PRAXIS II Early Childhood Education Exam

This exam is designed for individuals who have completed their undergraduate degree in Early Childhood education and would like to teach preschool through primary grades. The exam has 120 multiple choice questions and you will be given 2 hours to complete it. It will assess your knowledge of various factors that can impact a child's ability to learn. The exam is based on a curriculum that considers the child's language, physical, social and cognitive development. The majority of the questions refer to children that are ages 3 through 8 with a few questions regarding children at earlier and later stages of development. There will be approximately 37 questions regarding the growth, development and learning of young children, 12 questions regarding factors that impact an individual child's growth and development, 14 questions regarding the development and application of various curriculums, 35 questions regarding planning and implementation of a curriculum, 15 questions regarding the evaluation of student progress, and 7 questions regarding professionalism and legal responsibilities for the teacher of young children.

Cognitive Development
The cognitive section of the exam will assess your knowledge of the concepts of the physical world, development of manipulative skills, symbol recognition, and logical reasoning skills.

Language Development
This section of the exam will assess your knowledge of listening skills, comprehension, speech, oral language development, speaking skills, and the development of writing and spelling skills in young children.

Physical Development
The physical development section will assess your knowledge of atypical and typical growth, fine and gross motor skills; and health and safety of young children..

Personal and Social Development
Under the social development section your knowledge of social behavior, gender roles, stereotypes, learning style and, self concept of young children will be covered.

Recognition of Appropriate and Inappropriate Application of Developmental and Curriculum Theory
This section of the exam will cover your knowledge of developmental and learning theory in early childhood educational practices. It will also cover your knowledge of various early childhood curriculum models such as play based curriculum, developmentally appropriate curriculum, Montessori, Head Start, Weikert, Bank Street, Emergent Literacy etc.

Planning and Implementing Curriculum
This section of the exam will focus on the selection, planning and implementation of appropriate curriculum and instructional methods for young children. It will cover implementation of curriculums based on social, mathematical, scientific, language and physical/motor skill approaches. The organization and management of the learning environment and management of personal interactions in the classroom will also be covered in this exam.

Evaluating and Reporting Student Progress and the Effectiveness of Instruction
This section of the exam will evaluate your ability to select and utilize formal and informal assessment tools for students, maintain appropriate records and communicate with parents.

Understanding Professional and Legal Responsibilities
This section of the exam will assess your knowledge of being cognizant of instructor responsibilities and legal regulations regarding early childhood education. Your knowledge of effective communication with various other educational staff members will also be assessed.

PRAXIS II Early Childhood Education Practice Questions

1. Jean Piaget's stages of cognitive development include:

A. sensorimotor
B. preoperational
C. concrete operational
D. formal operational
E. All of the above

2. Which of the following characteristics is not part of cognitive development?

A. Knowing
B. Speech
C. Perception
D. Reasoning
E. Judgment

3. Which of the following is not related to a child's temperament?

A. Thinking
B. Behavior
C. Hair color
D. Reaction
E. Attention span

4. Reasons for assessing children's academic growth include:

A. helps placement and promotion decisions
B. aid in designing curriculum
C. leads to improvements in instruction
D. better classroom management
E. All of the above

5. Which of the following should not be important when developing assessment strategies for young children?

A. Parents' educational background
B. Limitations of grades in general
C. Knowledge gained
D. Skills attained
E. Improvement in social interactions

Answer Key For Early Childhood Education

1. Answer: E

Based on the observation, that unlike adults, young children keep making the same mistakes, Piaget's theory of cognitive development examines the premise that children's thought processes are innately different from adults. His theory maintains that the validity of new information is confirmed from knowledge learned earlier. He believes there is a chronological order to the way children structure data and that they use old knowledge to test new information against its usefulness in the real world.

The ages used in Piaget's four developmental stages are approximate because studies show a huge variation between individual children, meaning the ages should not be used as rigid criteria The stages are:

1. Sensorimotor, birth to two years: Children learn through their senses.
2. Preoperational, two to seven years: Children acquire motor skills.
3. Concrete Operational, seven to eleven years: Children learn to apply logic to situations.
4. Formal Operational, eleven years forward: Children develop abstract reasoning ability.

2. Answer: B

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines cognition as the "mental process or faculty of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment." The dictionary defines cognitive science as "the study of the nature of various mental tasks and the processes that enable them to be performed."

Using these dictionary definitions, cognitive development is the acquisition of and mental processes for knowing, awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. The study of cognitive development is observing, analyzing, and predicting how individuals acquire and perform various mental tasks.

Early theories of cognitive development believed the individual progresses through various stages from infancy to adulthood, and growth stops at a certain point or after a goal has been attained. Later theories suggest that acquisition of these complex mental processes is a lifelong learning process that starts in infancy and continues until death. Studies proceeding from the latter premise investigate both innate and environmental influences on the growth of cognitive development.

3. Answer: C

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines temperament as "the manner of thinking, behaving, or reacting typical of a specific person." Studies have shown (and casual observation will agree) that a child's temperament has a direct influence on how he behaves in a particular situation or reacts to a particular stimuli. For example, if a child has a short attention span, he will be challenged in any learning environment that requires him to sit still and focus for long periods of time. If a child is shy or easily intimidated by adults, he will have a difficult time relating to his teacher, which will have a direct impact on his educational experiences. As the child ages, he will exert more control over his environmental choices which will affect his interactions. As a result, children usually choose people with whom they are comfortable and situations they perceive to be nonthreatening.

4. Answer: E

Parents and teachers want and need to know how children are progressing in learning age-appropriate tasks and acquiring age-appropriate skills. If problems are diagnosed early, they can be addressed, and many times, corrected before they become serious roadblocks in development. One cautionary note: Be careful of attaching a good or bad label; they tend to follow a child throughout his entire educational experience.

Determining children's progress helps make placement and promotion decisions, aids in the design of curriculum and other programs, and can lead to improvements in instructional methods and classroom management. Assessments of young children, especially in first and second grades, should always consider four major areas: knowledge, skills, temperament, and feelings. Adding observations made during informal work and play situations helps minimize possible errors inherent in evaluating young children. Assessments should include a balance between standardized evaluations and specific progress made by individual students.

5. Answer: A

Testing children before the third grade or approximately age eight is risky business. Children this age are notoriously poor test-takers because they don't understand the concept or why the person giving the test doesn't already know the answers. Studies have shown that the younger the child who takes a test, the more errors made in interpreting the results.

When planning strategies to evaluate young children, teachers and parents should recognize the limitations of report cards and grades in general. Children develop at different rates, so their performance is uneven, inconsistent, and variable. Children should be assessed on general age-appropriate knowledge gained and skills attained, how much progress they have made learning to control their behavior, and their overall improvement in social interactions. Children should also be encouraged to evaluate their own progress. Most children this age are realistic about their progress and will ask for help when they need it.