IELS 2025 Framework

Assessment or survey framework

The study covers three main domains with various sub-domains: 

Foundational learning

  • Emergent literacy
    • listening comprehension
    • vocabulary
    • phonological awareness
  • Emergent numeracy
    • numbers and counting
    • working with numbers
    • measurement
    • shape
    • space pattern

 

Executive function

  • Working memory - a fundamental cognitive skill that allows information storage for current use and manipulation of stored information for completion of a given task
  • Mental flexibility - the ability to react quickly to changing stimuli or shift between rules according to changing circumstances
  • Inhibition - a skill to overcome strong tendencies to react in a particular way to a certain rule and instead react in a manner contrary to the habitual reaction

 

Social-emotional skills

  • Empathy
    • emotion identification
    • cognitive attribution
  • Trust - interpersonal trust and the capacity to establish trusting relationships
  • Prosocial and non-disruptive behavior
    • prosocial behavior (express and comply)
    • non-disruptive behavior
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Contextual or background framework

Individual characteristics of each child

  • Date of birth
  • Exact age of each child at the time of the assessment
  • Gender
  • Whether the child has faced any issues or difficulties
    • low birthweight or premature birth conditions
    • hearing difficulties
    • vision difficulties
    • mobility difficulties
    • learning difficulties
    • social, emotional, or behavioral difficulties

 

Family background

  • Household composition
  • Immigration background
  • Language(s) spoken at home
  • Parents’ age
  • Family’s socio-economic status, based on
    • parents’ education levels
    • parental employment situation
    • household income

 

Children’s home learning environment

  • Parents’ frequency of engaging in informal activities with their children such as
    • reading books
    • imaginative play
    • music and painting
    • activities focusing more intentionally on numeracy, language, and literacy
  • Children’s participation in activities outside the home, such as in
    • sports
    • other community-based groups
  • Access to children’s books
  • Access to digital devices
    • child’s access to digital devices
    • frequency of screen time

 

Participation in ECEC

  • Child’s previous ECEC attendance, if applicable, including
    • type of care
    • duration and intensity
  • Other forms of care previously received, if applicable
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Other sources
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