Activating Rigor in Your Pre-K Curriculum with Deeper Learning

It’s a common question: Can pre-K students really engage in deeper learning? The answer—backed by field experience—is yes.

When teachers use the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning^TM, they quickly see how even the youngest learners can collaborate, think critically, and grow their academic and social skills. In fact, starting this work in pre-K lays a powerful foundation for future success.

This article highlights what deeper learning looks like at the pre-K level—and how schools are using the model to help early childhood classrooms thrive.

Pre-K students bring joy, curiosity, and endless potential to the classroom. They’re eager to play, talk, and try new things—but they’re also still learning how to participate in a school community. This means they need more than just exposure to rigorous content in the curriculum—they need thoughtful support to access that rigorous content.

Even the best pre-K curriculum will fall short if students don’t have the self-regulation, communication, and collaboration skills to engage with it meaningfully. That’s where intentionally selecting a model of instruction is critical. 

Like the vast majority of K-12 classrooms, the typical pre-K classroom has a default, traditional model of instruction—the teacher does most of the talking as students compliantly follow steps and directions.  But this approach doesn’t reflect how young children naturally explore and learn. Just watch them play—you’ll see discovery, collaboration, and curiosity driving everything they do. 

The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning is an instructional approach that gives student an active role in their learning. The model elevates any adopted curriculum resource, promoting critical thinking, higher engagement, and deeper learning—including with your youngest students. 

Many pre-K rooms are warm and inviting, filled with colorful materials and activities—but many still struggle to fully implement a rigorous, standards-aligned curriculum. That’s because materials alone don’t activate rigor. 

What does? Standards-based planning and structured, consistent routines allow students to engage deeply—not just with the materials, but with each other. 

I often see pre-K activities pulled from sites like Teachers Pay Teachers or Pinterest that are fun and visually engaging, but disconnected from learning goals, routines for student collaboration, or a clear model of instruction. Without a thoughtful approach that helps all students access grade-level content, the curriculum’s full rigor remains out of reach.

The unintentional consequence is that learning gaps form, which is exactly what pre-K is meant to prevent. Some students even enter kindergarten labeled “below level” right from the start of their educational careers. When pre-K instruction doesn’t invite young children to explore, collaborate, and think for themselves, it limits their learning and leads to boredom, behavior issues, and future challenges.

Ask any early childhood educator: keeping pre-K students engaged is both essential and challenging. Teachers are trying to meet students where they are developmentally while also making learning meaningful and structured. That’s no easy task.

Too often, pre-K classrooms rely on teacher-centered instruction. That might include long calendar routines, extended morning meetings, slide shows, or video-based lessons. In many cases, students are expected to sit still for 20 to 40 minutes—well beyond what’s developmentally appropriate for 4- and 5-year-olds.

The result? As attention fades, behavior issues emerge.

Even when the content is age-appropriate, the delivery often isn’t. Sitting still, looking at a screen, and listening quietly while the teacher talks doesn’t engage young learners—or build lasting skills.

The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning offers a different path. It helps teachers shift from passive to active learning, using team-based structures and hands-on tools that keep students engaged and working together. When students are talking, thinking, and doing—they’re learning. Behavior issues that were caused by disengagement naturally decline.

Pre-K students are more than capable of deeper learning. Our Applied Research Center defines deeper learning as ALL students developing into leaders of their own learning. They collaborate in teams, engage in rich discourse, and tackle rigorous tasks that prepare them for both academic and real-world success.

To reach the goal of deeper learning in pre-K, we must shift from a teacher-centered model of instruction to a student-led one.

In a student-led classroom, students:

• Talk with peers about content
• Practice self-management and teamwork
• Learn through collaboration, not just repetition

Through the student-led model, students develop the cognitive and social foundations that rigorous learning requires.

Figure 1. Kindergarten class at Howe Elementary—individual student growth, state MAP® Growth™ assessment math scores Fall 2017 to Spring 2018. Note that all students reached high growth, and nearly every student reached high achievement. See Toth & Sousa, 2019.

The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning equips pre-K teachers with the tools and routines to create structured, student-centered classrooms. This includes:

• Self-management routines
• Collaborative team roles
• Structured academic conversations
• Visual supports for early readers

Even in pre-K, students can engage in respectful academic discourse. The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning introduces these skills through sentence stems, visual cues, and routines that build memory and meaning.

Student roles are a key component of the model. For pre-K students, teachers can simplify the roles. 

For example, anchor charts or table mats can visually show which student is responsible for the facilitator role. Facilitators might help peers remember the task question, or prompt others to stay on track. Teachers can scaffold this by modeling: “Facilitators, raise your hand. Repeat after me…” Instead of calling the role “facilitator,” this can also be changed to kid-friendly terms such as “captain” or “super guide.” 

Teachers who use the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning with emerging readers have implemented playful roles like “peanut butter and jelly” to guide students in taking turns during conversations. For example, while peanut butter speaks, it is jelly’s job to listen (see Figure 2).

Once students get used to their roles and responsibilities, teachers can ask students to suggest their own favorite combinations: cookies and cream, guacamole and chips—which builds buy-in and community.

These structures help pre-K students take ownership of their behavior and learning from an early age, setting them up for success.

A simplified version of the model’s Agree/Disagree routine can help Pre-K students communicate effectively as they discuss academic topics in their teams. 

Pre-K teachers can practice verbal language with their students using sentence stems like “I agree because…” or “I disagree because…” Teachers can also create anchor charts that reinforce sentence stems with visuals and sight words. Other visual reminders include cards such as a thumbs up/thumbs down and listening ear to show students whose turn it is to respond using the sentence stems (see Figure 2).

The model’s professional development prepares teachers with the skills to help their students learn the building blocks of respectful argument, evidence, and taking turns listening and sharing ideas.

Figure 2. Visual pairing cards to help emergent readers become more autonomous. In this example, peanut butter is talking while jelly listens and agrees/disagrees.

When pre-K students enter kindergarten already familiar with collaboration, self-regulation, and respectful talk, they are prepared to fully benefit from your curriculum. Teachers don’t have to spend weeks teaching basic behaviors—they can go deeper from day one.

This is the long-term benefit of investing in a student-centered model of instruction at the pre-K level: students learn to embrace rigor and are ready to take it on more quickly.

The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning strengthens literacy instruction, starting with:

• Previewing books and making predictions/inferences
• Comparing and contrasting stories
• Building reading comprehension 

Early literacy instruction often centers on surface-level memorization, which makes it difficult for teachers to know which students are truly mastering phonics. For example, during group choral responses, a student might say the wrong sound but quickly mimic the correct one after hearing peers—masking their confusion. To the teacher, it sounds correct, but the misunderstanding only surfaces later during individual assessments.

In contrast, the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning encourages deeper learning through structured conversations and problem-solving—making student thinking visible in real time.

For example:

A teacher shows students a picture of a frog.
The team debates: “What letter does frog start with?”
One student says “B,” another says “F.”
A teammate remembers “fan” also starts with “fuh”—they agree it’s “F.”

This structured collaboration builds phonemic awareness and recall while also challenging students to think critically and make connections between sounds and letters—all critical for reading success.  

Research supports this collaborative methodology. Talking about new learning significantly improves long-term memory retention (MacLeod et al., 2010). Explaining learning even lights up more brain activity than just listening (Toth & Sousa, 2019).

Hands-on tools from the Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning are especially effective for building complex comprehension skills, such as identifying main ideas.

Here’s one example using the model’s Summarizing Mat tool:

Students read a story about an angelfish. The teacher asks them to draw the main idea of the book, then discuss their drawings with their teammates to agree on a shared answer.

Most students in the team draw an angelfish, but one student draws an anemone. This sparks a lively conversation. Students use the routines they learned to take turns sharing evidence:

“Look at page 5—it has the angelfish!”

“Page 6 says the word ‘fish’ in big letters.”

The student who drew the anemone explains that she liked that picture best because it reminded her of Finding Nemo. But after hearing her teammates’ evidence, she agrees: the angelfish was the main idea.

This is deeper learning in action. Pre-K students are using evidence, refining their thinking, shifting perspectives, and learning from one another as they improve their reading comprehension skills. 

It’s a common misconception that deeper learning is “too advanced” for pre-K—but in reality, our youngest students are ready for more than we often give them credit for.

The Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning supports strong academic development and the social skills that make for a successful transition from home or daycare to school. 

The model doesn’t replace your curriculum—it helps you deliver it with more clarity, collaboration, and impact.

Teachers receive targeted professional development designed to support student-centered learning. A clear progression defines the skills students should develop at each level—such as self-regulation or communication—along with examples of student evidence, and which resources from the model can help teachers guide the process. This chunks the learning for both teachers and their students. 

When teachers implement the model, they quickly see the difference. Students’ skills grow. Teachers’ confidence grows. And the impact lasts, putting our youngest learners on the path to success. 

Model of Instruction for Deeper Learning ^TM is a registered trademark of Instructional Empowerment and is research-validated.