What does it mean to teach? The Merriam-Webster dictionary states one definition as “to cause to know something.” Educators do this, they impart knowledge on students every day in the classroom, but how does the teacher know that the student really “knows something?” The answer to that is through assessment. Teachers must assess their students.
Assessments can be informal or formal and should be both formative and summative (NAEYC, 2020). Teachers use purposeful assessment in an ongoing way. They create a system for collecting information on each student and in multiple domains or academic areas (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Teachers know about the goals and standards that children should achieve during specific developmental phases or age ranges and assessment is how they know that children are reaching them. Assessing children’s efforts toward mastering these developmental goals is what drives decisions regarding the curriculum, teachers help children learn skills, tasks, and information that helps them get to the next level of understanding. Once the teacher has set the goals and imparted the knowledge, information, and experiences, assessment for understanding occurs.
Assessment should include using universally designed allowances (John Hopkins School of Education, Center for Technology in Education, 2015). Universally designed allowances ensure that the procedures, materials, and settings used to assess are appropriate for all children (John Hopkins School of Education, Center for Technology in Education, 2015). No child’s progress should ever be determined from one assessment, in fact, more than one type of assessment should be used to record children’s abilities and achievements (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009).
The information gained by conducting purposeful assessment helps to make decisions for individual children as well as the group of children. Purposeful assessment helps teachers see the strengths of children and to understand areas that need strengthening. This understanding can also help to identify children with learning disabilities that might require additional intervention with specialists.
Choosing Proper Assessments
Consider the scenarios below about a preschool aged child. What developmentally appropriate assessments would you choose to support the development of the children described?
Edward is four years and five months old (4.5). His birthday is August 8th. Edward’s biological mother was a regular user of cocaine and Edward was born three months premature. He is being raised by his aunt who gained custody of him shortly after his birth. Edward’s biological father has not been involved in Edward’s life.
Edward attends a half-day preschool in a mixed age classroom with other children ages 3-5 years. His aunt works full time but has flexible hours so that she is able to participate in dropping off and picking Edward up from preschool and is invested in his schooling. Edward’s aunt is interested in the teacher’s ideas and willing to share information about Edward’s development. The aunt’s mother, who Edward refers to as Grandma, helps with Edward’s care while his aunt works. He is an active boy who prefers outdoor play activity such as climbing and running. Indoors, he builds with blocks, pretends to cook in the play kitchen area, and often chooses to paint at the easel on the large paper, using whatever colors are available to him at the given time.
During small group activities, Edward is less focused and tends to disrupt the group by getting out of his chair, getting a drink of water or going over to the book or puzzle area. As he continues through his last year of preschool, there has been discussion of whether Edward will be ready to go to kindergarten when school begins in September. Children are able to enter kindergarten at age five but if Edward had been a full term baby, his birthday would have been in November and he would have missed the cut-off for entry into kindergarten for the current year.
What assessments might be used to determine Edward’s developmental trajectory?
Now, consider this scenario of another child. What developmentally appropriate assessments might be used to determine whether this child needs additional intervention services?
Frank is 6.5 years old. He just entered kindergarten. He spent one year in preschool, which he entered at age 5.5. Throughout his preschool year, his speech was telegraphic in nature, which means he used short sentences with generally two or only a few words. He seemed happy in preschool as he participated in working puzzles, building with blocks, being creative in art, building with small manipulatives, and listening to stories. He interacted with and got along well with peers. He frequently spent time in the music area selecting songs on CD, putting them into the CD player, which he knew how to operate and using instruments and movement to accompany the songs he was listening to. When the teacher presented large posters with poems, Frank listened and participated with any gestures that went with the poems. During free-play time when the poems were available to look at, Frank could also be seen running his finger under the words of the poem but would be heard only saying the last word in each line.
When Frank entered kindergarten, the teacher observed a more obstinate child, unwilling to participate in classroom activities. Frank demonstrated many on target skills in preschool but, how will the teacher know where he is academically. The one part of the daily schedule he enjoyed was music time when the teacher played her guitar and introduced songs and concepts through song. When the teacher realized that Frank responded so well to music, she begin to sing instructions for other activities, which he responded to more favorably. Even though Frank is still using telegraphic speech he follows directions when the teacher sings them to him.
What assessment would help to understand Frank’s language and intellectual abilities and to prepare a plan to help him progress through his kindergarten year?
As you think about the assessment tools that you might use in each of the scenarios, keep in mind developmentally appropriate assessment practices which include using formal and informal assessments as well as formative and summative assessments.
References
"CDSA preschool photos" by Seattle City Council is marked under CC0 1.0. To view the
terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/cc0/1.0/
Copple, C. & Bredekamp, S. (Eds.) (2009) Developmentally appropriate practice in early
childhood programs serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, D.C.:
National Association for the Education of Young Children
John Hopkins School of Education, Center for Technology in Education (2015). Universally
designed allowances in kindergarten readiness assessment: Supporting all children.
[PowerPoint slides].
"Music Therapy" by midiman is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license,
visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). (2020).
Developmentally appropriate practice. Retrieved from
statement_0.pdfBottom of Form
“teach.” Merriam-Webster.com. 2021 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/teach
(20 January 2021).