How can we share learning progress with families via progress or report cards?

Many early educators believe early childhood classrooms should be play-based and some schools use a checklist of skills or progress reports to communicate learning through play to families. If this is the case at your school, consider mapping those learning goals first. The checklist should be developmental in nature and consider the time of year that you are introducing specific academic skills to children.

If the checklist items do not match your learning goals, consider a separate conversation about aligning those two elements within your curriculum structure and school expectations.

Assuming your learning goals are accurately represented in your checklists or progress reports, add those learning goals to the unit associated with that time frame. For example, we know young children need lots of practice with skills over periods of time to be comfortable with them. In this case, you are using the content of the units as examples and opportunities to practice these checklist items and skills in fun and low stress situations.

For example, imagine a classroom introducing the units, Welcome to Pre-K, All About Me, My Family and School Community, and Using my Senses in the Fall in the first grading period. A school may choose to comment on six skills and expectations during that time, but these skills are often repeated across multiple units.

Welcome to Pre-K, All About Me, My Family and School Community, and Using my Senses in the Fall in the first grading period

In this scenario,

• standards such as "displays an understanding of the purpose of rules, approaches children already engaged in play, and participates in small or large group activities for story-telling, singing or finger plays" are not mastered in a single unit, but are practiced in different ways over a period of time within multiple units and topics of exploration;

• the skill "identifies self by using characteristics such as eye color, hair color, age" might make the most sense in Unit 2 and Unit 3; and

• the skills "identifies sights, smells, sounds, tastes and textures" and "observes familiar plants and animals (including humans) and describes what they need to survive" are more likely addressed in the last unit because the topic lends itself to more relevant conversations and opportunities.

The process of understanding the purpose of rules will be revisited throughout the year, even though this skill is aligned to the first few units at the beginning of the year. Children might also make statements about human needs in the conversations related to themselves or their families before they experience the last unit. These types of natural connections and observations are great and should be encouraged!