High-Quality Adult-Child Interaction
Observers look for teachers to provide four positive comments for every one of these types of adult directions or corrections.
What is a negative or directive comment? (The 4:1 positive-to-negative ratio).
A teacher asks a child to leave circle time because they won't sit still. This common practice actually violates this core Pyramid philosophy.
What is inclusion (or exclusionary discipline/exclusion)?
Wiggling is normal development. Instead of removing the child, we must modify the environment by offering a fidget tool, a visual boundary, or a wiggly seat option.
Observers look for teachers to use books, puppets, or feeling faces to directly teach children how to identify these in themselves and others.
What are emotions or feelings?
Observers track this systemic response, where teachers look past the behavior itself to figure out what the child is trying to communicate.
What is determining the function of the behavior?
When giving directions, an observer checks that a teacher avoids vague asks like "be good" and instead delivers instructions that meet these three criteria: stated positively, tells the child exactly what to do, and consists of fewer than five words.
What are clear, concise, and positive directions?
If a child wanders or stands disengaged at a center for more than a minute, observers check to see if you use this strategy to help them choose an activity.
What is offering choices or scaffolding their entry into play?
This is the ideal time to teach a child a replacement social skill or emotional regulation tool.
What is when the child is calm and regulated?
You cannot teach a drowning person to swim. Never try to teach a new skill during a meltdown; wait until the child is fully calm and receptive.
To score high on peer interactions, teachers must actively prompt children to do this with their friends during play, rather than playing for them.
What is share, take turns, or help a peer?
This specific visual strategy is observed when a teacher gives a child a concrete timeline for when a highly preferred activity will follow a non-preferred task.
What is a First-Then board (or visual schedule)?
Following a behavior incident, teachers immediately track environmental triggers by documenting these three components.
What are Antecedents, Behaviors, and Consequences (ABC data)?
Purpose:
This action is performed by every adult at some point during the observation period.
What is providing instruction?
Both TPOT and TIPTOS look for teachers to explicitly teach children how to use these specific classroom interest areas before letting them play independently.
What are centers or play zones?
When a child gets angry, observers check if the teacher guides them to a designated calm space to practice this physiological strategy.
What is taking deep breaths? (e.g., "Smell the flower, blow out the candle").
An observer watches to ensure a teacher avoids this counterproductive "Red Flag" practice, which mistakenly reinforces escape-motivated behavior by removing a disruptive child from an activity.
This specific practice is marked as a "Red Flag" if a teacher leaves an infant crying for more than three minutes without doing this.
What is offering comfort or responding to their distress?
Reviewing expectations with children happens during these two types of group settings.
Instead of saying "Good job," observers look for you to use this exact 2-part verbal strategy that names the action and its positive impact.
What is descriptive feedback/positive reinforcement? (e.g., "Thank you for pushing in your chair, it keeps our walking path safe").
To avoid a power struggle during non-compliance, a teacher offers this to give the child autonomy while still meeting the goal.
What is a controlled choice (or choice between two acceptable options)?
Rather than isolating emotion lessons to circle time, an observer looks for teachers to take this actionable step during naturally occurring routines: pointing out characters in books, peers, or themselves, and explicitly connecting a physical cue to an internal state.
Observers check if teachers actively teach this 4-step process using visuals when children argue over toys or space.
What is the solution-kit/problem-solving process?
understanding the problem, devising a plan, carrying out the plan, and looking back to check the results
Observers expect to see you carrying or wearing these portable tools to help redirect children who struggle to follow verbal directions.
What are visual schedule cards or mini rule cards?
When a child throws a toy in frustration, observers look for you to immediately do this before addressing the rule violation.
What is labeling or validating their emotion? (e.g., "I see you are feeling frustrated").
During a high-stress peer conflict (e.g., fighting over a toy), an observer looks for the teacher to withhold the final solution and instead physically hand the children a visual tool, actively prompting them to choose a compromise independently.
When a child hesitates to comply with a routine, an observer watches to see if the teacher uses this specific scaffolding strategy: first pointing to a visual schedule, then modeling the action themselves, and finally providing minimal physical guidance only if needed.
What is the least-to-most prompting hierarchy?