Ohio's Early Learning and Development Standards (ELDS) describe key concepts and skills that young children develop during the birth-to-five-year period. Their purpose is to support the development and well-being of young children and to foster their learning in five essential domains of school readiness. These links open the ELDS document (PDF download) for each domain:
- Social and Emotional Development
- Physical Well-being and Motor Development
- Approaches Toward Learning
- Language and Literacy Development
- Cognition and General Knowledge
These documents are brief and do not take long to read! When you know the language of the ELDS, you can communicate to early childhood educators how your library activities and resources support and reinforce their standards across all five domains. An Ohio Early Literacy Crosswalk (PDF) compares the ELDS standards directly to Every Child Ready to Read (ECRR) concepts in the Language and Literacy Development domain. Crosswalk documents are in development for the other four domains.
The ELDS are organized according to strands, meaning the developmental or conceptual components within each domain. Each strand contains one or more topics, areas of focus within each strand, and standard statements.
Standard statements describe those concepts and skills that typically developing children should know and be able to do. Standard statements are provided for Infants (birth - 8 months), Young Toddlers (6 - 18 months), Older Toddlers (16 - 36 months), and Pre-Kindergarten (3 - 5 years).
Learn more about the ELDS on the Ohio Department of Education's website. Download the Ohio Early Literacy Crosswalk for Language and Literacy, described above. You may also want to download the Early Learning Standards Alignment Guide (PDF), a crosswalk that aligns the ELDS with Head Start Early Learning Outcomes.
