Teaching Strategies GOLD is an online observational assessment for children from birth through third grade, and its ratings are made against research-based objectives — Teaching Strategies cites 38 of them.
Teachers rate the evidence they observe against those objectives, and checkpoint reports show which children are below, at or above widely held expectations.
Here is what we can confirm about the objectives, how rating works, and how checkpoint timing gets set.
The objective areas: 38 objectives, birth through third grade
The objectives are the yardstick GOLD ratings are measured against.
Teaching Strategies describes its assessment platform as an online observational assessment for children from birth through third grade, rated against research-based objectives — and cites 38 of them.
A teacher's ratings in the platform are ratings against that set.
The count is what our research confirms: the wording of each objective, and the way the set groups into areas, are not in our research notes.
The authoritative list — the wording of each objective and the way the set is organized — lives in your program's GOLD account and in Teaching Strategies' own materials.
Treat a secondhand summary, including a printable PDF of the objectives passed around a program, as something to check against that source rather than a substitute for it.
Searches for "Creative Curriculum objectives" point at the same publisher.
Teaching Strategies describes The Creative Curriculum for Preschool as a curriculum for 3- and 4-year-olds built on play-based studies — a curriculum, not the assessment.
How a curriculum's studies map onto specific GOLD objectives is a program-and-vendor question our research does not answer; the classroom-side overview of the platform itself is on our Teaching Strategies GOLD page.
How to rate against the objectives
GOLD is observational by design: Teaching Strategies describes it as an online observational assessment, so a rating starts with what a child actually did or said rather than with a scripted test session.
You record the observation, match it to an objective, and rate it.
At checkpoint time, the ratings roll up: Teaching Strategies' product page says checkpoint reports show which children are performing below, at, or above widely held expectations.
That below/at/above language is the reporting frame the vendor confirms — it is the vocabulary your ratings feed.
What the pages we read do not settle is the rating scale itself: how many rating levels sit under each objective, and the exact wording they use, were not verified in our research.
Your program's GOLD training and the platform's own guidance are the reference for how finely you are expected to rate — and for any conventions your director adds on top.
When a posting names GOLD, this is the skill behind it: watching with intent, then turning what you saw into a rating another adult can rely on.
Rating is one part of the wider role — the daycare teacher career guide covers the rest of the job, from age groups to getting hired.
Checkpoint timing
A checkpoint is where rating becomes reporting.
The ratings you have recorded against the objectives are finalized, and the platform produces checkpoint reports that show which children are performing below, at, or above widely held expectations.
On when checkpoints fall, the honest answer is that we could not confirm it.
The Teaching Strategies product page we read does not list checkpoint dates, and our research records checkpoint periods and dates as not verified, with programs setting their own checkpoint dates.
The number of windows a program runs and the dates themselves are not something this page can give you.
What that means in practice: your program's calendar is the one your documentation answers to, and the ratings have to be finished for the reports to exist.
Pacing your observation notes across the rating period — rather than reconstructing from memory in the final days of a window — is the anecdotal records habit that makes the deadline survivable.
Checkpoint dates are program dates
A Teaching Strategies GOLD cheat sheet
The short version, for the tab you keep open during your first weeks with the platform:
| Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
| What GOLD is | An online observational assessment from Teaching Strategies — its own product-page description |
| Who it covers | Children from birth through third grade |
| What it rates against | 38 research-based objectives, by Teaching Strategies' count |
| Where the objective wording lives | Your program's GOLD account and Teaching Strategies' materials — our research confirms the count, not each objective's wording |
| How rating works | Observations matched to objectives and rated; checkpoint reports show who is below, at, or above widely held expectations |
| When checkpoints happen | Our research did not verify checkpoint periods or dates; its note is that programs set their own — ask your program |
One caution if you are assembling a cheat sheet of your own: a list of the 38 objectives that does not come from Teaching Strategies or your program's GOLD account is not something our research can vouch for — the vendor page confirms the number, not the wording of each objective.
If your program hands you a printed objectives reference, that is the one to keep at hand.
Interviewing at a program that uses GOLD?
Asking how the checkpoint calendar is set, and what documentation the director expects in the platform before each window closes, is a fair question — and the answer tells you how the center treats assessment work.
When you are ready to look, daycare teacher jobs on ChildcareHires show what centers near you are hiring for.