In Massachusetts, the third grade MCAS administered every spring is the first statewide assessment of children’s educational progress. By then, as research clearly demonstrates, students who lag in reading will have a hard time ever catching up. Developmentally appropriate assessments of younger children would not only give us a snapshot of statewide progress but would also allow schools and programs to tailor instruction so children don’t fall behind in the first place.
Washington state is piloting just such a program this school year. The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) will assess four general areas: literacy/language; social and emotional development; physical development; and cognitive/numeracy. Of the 70,000 children who began kindergarten in Washington state last month, 3,000 kindergartners in 120 districts are participating in the pilot. Once the pilot is evaluated, officials will decide whether to implement it statewide.
The purpose of the pilot program, according to the Washington Department of Early Learning is “to have families, kindergarten teachers, and early learning providers compare communication processes and assessment tools so that a Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is designed in statewide collaboration.” The pilot includes time for providers of early education and kindergarten teachers to meet and share information about children making the transition to kindergarten.
Here in Massachusetts, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has received a grant to develop assessments for kindergarten to second grade. In addition, the law establishing the Department of Early Education and Care in 2005 requires the state to develop a kindergarten readiness tool.
A number of other states assess kindergarten readiness, and the WaKIDS website includes links to several of them. A Child Trends brief — “A Review of School Readiness Practices in the States: Early Learning Guidelines and Assessments” – gives an overview of states’ policies.
Eye on Early Education focuses on the twin goals of ensuring that Massachusetts children have access to high-quality early education and become proficient readers by the end of third grade.
The fact that we still have enough children transitioning into and out of kindergarten without a sense of what their ‘school readiness’ challenges is of course unacceptable. This is not rocket science, teachers at both the preschool and kindergarten level need to be evaluative and communicative around these issues. The receiving programs need to actively engage with the information that is passed on.
I question the monetary and time expenses of this kind of evaluative tool however.
Why not look at the children who arrive at kindergarten unprepared and with no warning and see where they are coming from and pump up those preschool programs with staff that understands what readiness really means, and is ready to teach that to other teachers and quantify it for receiving schools and parents? Same goes for kindergarten.
More tools, more time, more papers showing what we already know won’t really do the trick. Why are we still having kindergarten teachers and pre-school teachers who aren’t already doing this?
I suspect at the pre-school level it is that we don’t pay enough to hire teachers who are comfortable, or encouraged, or trained, or experienced enough to be continually informally assessing their students. They are not respected enough to be listened to when the present problems. There are not enough programs around to meet the needs of those preschoolers who really do need help.
Receiving public school special needs departments are quite skilled at excluding 3 and 4 year olds from the help that they need to function as well as they can once they head through the kindergarten door. I know this from decades on the preschool front lines, knocking at the doors, requesting services, going through the channels, and being turned away. Of course years later such kids do get services, often too late.
I know your frustration. But another test or series of tests only begins to make you feel like you are doing something. It most likely is not the thing that will tip the balance in favor of kids who have more need of their kindergarten teacher, or support staff.
What we really need is more conversations with actual preschool teachers in all settings and find out what we already know, and what we don’t about kindergarten readiness. And for those of us who do know, what are the road blocks that are in our way when we approach the receiving public schools. This is much more complex than another set of tests.
I agree that a formal kindergarten assessment is not, in itself, going to be the answer. However, what it does accomplish is to provide a standard set of measures, which preschool and kindergarten teachers can then use to communicate about their students. In addition, having a statewide early assessment tool would help to create more public dialogue (and hopefully more resources, training, etc.). School readiness is a multi-faceted issue, but I believe early, developmentally appropriate assessments can be a vehicle to making substantive changes.