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Tools of the Mind: A Vygotskian-
Based Early Chlldhood Curriculutn

Elena Bodrova
Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning .

Deborah J. Leong
Center for the lmprovement of Early Learning
at Metropolitan State College of Denver

Tools oftbe Mind is a comprehensive early childhood currículum for children

in preschool and kindergarten that explicitly foclises on the role of self-regula-
tion in learning and academic ability. The Tools currículum uses both specijic
activities that promote self-regulation and embeds self-regulation strategies
into the content of academic activities. Based on the Vygotskian approach,
Tools helps teachers use mediators, language, and shared activities to support
the intemalization of cognitive tools which help children attend, solve prob-
lems, plan, and remember. At the core of the programare strategies designed
to promote the development of mature make-believe play. These strategies,
along with carefully planned activities designed to "amplify" social-emotion-
al and cognitive skills, enables Tools to support the multiple facets of school
readiness. Allactivities are designed to be multilevel so that teachers can meet
the needs of children of varying abilities within the class. The profession-
al development program also follows the Vygotskian approach, scaffolding
teacher learning through a system of coaching, workshops, and self-reflection
activities designed to provide teachers with an understanding of learning pro-
cesses and specific instructional tactics. The article describes the theory
underlying Tools and gives examples of typical activities along with a de-
scription of the professional development program.

KeyWords: Vygotsky, self-regulation, make-believe play, scaffolding school readiness

Early Childhood Services

Volume 3, Number 3, pp. 245-262 245
Copyright © 2009 Plural Publishing, Inc.
246 EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES, VOL. 3, NO. 3
Tools of the Mind is a comprehensive
early childhood currículum for children in
preschool and kindergarten that explicit-
ly focuses on the role of self-regulation in
learning and academic abllity by using spe-
cific activities that promote self-regulation
and by embedding self-regulation promot-
ing activities in instruction designed to build
foundational skills in literacy, mathematics
and social-emotional competence.
To date, Tools of the Mind has been
implemented in 600 early childhood class-
rooms including public and prívate pre-
schools, Head Start, Even Start, as well as
half-day and full-day kindergarten and has
been aligned with early learniÍlg standards
and kindergarten academic standards in 9
states and 40 districts, serving over 25,000
children. Tools ofthe Mind training staff de-
livered professional development and tech- .
nical assistance to 2,000 teachers, teacher
assistants, administrators, and support staff
with their educational levels varying from
high school to advanced degrees.
Tools of the Mind curricula designed for
preschool and kindergarten have been de-
veloped using the Vygotskian theoretical ap-
proach to development and instruction with
content matching the developmental trajecto-
ries of self-regulation, children's intellectual
capacities, and national and state standards. In
this article we will discuss the preschool pro-
gram. lnformation about kindergarten curríc-
ulum and the differences betWeen the kinder-
garten and preschool program are available
on the web: www.toolsofthemind.org.
Tools of the Mind
Theoretical Orientation: The
Vygotskian Approach to
Development and Learning
Tools ofthe Mind is grounded in the Vy-
gotskian Cultural-Historical theory of devel-
opment. The currículum also incorporales
the contributions of post-Vygotskians such as
Daniel Elk:onin and Alexander Zaporozhets
whose ideas are less familiar to the Westem
audiences than the ideas of Vygotsky him-
self. Tools of the Mind is one of the first at-
tempts in the United States to create a com-
prehensive Vygotskian-based currículum
that could be used in early childhood class-
rooms. Although Vygotskian-based currícula
have been designed for older students (Cam-
pione & Brown, 1990; Newman, Griffirt, &
Cole, 1989; Tharp & Gallimore, 1989) most
of the previous attempts to use Vygotskian-
based pedagogy with younger children were
limited to individual instructional strategies
(e.g., "Elkonin blocks") or focused on only
one type of scaffolding (e.g., teacher-assist-
ed leaming in one-on-one setting).
Vygotsky's Cultural-
Historical Approach
Vygotskian approach holds that human
development involves a complex interplay
between the processes of natural develop-
ment determined biologically and the pro-
cesses of cultural development brought
about by the interactions of the growing in-
dividual with other people and cultural arti-
facts. In more practica! terms, it means that
although sorne leaming .cannot occur un-
til the developmental prerequisites are in
place, such as in case of children not being
able to read until they reach certain level of
development of their oral language, the op-
posite is also true: certain developments in
cognitive, social, or language areas do not
simply emerge as a result of maturation but
rather depend on what a child leams. Based
on research done on children of different ag-
es raised in different cultures, Vygotsky con-
eludes tliat sorne developments that were
previously thought to be universally pres-
ent in a certain age, such as the abllity to
use abstract reasoning, in reality are an out-
growth of a very specific kind of lea.ming ex-
periences typicany associated with formal
schooling (Vygotsky, 1987). In the course
of formal schooling, teachers teach -and
students leam-a specific system of mental
tools that brings these students' cognitive
development to a qualitatively different lev-

eL For example by learning to see isolated
objects as a part of a larger class or category,
children develop logical thinking.
Consistent with his view of development
as being culturally determined, Vygotsky be-
lieved that the role of the teacher is more
than teaching facts and sk:ills-teachers can
actually shape children's development by
helping them acquire the mental tools of
their culture (Grigorenko, 1998). Although
believing, similar to other constructivist ed-
ucators, that children construct their own
understandings and do not passively repro-
duce what is presented to them, Vygotsky,
however, saw this process not so much
as construction as coconstruction. In oth-
er words, each individual child's c:onstruc-
tion of knowledge always takes place in a
cultural context and is always mediated, di-
rectly or indirectly, by other people (Kar-
pov, 2005). In the classroom setting, for ex-
ample, a teacher can directly affect a child's
construction of knowledge by focusing the
child's attention on a specific object or by
using specific words. The teacher can also
affect the child's construction ofknowledge
in an indirect way by orchestrating the con-
text for this child's interactions with other
children or by providing certain instruction-
al materials.
Vygotsky's Theory of Child
Development in Early Childhood
Describing child development during
preschool and kindergarten years, Vygotsky
views the child's mind as a dynamic system
of mental functions with new higher men-
tal functions emerging and changing al-
ready existing lower mental functions. The
years before elementary school are the pe-
riod when lower mental· functions such as
reactive attention go through initial stages
of development into focused, intentional at-
tention. At this phase, the young children's
use of language and their ongoing acquisi-
tion of other cultural tools continue to trans-
form perception and begin to transform at-
tention, memory, imagination, and thinking
TOOLS OF THE MIND 247
as well as emotions. In addition to the trans- .
formation of the cbild's cognitive process-
es, early childhood is a critica! period in the
child's learning to become the "the master
of his or her behavior" -in other words, in
developing self-regulation. According to Vy-
gotsky, the early childhood years culminate
in the child overcoming the dependence on
the environmental stimuli and becoming ca-
pable of intentional behaviors through the
use of self-regulatory private speech and
through participation in make-believe play
(Vygotsky, 1956, 1967).
Application of Vygotskian
and Post-Vygotskian Ideas to
Early Childhood Education
While many of the most well known
principies ofthe Cultural-Historical theory-
such as the relationship between teaching/
learning and development, the importance
of make-believe play, and the evolution of
oral speech from public to private-are of-
ten discussed in the context of the devel-
opment of young children, Vygotsky's own
writing usually provides only general guide-
lines on how these ideas could be imple-
mented to improve early childhood educa-
tion. The place to look for more practica!
insights is the work of post-Vygotskians,
from Vygotsky's colleagues and students
who later developed their own theories to
third and fourth gel).eration Vygotsky schol-
ars who have continued to carry out the Vy-
gotskian tradition by adding to the work of
their mentors. Tools of the Mind applies the
Vygotskian approach to instructional prac-
tices in American classroom by building on
the work of Vygotsky as well as the work of
these post-Vygotskians.
The contributions made by post-Vy-
gotskians to the field of early childhood ed-
ucation could be summarized in the idea of
amplification of child development (Zaporo-
zhets, 1986). The term "amplification" was
coined by Vygotsky's colleague and the
founder of the All-Soviet Institute for Pre-
school Education, Alexander Zaporozhets
248 EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES, VOL. 3, NO. 3
as the answer to the educators who thought
that the preschool classroom should be de-
signed as a miniature copy of a primary class-
room with teaching methods and materials
modeled after the ones used by elementary
teachers. The idea of amplification also was
intended as an altemative to the notion of
"spontaneous development" of young chil-
dren, the idea that development could not
and should not be affected by instruction.
Amplification focuses on the role of educa-
tion in child development, emphasizing that
properly designed educational interactions
do not' stifle development of preschool chil-
dren but instead promote it, thus, present-
ing a logical extension of Vygotsky's princi-
pie of instruction leading development.
We use just three Vygotskian ideas to il-
lustrate the application of the principies of
the Cultural-Historical theory to preschool
education. These three principies underlie
most of the materials, interactions, and ac-
tivities in the Tools of the Mind curriculum.
Make-believe play is the leading ac-
tivity of preschool and kindergarten-aged
children. For Vygotskians, certain activi-
ties children engage in produce the greatest
gains in development. Called "leading activi-
ties," they are age-specific and provide the
best conditions for the acquisition of cogni-
tive and social competencies most critica!
for child development at this age (Chaiklin,
Hedegaard, & }ensen, 1999; Elkonin, 1977;
Leont'ev, 1978). In addition, when engaged
in a leading activity appropriate for their
age, children develop prerequisites for the
competencies that make it possible for them
to successfully participate in the leading ac-
tivity specific to the next age leveL
Make-believe play is the leading activity
of preschool and kindergarten-aged children
whereas the students of primary grades en-
gage in the activity of intentional leaming
(frequently referred to as the "leaming ac-
tivity"). Vygotskians cite multiple benefits
of young children's engagement in high-lev-
el make-believe play focusing especially on
play's contributions to children's develop-
ing symbolic thinking and self-regulation. In
their writings, however, Vygotsky and his
colleagues limited their definition of play
to the dramatic or make-believe play of pre-
schoolers and children of primary school
age. The Vygotskian definition of play does
not include such activities as object manip-
ulations and explorations that are consid-
ered precursors to play and such activities
as games and sports that are considered an
outgrowth of play. Consistent with the foun-
dational ideas of the Cultural-Historical the-
ory, Vygotskians do not believe that play de-
velops spontaneously in all children once
they reach preschool age but rather associ-
ate the level of play sophistication with the
certain features of a child's social situation
of development, namely the adult mediation
ofplay.
Not all play is equally beneficia! for the
development of self-regulation. Current
studies of the relationship between play
and self-regulation confirm Vygotsky's belief
that make-believe play can improve self-reg-
ulation especially in highly impulsive, "hard
to manage" children (Berk, Mann, & Ogan,
2006). However, it happens only when chil-
dren are able to create a joint :irtlaginary sit-
uation, take on the roles of various pretend
characters, and act these out using imaginary
props, language, and symbolic gestures.
Sca.ffolded interactions are essential
to children's learning. Although the term
"scaffolding" has a long history in the West
of being associated with the Vygotsky's par-
adigm, (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) it is
not a term used either by Vygotsky himself
or by the post-Vygotskians. The closest term
found in the writings of the post-Vygotski-
ans is "razvivajuschee obuchenije" (develop-
ing instruction) (Davydov, 1990), which pro-
vides an important link between Vygotsky's
theory of leaming and development and its
classroom applications. We will continue
to use the term "scaffolding" to adhere to
the Westem tradition, but will specify sorne
characteristics of this process that will make
it more consistent with the Vygotskian view
on the relationship between instruction and
development.
Scaffolding interactions are used in the
course of teaching to help a child move

from being assisted by an adult in perform-
ing a new task to being able to perform this
and similar tasks independently (Bodrova &
Leong, 2007). These interactions must fall
within each individual's Zone of Proximal
Development so that they would support
the very skills and knowledge that are on the
edge of emergence (Vygotsky, 1978). When
providing scaffolding, an adult does not
make the task easier but instead makes the
child's job easier by giving this child max-
imum support in the beginning stages and
then gradually withdrawing this support as
the child' s mastery of a new skill increases
(wood et al., 1976). An appropriate support
is the one that not only makes it easier for a
child to complete a current task or brif:tgs to
the surface behaviors most mature to date,
but plays a role in the child's "construction
of mind," influencing the development of
· mental categories and processes responsi-
ble for the child's performance on a variety
of tasks. Thus, effective scaffolding should
provide only temporary support, needed
until these new mental processes and cate-
gories are fully developed and can be used
by the child without any outside assistance
(Figure 1). From this perspective, scaffold-
ing may exist in different formats ranging
from teacher-child interactions when they
work on a task jointly, to teacher introduc-
ing child to a strategy or a "tool" the child
will be later able to use on his or her own, to
the teacher planning for a specific context
or environment where the child will be sup-
ported by other children (Bodrova & Leong,
2007; Campione & Brown, 1990; Wood et
al., 1976). In Tools ofthe Mind classrooms,
teachers provide scaffolding in a variety of
formats and across various contexts not lim-
ited to academic tasks. For example, if a
child has difficulty engaging in play because
she cannot remember her role, the teacher
may add props and a special costume piece
to help the child remember who she is.
When applied to young children, scaf-
folding should focus on introducing chil-
dren to the earliest strategies and "tools"
even young children can use on their own.
Among these tools are private speech, exter-
TOOLS OF THE MIND 249
nal mediators, and symbolic representations
written or drawn by a child. According to Vy-
gotsky, private speech in young children is
a precursor to verbal thinking that serves as
a carrier of thought at the time when most
higher mental functions are not fully devel-
oped (Vygotsky, 1987). As it was later found
by Alexander Luria, (Luria, 1969) and then
confirmed by many studies within and out-
side Vygotskian framework, private speech
has another important function: it helps chil-
dren regulate their behaviors, both overt and
mental (Berk, 1992; Winsler, De Leon, Wal-
lace, Carlton, & Willson-Quayle, 2003). EX-
tema! mediatol"S are another example of the
first tools that are used by children. They in- .
elude tangible objects, pictures of the ob-
jects, and physical actions that children use
to ·gain control over their own behavior. Fi-
nally, children's early representations-sym-
bolic drawings (pictographs), scribbles, or
writing-were also found by the Vygotski-
ans to act as the first tools that children use
to support their memory (Luria, 1983). Tools
of tbe Mind curriculum expands children's
repertoire of tools ·and provides new op-
portunities for children to use their existing
tools. For example, prior to going to the cen-
ters children are asked to draw a picture of
where they will be and what they will play to
help them remember their play ideas.
Re-mediation is the core principie of
special education. Vygotsky believed that
children with disabilities follow a different
developmental path than their typically de-
veloping peers with their disability affecting
other areas of development in a complex
and systemic way. The major components
that determine the course of development
for a child with a disability include the pri-
mary disability (e.g., visual impairment or
restricted movements) and the social con-
text in which the child develops (Vygotsky,
1993). This social context would determine
the extent to which this child would be
considered (and will consider him/herself)
"disabled." As a result of the interaction be-
tween the primary disability and the social
context a secondary disability can develop.
While the child's primary disabilities affect
 ....··*
Level ·
Assisted 3
...••
.. ••
......+'

of Jo o writes her m.rte with supp:~rl

difficulty Joo oopi:!s hu nam.e independ.erd:ly.

Assisted 2 ~~' lndependent 3

Joo oopi:!s her m.rte with :ru.pp:~rl

Jo o tr<ees her nam.e independ.erd:ly

Assisted 1 lndependent 2

Joo tr<ees her nam.e w:il:h supporl

Jo o fm.ds her nam.e indepe:nderd:ly

lndependent 1

Beginning ofthe year End ofthe year

Figure l. The dynamics of scaffolding in the zone of proximal development.


primarily lower mental functions, secondary
disabilities are the distortions of higher men-
tal functions. The reason for the secondary
disabilities to develop is the fact that pri-
mary disabilities often prevent a child from
mastering cultural tools critical for engaging
in social interactions. In tum, limited social
interactions prevent the child from acquir-
ing even more cultural tools, which even-
tually leads to systemic distortions in this
child's mental functioning.
For Vygotsky and his students, the way
to engage higher mental functions ·to com-
pensate for the deficiencies in lower mental
functions is by using specific mental tools.
Since all mental tools work as mediators,
helping children gain control over their own
mental functions, replacing a set of tools that
do not work for a child with a disability with
another set can be called "remediation."
The best known example of such re-medi-
ation is teaching visually impaired children
to use Braille symbols instead of regular let-
ters. Vygotsky's students extended this ap-
proach to many other disabilities designit\g
many disability-specific tools as well as strat-
egies to teach these thus creating the sys-
tem of special education based on the ideas
of re-mediation. Tools of the Mind teachers
are trained in the use of re-mediation tech-
niques with children who have special ed-
ucational needs. For example, a child with
speech and language delay who cannot re-
member enough about a role to play it dur-
ing dramatic play may be offered a pictorial
sequence to help him remember what a fire-
fighter does.
Do:mains Addressed by the
Tools of the Mind Curriculu:m
Tools of the Mind is an integrated cur-
riculum with children acquiring foundation-
al competencies across basic domains and in
a variety of activities and interactions. Specif-
ic expectations for acquiring each of these
competencies are established based on the
current research on young children's leam-
TOOLS OF THE MIND 251
ing and development represented in the doc-
uments of professional organizations such as
National Council ofTeachers of Mathematics
(NCTM), lntemational Reading Association
(IRA), and National Association for the Edu-
cation of Young Children (NAEYC). Each of
the target competencies is addressed in three
major contexts: in focal activities, the target
concept or skill is systematically scaffolded
by the teacher using a variety of teaching
strategies; in embedded· activities, the same
skill or concept is introduced or practiced
in the. context of learning other concepts or
skills; in make-believe play, the nature of in-
teractions between children provides opti-.
mal context for children to practice newly
acquired concepts or skills at the highest lev-
el (fable 1 presents examples of Tools of the
Mind activities along with the competencies
they address).
The following is an e4ample ofhow these
three contexts are used in the Tools of the
Mind classrooms to promote the develop-
ment of self-regulation. In focal self-regulation
a~ivities, children are taught to use strategies
that have been empirically provento enhance
self-regulation, such as private speech (Berk,
1992; Luria, 1969; Vygotsky, 1987). Forexam-
ple, as children play a type of "Freeze" game
where they move when the music plays and
"freeze" when it stops in the position por-
trayed on a card held up by the teacher. Chil-
dren are encouraged to ta1k to themselves
saying "dance" or "stop" so that they can
have better control of their movements and
not get distracted by other children.
An example of an embedded self-regula-
tion activity is "Buddy Reading," whose pri-
mary focus is teaching children about print.
Children are to take tums "reading" to one
another. Initially, all want to "read"; none
want to listen. To support self-regulatory be-
haviors, the teacher uses visual representa-
tions, giving one child in each pair a draw-
ing of lips and the other child a drawing of
an ear, explaining that "ears don't talk; ears
listen." With the concrete drawing to refer
back to, amazingly, preschoolers with the
ear inhibit talking, wait their tum, and lis-
ten. Children then trade drawings and roles,
 Table l. Sample of Tools ojthe Mind Activities by Domain
Examples of Target Skills jn Self-Regulation
• Effortful Control: Ability to stop and think before you
act, delaying gratification, acting appropriately when
tempted to act inappropriately
• Selective and Sustained attention: controlling your
attention so that you are not distracted
• Emotion Regulation: ability to control feelings of ·
anxiety or anger.
Examples of Target Skills in Literacy
• Phonemic/Phonological Awareness: Recognizing
and manipulating phonemes and syllables within
spoken words, including rhymes.
• Understanding and using sound to symbol
correspondence
b; • Listening Comprehension: Being able to remember a
N storyline from a book, understanding the sequence of
actions, able to discuss elements ofthe story-what
happened, who is the story about, etc.
Example of Target Skills in Mathematics
• Numbers and Operations
• Geometry
Example ofTarget Skills in Social-Emotional
Development
• Prosocial Skills: Understanding/demonstrating
positive social behavior including playing with
others, helping, sharing, taking tums.
• Social Problem-Solving: The capacity to identify
problems, suggest altemative solutions, negotiate
with peers, and resolve conflicts with words.
Example Currlculum Components That Support the Development of Self-Regulation
• Executive Function training is the primary focus: Children plan to play a specific role during make-believe play and
must remember to act and talk like that person until it is time for that child to choose another role.
• Executive Functions training is embedded in a broader context: Children work in pairs and take tums reading and
listening. One child is given a card with lips that means that that child is to read. The other child has a card with
an ear which means that the child listens. The children practice effortful control.
Example Curriculum Components That Support the Development of Literacy
• Sound games based on Elkonin Boxes (Elkonin, ·1963) are used to teach children to identify and isolate specific
phonemes in a word (all phonemes in the word, first vs. last phorteme).
• Children practice sound to symbol correspondences by using Scaffolded Writing (Bodrova & Leong, 1995). The
writing technique is .modeled by the teacher and by mid-year, children begin to use it to identify the concept of
word, and practice sound to symbol correspondence to represent their own messages using letters to stand for
initial sounds in words. ·
• Specifically designed Read Aloud activities are designed to teach children how to remember the story as well as
think about aspects of the story, such as the events from different perspectives.
Example Curriculum Components That Support the Development of Mathematics
• Numbers and Operations: Activities are designed to give children practice in rote and meaningful counting in a
number of contexts (Making Collections, Numerals Game, Timeline calendar, Number Line Hop Scotch, Tallying).
• Geometry: Using Venger Drawing and Block Building activities, children work with two- and three-dimensional shapes,
create drawings and representations using shapes, solve problems, discuss relative positions, and use shape vocabulary.
Examples of Curriculum Components That Support Social-Emotional Development
• Prosocial Skills: Children practice prosocial beh;lviors in the 14 cooperative/paired activities where children work
together to leam (Question ofthe Week; Mystery Games-Word, Letter, Number, Pattem; Paired Freeze Game;
Share the News; Buddy Reading; Story Discussions; Making Collections; Numerals Game; Science Eyes; Attribute
Game; and Make-Believe Play).
• Social Problem-Solving: Children practice social problem-solving during Make-Believe Play as the problems arise,
children also practice pretend solutions to social problems that are contained in the storyline of the pretend play
scenarios. Children discuss potential problems with other children during Share the News.

thus learning how to enact the social norms
of taking tums and waiting one's tum.
As make-believe play is considered by
the Vygotskians to be the context most
beneficia! for developing self-regulation, at-
tention to play is one of the hallmarks of a
Tools oftheMind curriculum. In Tools class-
rooms, children spend a significant amount
of their day-around 60 minutes-playing
and play is scaffolded and organized in a par-
ticular way to ensure that children create
an imaginary situation, act out well-defined
roles and follow the rules built in the pre-
tend scenario. Children are taught to think
about their play scenario ahead of time and
to generate a "Play Plan" representing what
they are going to do with their play part-
ners. The teacher scaffolds children as they
verbalize and draw their plans encouraging
them to specify who will do what and what
will happen when. Teachers also provide
support as children are role-playing, helping
them to engage in other-regulation and self-
regulation when monitoring their own and
others' play actions in regards to the rules of
the play (Elkonin, 1978; Vygotsky, 1967).
Tools of the Mind Pedagogy:
Dynamic Assessment and Scaffolding
The pedagogy used by Tools ofthe Mind
teachers is based on the concept of individ-
ualized scaffolding within each child's Zone
of Proximal Development (ZPD) that the
teacher has determined through Dynamic
Assessment.
Dynamic Assessment
An essential part of instruction in the
Tools classroom is the teachers' use of Dy-
namic Assessment techniques to identify
whether or not children need more or less
assistance, and to identify the primary lan-
guage most likely to be the one most effec-
tive for support. Dynamic assessment "takes
into account the results of an intervention"
(Stemberg & Grigorenko, 2002) and is used
TOOLS OF THE MIND 253
to establish both the child's current level of
achievement anda child's potential ability to
attain higher levels. Dynamic assessment is
an altemative to a typical assessment where
only the child's current competencies are
measured and where any tester's interven-
tion in the éhild's performance on the test
immediately renders the test results invalid.
In contrast, dynamic assessment treats the
interactions between the child and the tes-
ter as a valuable source of information about
a child's ability. Whefuused in a classroom,
Dynamic Assessment consists of a series of
prompts and hints provided by the teacher
to probe children's skills and understandings
that are still "on the edge of emergence" (Vy-
gotsky, 1978). Skills and understandings that
children demonstrate as a result of minimal
assistance are considered closer to being de-
veloped and are then chosen as a focus of
immediate instruction.
Linking Assessment to Scaffolding
Teachers in the Tools classrooms use the
results of Dynamic Assessment to determine
whích scaffolding strategy works best with
each individual child or with a group of chil-
dren with like needs. All activities are multi-
level and by design contain scaffolds for the
developmental trajectory of the skill being
practiced. These scaffolds are described in
the Teacher Manual and taught to the teach-
ers during the training sessions. For exam-
ple, for Play Planning activity, teachers pro-
vide different scaffolding for children who
are only able to describe their plan orally
(scaffolding vocabulary development and
sentence structure), for those who can
represent their plan in a picture (scaffold-
ing symbolic representation), and for those
who begin to write down their plan using
letters (Figures 2 and 3). For this last cate-
gory of children, scaffolding is differentiated
even further to address children at different
points of their literacy acquisition: teachers
will work on one-to-one correspondence be-
tween written and spoken words with sorne
children and on the specific associations be-
tween letters and sounds with the others.
 Figure 2. Example of scaffolded
writing and dynamic assessment
during play planning. Sample J.
The child is unable to draw a pic-
ture of himself. The teacher has
circled P standing for Picture in
the box signifying that during
Dynamic Assessment, the teach-
er worked on the child trying to
represent his message on paper
through drawing. This plan was
made in September. The writing
is the teacher's. The child dic-
tated the message "Quiero pin-
tar." The teacher gave the child
a choice to have the message in
Spanish and English and the child
chose both. Hence, the teacher
also wrote "1 am going to paint."

p
M
1..
¿7

t.
Figure 3. Example of scaffolded writing and dynamic assessment during
play planning. Sample 2. The same child as in Sample 1 in May. The child
now draws representing what he will do in the center. The child uses Scaf-
folded Writing to represent "1 am going to the water table" with a line rep-
resentillg each word and invented spelling "1 M Go To F W T" written to-
tally independently. The writing under the lines is the teacher's. The letter
S circled in the box indicates that during Dynamic Assessment the teacher
worked on Sounds,-the ending sound in "water"-but the child did not
respond to scaffolding.

254

Accom.modations for Children
with Special Needs
Because of the emphasis on scaffold-
ing, Tools of the Mind activities are de-
signed to accommodate the entire range of
development in the preschool setting. Chil-
dren with special needs are given specific
support within .the activity so that they re-
main totally integrated in the classroom.
The training manual has a section that de-
scribes scaffolds designed to help the class-
room teacher to support a child within the
activity. These vary in the level of support
depending on the child's abilities. Teachers
also leam to use Dynamic Assessment to de-
termine whether the level of support can
be removed as the child is more and more
capable of doing the activity on his or her
own. In addition, many activities in Tools of
the Mind curriculum are éspecially benefi-
cia! for children with behavior problems be-
cause these are the very children who lack
self-regulation.
The following are sample scaffolding
strategies to use with children who experi-
ence difficulties writing their name:
A child wbo has difficulty writing
bis or her entire name:
l. If the child writes her name
correctly but in backward order,
the teacher places a green dot on
the line and under the first letter
of the name to act as an extemal
mediator for where to start.
2. If the child is missing only specific
letters or has a few letters in the
wrong order, the teacher
highlights those letters in another
color pen of the child's choosing
on the nametag. Th~ child is
encouraged to change pens when
writing to make those missing ,
letters very special.
3. If the child's name starts with a
letter that is difficult to write, such
as S or W, the teacher writes that
TOOLS OF THE MIND 255
letter and has the child write the
other letters.
A cbild who has difficulty copying bis
or ber name from a teacber's sample:
l. If a child has difficulty copying his
or her name when the sample is
placed far away or on the side, the
teacher places the nametag directly
above the child's name to write.
2. If a child has difficulty copying
severalletters of his or her name the
teacher works on one letter at a
time helping the child to use private
speech when forming a letter
(e.g., "A is up down and across").
In addition to the scaffolds designed to
help children with special needs, Tools of
tbe Mind curriculum also has procedural
and structural scaffolds designed to specif-
ically support children who do not speak
English. Procedural scaffolds are designed
to assist ELL students in engaging in spe-
cific Tools activities and in participating in
make-believe play whereas structural scaf-
folds are materials that ELL students can
use as special tools for self-scaffolding. An
example of structural supports is the Tools
alphabet chart designed so that the picture
cues for letters are words that start with the
same sound in both Spanish and English and
when sounds are English language specific,
they are identified. Although children are
not given direct instruction in this, the al-
phabet chart supports a faster intemaliza-
tion of the letter-sound correspondences.
Research Supporting
theProgram
Tools of the Mind has been evaluated
in a number of small scale research studies
ranging from quasiexperimental studies to
the ones using randomized design.
The first study was a quasiexperimental
study that compared preschool and kinder-
garten classrooms that implemented an ear-
256 EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES, VOL. 3, NO. 3
lier version of the currículum with matched
control classrooms (Bodrova & Leong, 2001;
Bodrova, Leong, & Semenov, 1997a). In the
kindergarten sample, 5 teachers implement-
ed Tools of the Mind and 5 teachers used
district literacy program. 218 children in
the Tools of the Mind classrooms and 208
in control classrooms were assessed in }an-
uary and then again in May on a battery of
instruments that included prereading and
writing measures. The students of the Tools
of the Mind classrooms demonstrated both
higher levels of performance and faster rates
of progress than the students of the control
classrooms. Significantly stronger growth
was documented in severa! pre-literacy
variables most closely associated in the lit-
erature with reading achievement in later
grades. Overall, children in the Tools of the
Mind classrooms performed at higher levels
on all measures.
Similar results were documented for a
smaller preschool sample (Bodrova & Le-
ong, 2001; Bodrova, Leong, & Semenov,
1997b). Children from 2 classrooms using
Tools ofthe Mind currículum (n =53) were
compared with children from control class-
rooms (n = 22) in}anuary and in May on sev-
era! early literacy measures. Children in the
Tools classrooms demonstrated statistically
stronger growth compared with children
in control classrooms in letter recognition;
sound-to-symbol correspondence; compre-
hension of a pattem in a text; understanding
of the symbolic function of a printed word;
and separation of a printed word into its
component letters.
Another quasiexperimental study (Bodro-
va & Leong, 2002) compared a matched sam-
ple of children in Tools of the Mind class-
rooms and in control classrooms in a Head
Start program and found significant differenc-
es in children's progress in literacy skills af-
ter one year in the program. Teachers from
15 classrooms were matched on level of edu-
cation and number of years of teaching and
were assigned to either the control or exper-
imental groups. A pretest of the 101 Tools
children and the 127 controls showed no sta-
tistical differences between the control and
experimental groups on number of English
Language Learners, entry levelliteracy scores,
SES and parent education. Measures used to
assess literacy included Early Reading Con-
cepts (Bodrova, Leong, Semenov, & Paynter,
2000) test-with such subtests as book han-
dling skills, the concept of a word, phono-
logical awareness, the alphabetic principie,
length of a word, distinguishing print from
pictures, and comprehension of the story-
Sound to Symbol Correspondence Test and Vi-
sual Letter Recognition test (Bodrova, Leong,
Semenov, & Paynter, 2000). Pretest scores in
the control and experimental groups were
not significantly different from each other on
any of the major assessments and their sub-
tests. On the post-test, significant advantages
for the children who re~eived the Tools of
the Mind currículum were found on compos-
ite test scores for Early Reading Concepts and
for seven of the nine Early Reading Concepts
subscales, as well as for tests of Letter Recog-
nition and Sound-Symbol correspondence. In
addition, greater levels of implementation of
the currículum in the classroom based on fi-
delity ratings were associated with better out-
comes for children.
A more recent version of the Tools ofthe
Mind currículum was evaluated by the Na-
tional Institute for Early Education Research
(NIEER) in a double-randomized experimen-
tal design study to evaluate its effectiveness
(Bamett et al., 2008). The control group ex-
perienced an established district-created
model described as a "balanced literacy cur-
rículum with themes." The study was con-
ducted in a school district with a high leve!
of poverty and a predominantly non-English
speaking population. Teachers and students
were randomly assigned to either treatment
or control classrooms. Children (88 Tools
and 122 controls) were compared on so-
cial behavior, language, and literacy growth.
The Tools currículum was found to improve
classroom quality and children's executive
functions as indicated by lower scores on
the problem behavior dimension of the So-
cial Skills Rating Scale. Although there were
gains in language development, these effects
were smaller and did not reach convention-

allevels of statistical significance. Teachers search (NIEER), which can be made avail-
trained in Tools scored higher in classroom
management, using classroom time produc-
tively and having a higher rate of appropri-
ate interactions that challenged children to
leam at the next level.
A quasiexperimental study (Diamond,
Barnett, Thompson, & Munroe, 2007) com-
pared Tools to control children on sever-
a! measures of executive/inhibitory con-
trol administered by computer. The sample
was built on the one used in the Barnett et
al. (2008) study reported above, but by the
time the executive function study occurred · l. Copple, C. (2003). Fostering young children's
the original control group had already been
placed in classrooms using Tools. The exec-
utive function study involved 100 Tools chil-
dren who were compared with 100 children
in the same district that were not in Tools
classroom:s. A stratified randomized sample
was used to control for teacher effects. Chil-
dren were assessed on the Dots and Flank-
er tests which have been used with chil-
dren ages 4 to adults (Rueda et al., 2004) to
test executive function. The results showed
that on the test trials requiring minimal ex-
ecutive function, children in the Tools and
control conditions performed the same. In
those conditions that taxed executive func-
tion, children in Tools did significantly bet-
ter than controls. Further analyses compar-
ing the child's scores on the two executive
function tests and the academic achieve-
ment measures collected on the Tools chil-
dren found that the higher the level of exec-
utive function, the higher the achievement
scores. In addition the results on the execu- ject of a number of randomized design trials;
tive function measures correlated with the
teachers ratings of behavior on the Social
Skills Rating scale (Gresham & Elliot, 1990). Results of these new studies will provide a
In 2001 United Nations Education, Sci-
entific, and Cultural Organization's (UNES-
CO) Intemational Bureau of Education
named Tools of the Mind an exemplary in-
novative educational program (http://www.
ibe. unesco.org/International/Databanks/
lnnodata/inograph.htm Monograph 7). Foot-
age showing the Tools of the Mind class-
room activities can be seen in the "Growing
and Leaming in Preschool" video produced
by National Institute for Early Education Re- aspect
TOOLS OF THE MIND 257
able to those wishing to view it or can be
viewed on the Intemet at the NIEER Web
site: www.nieer.org . A description of the
theoretical approach is presented in the
book "Tools of the Mind: Tbe Vygotskian
Approach to Early Childhood Education,"
(Merrill/Prentice-Hall, 2006), and more re-
cently in the chapter on Vygotskian ap-
proach in Rooparine and]ones' Approacbes
to Early Childhood Education (2008).
Tools of the Mind currículum was re-
viewed in the following books and articles:
representation, planning, and reflection: A fo-
cus in three current early childhood models.
Journal of Applied Developmental Psycholo-
gy, 24(6), 763-771.
2. Hyson, M., Copple, C., &Jones, J. (2006). Ear-
ly childhood development and education. In
K. A. Renninger, LE. Sigel, W. Damon, & R.
M. Lemer (Eds.), Handbook of cbild psychol-
ogy, 6th ed.: Vol. 4, Child psychology in prac-
tice (pp. 3-47). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
3. Hyson, M. (2008). Enthusiastic and engaged
learners: Approaches to learning in the early
childhood classroom. New York: Teacher
College Press and Washington, DC: NAEYC.
4. Zigler, E. F., & Bishop-Josef, S. J. (1996). The
cognitive child vs. the whole child: Lessons
from 40 years of Head Start. D. G. Singer, R.
Golinkoff, & K. Hirsh-Pasek (Eds.), Play =
learning: How play motivates and enhances
children :S cognitive and social-emotional
growth. NewYork: Oxford UniversityPress.
Tools of the Mind is currently the sub-
several more experimental and quasiexper-
imental studies are in the planning stages.
more accurate reflection of the current state
of the currículum that has changed signifi-
cantly since the time when the NIEER study
was conducted.
Professional Development
District capacity building is an important
of Tools training. Professional devel-
258 EARLY CIDLDHOOD SERV1CES, VOL. 3, NO. 3
opment is a two-year process. At the end of
two years, programs have a strong core of
teachers who understand and can apply the
theories that shape Tools of the Mind, with
a new set of teaching skills and instruction-
al strategies. The professional development
process includes the training of program
staff to provide ongoing coaching support
to teachers. This means that after the two
years programs are well equipped to con-
tinue successful implementation and navi-
gate the challenges they face without losing
ground and momentum. The Tools profes-
sional development process is designed to
have flexibility and responsiveness built in.
Tools staff collaborate with programs to de-
sign the details of each program's profes-
sional development plan.
Fidelity to the program is defined in two
ways. First, the teacher should implement
all of the activities with sufficient frequen-
cy during the day and during the week. Sec-
ond, the -teacher is also able to implement
the structure and flow of each activity and
do it in a way that is responsive and provides
appropriate individualized scaffolding that
flows from dynamic assessment. Tools activ-
ities require that teachers understand how
to modify, adjust, and individualize supports
based on children's needs in addition to be-
ing able to implement the activity.
Professional Development
for Teachers
For the first year of training, teachers par-
ticipate in a professional development pro-
gram that has three components: (a) work-
shops: 3 days of professional development
during the summer prior to the start of school,
1 day during the school day in October, 1 day
during the school year in January, and 1 day
during the school year in April/May (with the
project paying for substitutes) for each of the
first 2 years of the project, (b) coaching and
mentoring within each teacher's classroom,
and (e) electronic communications.
The workshop content rolls out based on
the developmental trajectory of the children
which means that activities introduced in lat-
er sessions become more and more complex
as children in the program grow and develop.
The workshops include the following topics:
introduction to the Vygotskian approach to
learning and development, learning trajec-
tories for self-regulation/executive function
development, cognitive and social develop-
ment, and the development of literacy; using
these learning trajectories within the Tools
of the Mind activities for observation, scaf-
folding activities, and other authentic assess-
ment strategies; supporting self-regulation
development in the classroom; supporting
the needs of special education students and
English language learners; and supporting
self-regulation and development of language,
literacy, and mathematics in the home. Proj-
ect staff, assisted by local coaches, lead all
professional development, including hands-
on experiences and interactions with peers
around common issues. Discussions of Tools
best-practice videos make explicit how such
practice exemplifies research-based princi-
pies and how each activity supports self-reg-
ulated learning and behavior.
Year 2 training involves three workshops
timed for the beginning, middle and end of
the year. The emphasis in these workshops is
on individualization and scaffolding, a deep-
er understanding of the theory behind the
activities, and helping teachers to strengthen
implementation and fidelity to the program.
As in the previous year, coaches provide
support between workshops and continue
to work with teachers .. Most programs find
that they no longer require the coach to vis-
it with the same degree of frequency, usu-
ally dropping to once a month visits unless
a teacher is having difficulty with a specific
child or needs mqre support to reach fidelity.
Programs continue to have meetings once a
month with teachers, but the focus changes
to a study of theory and learning concepts on
which the program is based.
Training for the program's special needs
team is either integrated into the workshop
or a specialized training is held for them to
discuss the issues related to inclusion, work-
ing within the Tools classroom, and meeting
children's Individual Education Plans using

Tools activities. Currently all Tools class-
rooms are inclusion classrooins with 30%
being reverse inclusion.
Tec~calAss~tance
in the Classroom.
Coaching and mentoring is delivered in
three ways. First, there is a mechanism for
teachers ·who wish to gain further support
on their own through a website with videos
of best practice and through videotaping
themselves and reviewing the videotape us-
ing a self-coaching questionnaire. This helps
the teachers to identify and reflect on impor-
tant aspects of their implementation.
Second, Tools trains a local coach who
meets with the teachers every 2 to 3 weeks
observing and working with the teachers in
their rooms or holding a "Tool Shed" meet-
ing for the community of teachers imple-
menting the program. When the coaches
visit the classroom they help teachers with
implementation issues or questions these
teachers might have. Special materials and
procedures are designed to support teacher-
coach interactions. These include an imple-
mentation questionnaire sent out after train-
ings and activities such as a teacher/coach
communication folder that allows the teach-
ers to jot down notes about things they wish
to discuss at the ne:x:t coaching visit.
Third, Tools trainers visit the classrooms ·
with the coach. This serves to help the coach
as well as help the teachers by providing an
expert that can help them address the needs
of specific children who are not responding
to the curriculum and to help teachers gain
a better understanding of how to implement
the curriculum in their specific classroom.
Professional Developm.ent
forCoaches
In Year 1, coaches participate in the
same professional development as the teach-
ers. They also participate in the equivalent
of two full days of professional development
on coaching in Tools. After each workshop,
TOOLS OF THE MIND 259
there is a 2-hour coach's workshop. After
classroom visits with the Tools trainer, the
coach and the trainer sit down for an hour
debriefing and goal setting for each teach-
er. The trainer and coach work as a team
to decide how to best meet the needs of a
particular teacher. lf coaches are not prac-
ticing teachers at the time of training, they
are required to have a "model" classroom in
which they implement all of the activities
just as the teachers do. They are asked to
videotape their implementation of specific
focal activities and send it with reflection to.
the Tools trainer for discussion.
There is a Coach's Manual that describes
the Tools approach to coaching and helps the
coach scaffold teachers. The manual details
typical problems in implementation, how to
help teachers deal with the affective issues
in changing practices, and specific ways that
the coach can help the teacher. Coaches are
trained to use the communication portfolio
and the classroom survey observation instru-
ment particular to Tools to identify those ar-
eas of concem that the teacher may have and
to identify areas in which there is greater or
less fidelity to the program.
Support for Ad~trators
In addition to working with coaches,
Tools provides support for administrators.
There is an administrator's manual to help
the administrator quickly assess progress
toward Tools goals for teachers and coach-
es and to troubleshoot common problems
that occur that an administrator can solve.
There is a section that answers questions
and concems that administrators have, such
as the alignment of Tools activities with oth-
er assessment instruments that might be re-
quired by outside agencies or the alignment
with state and other program standards.
Mec~m.s for Maintaining Fidelity
After the Training Is Com.pleted
Once training is completed, teachers
can apply for Tools ofthe Mind certification.
260 EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES, VOL. 3, NO. 3
They have to submit a portfolio which in-
eludes the answers to written questions, evi-
dence of being able to do Dynamic Assess-
ment, and a video of their practice. These
are evaluated and then teachers and coaches
can be certified. The certification lasts for 3
years and can be renewed .. Once certified,
teachers can attend workshops being held
in their area free of charge to keep up their
skills. They can attend speciallectures given
once a year by Tools of the Mind staff. They
have access to any new materials being used
in classrooms.
Specific Materials Needed
for ltnplem.entation
Tools of the Mind is designed to be lay-
ered on top of a classroom that meets ba-
sic NAEYC accreditation guidelines or
Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-
Revised (ECERS-R: Harms, Clifford, & Cryer,
1998) classroom guidelines. All Tools ma-
terials not a part of a traditionaVstandard
early childhood classroom are provided on
four CDs. These contain master copies that
teachers duplicate for the classroom activi-
ties. There are additional classroom materi-
als that relate to play (e.g., a big box that can
be turned into a car) or are used in specific
Tools of the Mind activities (e.g., wipe-off
markers for Graphic Practice) that amount
to $100 for the year.
Guidance for Related Services
Parent Program
Tools does not have a formal parent pro-
gram but provides newsletters, home activi-
ties, and suggestions as well as all materials
for parent meetings and parent conferenc-
es. Because it is implemented in so many
different types of programs, sorne of which
have their own parent programs, Tools fa-
cllitates the program' s developing their own
approach for parents. There is a section of
the Tools Web page devoted to parents. The
goal of the parent involvement activities is
(1) to help parents to understand the Tools
program and the philosophy that underlies
it and (2) to help parents support the devel-
opment of self-regulation at home.
Support for Transitions
There is a specific set of activities de-
signed to help children prepare for kinder-
garten as well as a set of suggested activities
and materials to help facllitate the transition
by famlliarizing elementary school adminis-
trators and kindergarten teachers about the
Tools program and to how to access Tools
children's skills. The classroom activities are
designed to famlliarize children with typical
kindergarten rules and the learning activities
in kindergarten classrooms. The administra-
tor information is designed to explain the
Tools program, the scope and sequence of
skills covered during the preschool program
and their relationship to state and national
standards, an explanation ofthe child's port-
folio, and a description of typical kindergar-
ten activities that would access Tools child's
skills. Suggestions for open houses and oth-
er activities to help elementary school staff
observe in the classr<;>om also are provided.
The preschool program is given the same
information with suggestions of how the
preschool can facllitate the transition and a
timeline for implementation.
Conclusion
Following the Vygotskian view of edu-
cation as "arming children with tools" we
continue to revise and expand the "tool kit"
Tools of the Mind curriculum offers pre-
school- and kindergarten-aged children to
better match their varying social situations
of development. lt resulted in the develop-
ment of new strategies and instructional
scaffolds to be used in the classrooms with
English Language Leamers and with children

with special needs. 1bis increased number
of instructional strategies along with the in-
creased focus on individualization resulted
in turn in substantial changes in the depth
and frequency of professional development
for teachers and coaches. lt is hoped that
this new round of studies focusing on the
updated version of Tools will shed further
light on how self-regulation can be taught
and its relationship to the development of
school readiness.
Address Correspondence to: Elena
Bodrova, Ph.D., McREL, 4601 DTC Blvd.,
Suite 500, Denver, Colorado 80237; Tel:
303-632-5610; Fax: 303-337-3005; E-mail:
ebodrova@mcrel.org
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