to produce a positive impact on
student learning only when an instructional system is ...driven by
content standards, which are translated into assessments, curriculum
materials, and professional development, which are all, in
turn, tightly aligned to the content standards.
For preschoolers As noted earlier, young
children learn in the context of interactions
with important adults and peers. Their
development and learning hinge on their
individual developmental pathways and
the experiences they have in their homes,
communities, and classrooms. For this
reason, there is great variation in how
and when different children master
the same knowledge and skills. Early childhood teachers therefore need
more flexibility
than K-12 teachers in how they implement child outcome
standards, and this flexibility must be built into the standards.
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Preschool child outcome standards must be used
with reflection, not followed blindly.21
Standards documents should emphasize that teachers
should accommodate childrens learning strengths, needs,
and interests wherever they are on the developmental
continuum, rather than trying to speed up or slow down
their learning. A standards document can make this point,
for example, by providing several levels of performance for
a particular standard.
Moreover, preschool standards should accommodate not
only specific concepts and skills, but also the foundational
skills (such as listening or paying attention) that develop
as children move through
early childhood.
Standards must be written in a way that makes
it possible to assess whether they are being met in a
classroom.
For standards to strengthen instruction and boost achievement
they must be amenable to assessment. Schools
and programs must be able to document both program
standards (the resources, activities, and instruction programs
provide to help children learn) and child outcome standards
(the knowledge, skills, and dispositions children demonstrate).
All assessments need to be fair and technically sound.
Assessment policies related to children with special needs
or English language learners should be clearly set out.
For preschoolers Assessment presents one of the toughest
challenges for states as they introduce preschool outcome
standards. Educators and parents have many concerns
about the appropriateness of standardized readiness tests
for preschoolers. They also worry about the potential misuse
of assessments to label young children or delay kindergarten
entry.
Using outcome standards for accountability purposes is an
important part of standards-based reform2 but using them
34

to evaluate early childhood programs presents serious
problems.Many early childhood assessment experts agree
that most standardized instruments cannot yield valid and
reliable data on young childrens learning outcomes and at
the same time be cost-effective enough to be used on a large
scale to compare different programs.
In some areas, such as fine motor skills or literacy skills, the
connection between the standard and assessment is relatively
clear. The challenge is to select the best method for measuring
childrens knowledge of print or their mastery of hand-eye
coordination. In other areas, such as social and emotional
development, standards are often written in a more general
way, and this makes it harder to assess childrens progress
in meeting the standards. In this case, accompanying documents
are needed that specify performance standards, which
describe the level at which children should be able to perform
and ways to assess their progress.
Because the assessment of young children presents so many
challenges, experts advise that standardized tests be used sparingly
for accountability purposes. States or districts may want
to test a randomly identified number of children attending
a specific program, rather than testing every child.Moreover,
they advise against looking at assessment solely as an accountability
or program evaluation tool. This narrow view overlooks
the benefits children derive when assessments help
programs and teachers strengthen childrens classroom
experiences.
Standard documents should distinguish clearly
between program standards and outcome standards.
Those who establish standards need to differentiate between
standards that specify inputs (such as the number of hours
children spend in an educational program, the qualifications
of the teachers, or the materials and resources provided)
and standards that indicate outputs (what children know
and can do as a result of participation).
35

For preschoolers This distinction is particularly
important.While preschool program standards have existed
for many years, the use of child outcome standards is
relatively new. Because both are important, states need to draft
separate documents for program standards and child outcome
standards. As things stand, some states have mixed both types
of standards in the same document, causing considerable
confusion for the public and those who implement the standards
whether policymakers, program directors, teachers,
or evaluators.
Child outcome standards should be designed in
ways that offer benefits beyond strengthening
accountability.
Researchers have noted that child outcome standards have
potential benefits beyond addressing pressures for increased
accountability.1 For example, they can support curriculum
development and focus attention on important aspects of
childrens growth and development.
For preschoolers Reaching consensus on outcomes
standards can help states, communities, and programs
to enhance public understanding of early development
and learning; strengthen curriculum development and
professional development; inform primary grade
curriculum development; and improve transition to
kindergarten.

Suggestion:
Because standards reflect the values of the people who set them,
collaboration with families and communities is a key to the
successful design and implementation of preschool standards.
Standards documents should distinguish clearly between program
standards and child outcome standards.
36

Outcome standards need to be written in ways that take into account
the unique ways that young children develop and learn, considering all
aspects of school readiness identified by the National
Education Goal Panel.
Standards that address physical health, social-emotional development,
and approaches to learning need to have asmuch emphasis and
specificity as those that address cognitive and language
development.
Standards should allow for a coherent educational experience.
Preschool standards should allow continuity with kindergarten
standards, but not at the expense of attention to physical and
social-emotional development.
Standards should be written in ways that allow for appropriate,
effective assessment. Assessment policies and practices should go
beyond accountability to foster program improvement.



References
Harris, D.E. & Carr, J.K. (1996). How to use standards in the
classroom. Virginia: ASCD.
National Curriculum for ENGLISH LANGUAGE Grades I XII
2006, Government of Pakistan Ministry of Education Islamabad
Early Learning Developments Standards (ELDS) , Prepared By:
Projects Wing, Ministry of Education, In Collaboration With
UNICEF and UNESCO
G.S. (December 2010 ),Academic Content Standards. Retrieved
from http:// http://www.ode.state.or.us
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Bodrova, L. S. (March 2004). Child Outcome Standards in Pre-K
Programs.Retrievedfrom http://www.nieer.org/resources
John S. Kendall( 2003). Setting Standards in Early Childhood
Education. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org
The illinois early learning and development standards.(2013)
Retrieved from http: http://www.isbe.state.il.us