Presented in the first of 4 related documents on the Home-Oriented Preschool Education (HOPE) Program is an overview of the procedures for developing a competency based curriculum for normal preschool Appalachian children up to 6-years-old. Discussed are the investigation's procedural components: rationale; philosophical framework (including assumptions and a learning theory matrix); a literature search on terminal behaviors; and evaluations by individuals from the National Panel of Child Development Scholars, the Appalachian Panel of Child Development Scholars, and 950 Appalachian parents of preschool children. Reported are the panels' general agreement on the competencies' empirical support. More than half of the document is comprised of a bibliography and seven appendixes, including lists of panel members, numbers by region of parent evaluators, the prime competency list, and the rating instrument. (CL)