Pre-Kindergarten - Gateway 1

Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for supporting collaborative partnerships with families (1.1b). 

The materials include a range of components that support home–school coordination, particularly through Family Connections resources available in each unit, including bilingual letters (English, Spanish, Amharic), weekly home activities, digital books, PDFs, and videos that support communication.  Additional home-learning materials, such as ECR @ Home booklets (e.g., PK4 Unit 5 booklet) and weekly homework pages, along with technology-based activities through the YouTube channel and Family Website, provide opportunities for families to engage with classroom learning. Unit 4, along with other units, includes multiple family letters, one-page summaries, and aligned home activities.

The materials include a Family Questionnaire that provides one structured opportunity for families to share information at the beginning of the year, including home language and context. Progress reports are shared quarterly and are available in English and Spanish to communicate student learning. The Implementation Guide (pp. 94–97) suggests ways families may participate in classroom activities, such as preparing centers, guest reading, or serving as a guest scientist. Teachers are also encouraged to display family photos, children’s drawings, and items brought from home (Implementation Guide, p. 94). In Unit 5 (Culture), books reflect a range of cultures and identities, and across units, texts include racially diverse characters.

Opportunities for family engagement are present across the materials; however, structures for ongoing two-way communication and consistent family input are not always specified beyond the initial questionnaire. Homework activities sent home are not consistently referenced as being revisited or shared within classroom learning. Suggestions for engagement, such as home letters, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) prompts (e.g., PK Unit 3 “I am” statements), and family-facing videos, are included across units, with varying ways they are embedded. Guidance for incorporating families’ cultural practices into classroom instruction is not consistently detailed, and opportunities for shared decision-making or ongoing collaboration are not explicitly outlined across the materials.

Overall, Every Child Ready materials demonstrate strong coordination of home-learning supports, offering families bilingual resources, digital materials, and weekly activities that reinforce classroom instruction at home. The materials include Family Connections resources, home-learning booklets, and opportunities for families to stay informed about classroom learning, along with initial opportunities for families to share information about their child and suggestions for participation in classroom activities. Guidance for integrating families’ cultural practices into instruction is included in some instances, though it varies in how consistently it is embedded across units. While the materials provide a strong foundation for family engagement, there are additional opportunities to enhance structures for ongoing two-way communication, shared decision-making, and the consistent incorporation of family input.

The Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for supporting cultural and linguistic responsiveness (1.1c).

The materials include components that support culturally responsive practices, particularly within the Implementation Guide, the Multilingual Learners (MLL) Guide, the Environmental Quality Scale, and selected thematic units. The Implementation Guide provides support for classroom setup, including layouts, rationale for design decisions, and step-by-step checklists beginning on page 23. The MLL Guide (p. 8) includes strategies for creating welcoming environments, such as displaying books representing multiple cultures and encouraging families to share stories. The Environmental Quality Scale includes one item that encourages teachers to rate the culturally responsive materials in their classroom as low, medium, or high impact.

Cultural content is most evident in Unit 2 (Families & Community) and Unit 5 (Culture). Unit 2 explores family structures, roles, and traditions, offering opportunities to discuss family experiences. Unit 5 includes a Family Culture booklet, activities related to foods and clothing, folktales, Rangoli art, Kente cloth painting, Maasai stories, Kudoda, and essential questions that invite children to share traditions. Weeks 1 and 2 also include center activities, dramatic play, and writing prompts (e.g., Holi). In other units, such as Unit 4 (art), Unit 9 (geography), and Unit 11 (games), opportunities for cultural connections are present within the content.

Books and illustrations throughout the materials include children with varied skin tones, hair types, and cultural practices. Opportunities for children and families to share cultural practices are included in some instances, such as the library center activity (PK4.5.1.1.C.7), which invites children to bring a recipe from home, and the AM Read Aloud (PK4.10.3.4.RA.1, I Like Myself), which encourages children to bring a special item from home. The Implementation Guide also suggests displaying family photos or drawings.

Overall, Every Child Ready materials include culturally responsive elements through environmental guidance and selected units, particularly Units 2 and 5, and provide opportunities for cultural representation and student participation. The materials demonstrate efforts toward cultural and linguistic responsiveness, with opportunities to strengthen the consistency and explicitness of these practices across instructional contexts, including more consistent integration across units, more detailed guidance for educators, and more frequent opportunities for students and families to share and incorporate cultural practices throughout the year.

Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for being respectful of differences and designed to challenge prejudice, promote fairness, and foster compassion (1.1d). 

The materials include a moderate range of activities designed to support empathy, respect, and appreciation for cultural differences, including social-emotional learning experiences, diverse read-alouds, classroom routines, and implementation resources that emphasize empathy. Read-alouds across multiple units (including Units 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10) feature texts representing varied identities, families, and communities. Social-emotional routines, such as Helpful Hearts, address kindness, cooperation, and emotional understanding, while journaling and reflection prompts provide opportunities for children to discuss identity, relationships, and experiences. Family and community sharing activities offer some opportunities to incorporate songs, stories, and traditions from home.

The materials include some frameworks that encourage teachers to adapt instruction based on cultural and linguistic needs, such as the Support for All Learners Guide (p. 4), which references a Universal Design for Learning approach and includes examples related to classroom environment and teacher interactions, as well as MTSS and intervention guidance with expressive language supports and flexible small-group differentiation. The MLL Guide provides additional guidance on labeling and language supports in the classroom. Materials also include some guidance on setting up classroom environments that reflect diversity, such as suggestions for displaying family photos and incorporating materials from children’s backgrounds. In the Environmental Quality Scale, one item encourages teachers to rate the culturally responsive materials in their classroom environment as low, medium, or high impact to assess and revise their approach to better align with classroom diversity.

The materials include general anti-bias concepts that introduce ideas of fairness, inclusion, and respect for differences. Opportunities to explore these concepts are present within social-emotional learning routines, read-aloud discussions, and classroom interactions. 

Overall, Every Child Ready provides moderate support for teachers in promoting empathy, fairness, and respect for differences, along with some strategies to address fairness and support inclusive practices. The materials would be strengthened by more clearly connecting these supports to daily instruction and providing more consistent and specific guidance for adapting instruction to support diverse cultural and linguistic needs. The materials could also be strengthened by providing more explicit guidance to help children recognize unfairness and more robust strategies to promote fairness, counter prejudice and discrimination, and challenge stereotypes.

Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for supporting teachers in adapting the curriculum (1.2a). 

The materials include structures intended to support diverse learning styles and needs through adaptable resources and instructional practices, such as differentiation prompts, flexible small-group instruction, developmental progressions, multilingual learner supports, and guidance aligned to Universal Design for Learning principles. Small-group lessons include prompts for adjusting instruction “up or down” and offer multiple ways for children to respond based on developmental readiness. Flexible small group lessons provide Tier 1 supports across literacy, math, social-emotional learning, and language development, and the Assessment Guide (p. 18) encourages the use of data to inform instructional decisions. Additional resources, including the Support for All Learners Guide and MLL Guide, provide general scaffolding strategies such as modeling, prompting, visuals, and grouping. Materials also include lesson internalization protocols for each daily component. Each protocol includes guidance for “data decisions.” These guides help teachers reflect on relevant child data, the class’s unique cultural and linguistic background, and the class's current learning needs. Teachers are encouraged to consider that differentiated instruction may be needed to meet the needs of all learners in the classroom. 

These materials include examples and frameworks intended to support differentiation and flexible teaching approaches; however, guidance is often presented at a broad level and across multiple resources. In some instances, teachers refer to more than one guide when applying strategies within specific lessons. Adaptation prompts within lessons are brief, and more detailed strategies for addressing specific developmental differences are limited. While the materials reference flexible teaching techniques and Universal Design for Learning principles, clearer connections to lesson implementation would further support their use.

Overall, the materials include structures and resources to support instructional adaptation and differentiation. Providing more explicit connections between frameworks, strategies, and lesson-level implementation could further enhance accessibility for a range of learners.

Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for providing adaptations and supports for children with disabilities (1.2b). 

Materials include some supports for children with disabilities and learners with varying developmental needs through environmental design, instructional routines, and flexible approaches to participation. For sensory needs, classroom environments incorporate visual schedules, labeled materials, picture supports, and concrete objects to help children anticipate routines and access content through nonverbal means (Support for All Learners Guide, p. 9; Implementation Guide, pp. 54–56).

Classrooms are also organized with clearly defined spaces, labeled areas, and calming areas to support sensory regulation (Implementation Guide, pp. 26–30), and social-emotional supports, such as calming routines (e.g., Unit 1, Week 3 AM Small Group), are included. Instructional routines use visual supports, gestures, songs, and modeling to engage children through multiple modalities, including non-auditory approaches (Components Guide, pp. 12–14). For children with physical disabilities, the materials provide opportunities for flexible participation and expression, allowing them to demonstrate understanding through speech, gestures, pointing, drawing, building, or movement (Support for All Learners Guide, p. 5).

The materials also include broader supports, such as guidance aligned with Universal Design for Learning principles, flexible small-group structures, and general adaptations to address sensory, cognitive, and physical needs. General scaffolding approaches, including “Say, Show, Check,” breaking tasks into smaller steps, and offering varied response options during routines like morning meeting, are included across lessons. Small-group lessons sometimes include “upward” and “downward” differentiation prompts (e.g., Unit 2, Week 1), and flexible small-group activities (e.g., Language & Literacy, Narrative Construction, Tier 1.15.FSG) provide additional opportunities for targeted support. Guidance is also provided in resources such as the Support for All Learners Guide (pp. 10–14), and teachers are encouraged to use assessment information and flexible grouping to adjust instruction.

These supports are present across multiple components of the materials, including lessons and supplemental resources; however, guidance is often presented at a general level and distributed across multiple documents. Instructional materials do not consistently include specific adaptations, alternative formats, or references to assistive technology, and connections to specific instructional contexts are not always explicitly outlined. 

Overall, the materials include some support for children with disabilities and learners with varying developmental needs through environmental design, instructional routines, and flexible participation approaches. These supports are present across lessons and additional resources and include general scaffolding strategies and guidance aligned to Universal Design for Learning principles. While supports are integrated in multiple ways, guidance is often presented at a general level and across different resources, with varying degrees of explicit connection to daily instruction. The materials would be strengthened by providing clear and consistent guidance to support diverse learners across instructional experiences.

Every Child Ready materials partially meet expectations for supporting multilingual learners (1.2c). 

The materials include resources intended to support multilingual learners, including dedicated guidance within the Multilingual Learners Guide. There are opportunities for language development within lessons and supports that encourage the use of home language and connections to children’s experiences. The materials incorporate oral-language routines, predictable structures, and a range of scaffolding strategies to support language development and content access. The Multilingual Learners Guide includes strategies such as visuals, modeling, repetition, gestures, and connections to students’ backgrounds, along with language development stages (p. 7) and examples of comprehensible input (pp. 11–13). The Say–Show–Check approach, supported by planning templates (p. 4), offers multimodal strategies that incorporate verbal, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic supports. Materials also include some flexible, small-group language comprehension lessons for multilingual learners who need more explicit language instruction.

Instructional materials across units include sentence starters, modeled responses, repeated phrases, and predictable routines to support access to content. Some strategies include supports such as visuals in Check for Understanding reproducibles. Units 2 and 5 offer opportunities to connect with students’ backgrounds through discussions of family, traditions, and community, and provide some bilingual book suggestions. Family connection materials are available in English, Spanish, and Amharic, with translations adapted to support accessibility.

Scaffolds and strategies for MLL children appear in some lessons, and these supports are present across components of the materials and are designed to promote language development in integrated ways. The materials include some opportunities for students to use and develop their home languages in some activities, and cultural learning experiences reflect topics such as food, clothing, and traditions (e.g., Unit 5, Week 2, Centers Facilitation)

Overall, Every Child Ready materials include a range of resources and strategies intended to support multilingual learners and promote language development through integrated instructional practices. These supports emphasize oral language development, scaffolding, and connections to students’ experiences, with some opportunities embedded across lessons and in an additional guide. Guidance is often presented at a general level, and connections to lesson-level implementation are not always consistent. Opportunities to leverage home languages and deepen cultural and linguistic connections are present but vary in frequency. Greater clarity around language development goals and more consistent integration of supports within instruction could further strengthen accessibility.