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Archive for the ‘Assessments’ Category

Measuring Success in Multilingual Preschool Programs

Posted in Assessments, English language learners, Pre-kindergarten on April 30, 2013 | 1 Comment »

dll pic

Photo: Caroline Silber for Strategies for Children

Preschool classrooms are growing more multilingual. Many young children in early education settings can be found speaking English, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, and other languages. Some are born in the United States. Many others come to the country from Mexico and Asia, the Middle East and Central and South America.

From 1990 to 2008, the number of young children with immigrant parents doubled, according to a report from the Urban Institute.

As they grow, dual language learners face academic risks. They can have lower scores on cognitive and language assessments. And they can fall behind in their academic work before the end of elementary school, according to a report from the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition.

Individual children’s outcomes are commonly assessed, but there are fewer assessments of educational settings – even though children’s progress is “inextricably linked” with their daily learning environments, Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Nonie Lesaux writes in “Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success,” a Strategies for Children report

What’s also needed, Lesaux notes, is “a better understanding of the quality of the learning environments and relationships we provide for our children, and the impact on their outcomes.” (more…)

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Pre-K Success in Georgia

Posted in Assessments, Pre-kindergarten on April 29, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Georgia pic

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

Georgia stands with New Jersey, Oklahoma and Texas – all states where children enrolled in publicly funded preschool programs have shown strong progress, according to recent research.

In the 2011-2012 school year, Georgia served 84,000 children in a universal program that is open to all four year-olds regardless of their family incomes. Pre-k settings include schools, private providers, and blended Head Start/Georgia’s Pre‐k classrooms.  The program ran for 160 days at 6.5 hours per day. (The program had been 180 days, but was subject to budget cuts. It is expected to run for 180 days in the 2013-2014 school year.) Lead teachers are required to have a BA in early childhood education or a related field, and programs must meet minimum salary requirements based on credentials.

The program’s results: “Children exhibited significant growth during their pre‐k year across all domains of learning, including language and literacy skills, math skills, general knowledge and behavioral skills.” Gains were especially large in phonological awareness, a key predictor of later reading success. Children made progress “at a greater rate during the time they participated in Georgia’s Pre‐K Program than would be expected for normal developmental growth.” This according to a report that was commissioned by the state and written by researchers from the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (more…)

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The April EEC Board Meeting

Posted in Assessments, Dept. of Early Education and Care, MA state budget, Pre-kindergarten on April 22, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Massachusetts sealHere is a summary of highlights from the Board of Early Education and Care’s meeting on April 9, 2013:

Board Business

Tom Weber was confirmed as acting commissioner of the Department of Early Education and Care as of March 11, 2013.

In his report, Weber said that most of his work has been in three areas:

-  relationship-building with the department’s staff

- advocacy around the fiscal year 2014 budget and meeting with the Legislature to discuss the scope of the department’s work

- assessing and improving the department’s policy efforts and boosting staff members’ ability to take on leadership roles.

Weber also said that $1.8 million from the Income/Eligible caseload account was used to create openings for 739 children. (Spending more than this in fiscal year 2013 funds would have created a deficit in fiscal year 2014.)

The department has made progress in responding to Secretary Malone’s direction that EEC initiate a top-to-bottom review of its Internal Control Plan as soon as it practically can, seeking advice and guidance from the state Comptroller’s Office.  (more…)

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Memos: Assessments for Early Literacy

Posted in Assessments, Reading proficiency on January 10, 2013 | 2 Comments »

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

Research tells us that preschoolers’ vocabulary predicts their ability to understand what they read in third grade. Yet in Massachusetts, the third grade MCAS is the first statewide assessment of student progress. The commonwealth is moving toward adopting developmentally appropriate kindergarten entry assessments that, among other things, will measure children’s language development and emerging literacy. Indeed, kindergarten entry assessments are a key part of the federal Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge; Massachusetts was awarded a four-year $50 million Early Learning Challenge grant in December 2011.

Three recently released memos from Harvard’s Lead for Literacy series look at the importance of using developmentally appropriate tools to assess children’s language and literacy skills, starting in early childhood. Results of assessments should be used to inform instruction and help determine the need for early intervention and other services.  “Neglecting to regularly assess young children’s literacy development can do more harm than good,” states one memo. “In fact, assessment-driven remediation and enrichment activities look similar in the early years and are often enjoyed by young children!” (See “The Importance of Early Literacy Assessment.”)

The memo recommends a comprehensive approach to assessing young children’s language development that includes pediatricians and health centers, as well as educators. The results should be “used to initiate conversations about healthy language development and encourage language-building practices,” the memo states, and, when appropriate, “to link children and families with additional services.” (more…)

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NAEP Links Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension

Posted in Assessments, Language development, Reading proficiency on December 10, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

With research finding vocabulary is a key predictor of reading comprehension, the National Assessment of Educational Progress – aka the nation’s report card – has, since 2009, expanded its methods of assessing students’ vocabulary  to include more testing of students’ ability to understand words in context. According to a recently released analysis, fourth graders with the strongest vocabularies scored highest in reading on the 2011 NAEP. Similar results held for eighth graders.

With research finding that 3-year-olds from low-income families, on average, have vocabularies roughly half as large as those of their more affluent peers, the NAEP results remind us of the importance of starting early to build children’s language skills.

Overall, one third of the nation’s fourth graders scored proficient or above in reading on the 2011 NAEP. Massachusetts posted the nation’s best performance, but only half of fourth graders scored proficient or above in reading.

“At its most fundamental level, reading comprehension (the ability to understand what one has read) requires knowing the meaning of words,” a NAEP summary states. “To comprehend what they read, students must integrate their knowledge or sense of words as they are used in particular passages to understand the overall topic or theme. Understanding key words that support the main idea or theme and details that contribute shades of meaning further enhance comprehension to create a richer experience. This association is reflected in the results that show that on average students who performed well on the vocabulary questions also performed well in reading comprehension.”

Here are some results from the 2011 NAEP: (more…)

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Community College Lab School Trains Early Educators

Posted in Assessments, Early educators, Pre-kindergarten, Professional development & preparation, Standards and curriculum on November 26, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Charlene Mara

WORCESTER – It’s hokey pokey time at the Children’s School in  Quinsigamond Community College’s Child Study Center. Twenty preschoolers stand in a circle and put their right hands in and shake them all about. The adults in the room include three classroom teachers and four college students of early education. The students’ professor is observing through a window in the corridor when Charlene Mara, faculty coordinator of Quinsigamond’s early childhood program, and I stop by to watch.

The Quinsigamond program is a lab school, where students apply what they learn in their college classroom upstairs to the early education classroom downstairs. For one semester, they observe veteran early educators, who serve as mentors and model the best practices that the college students studied. In the second semester, students practice what they learned. At day’s end, the early educators join the students and faculty to discuss how they applied theories of child development and classroom management to their practice. The program, Mara tells me, is one of the few associate degree lab school programs, intertwining the academic with experience-based practice. It is also accredited by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.

On the day that I visit, the topic is group time. How did the early educators successfully transition children to circle time? How did they use strategic positioning? How did they introduce a new topic? What were children learning in circle time? How did the early educators guide the children from sitting to standing for hokey pokey? How does the hokey pokey meet the pre-kindergarten curriculum standards that Massachusetts aligned with the Common Core State Standards?

“This is the glue,” Mara says. “When we’re working on something with the students upstairs in the college classroom, that’s what the focus is down here in the Children’s School. (more…)

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Minnesota Kindergarten Entry Assessment Predicts Third Grade Performance

Posted in Assessments, K-12, Research on May 31, 2012 | 1 Comment »

Photo: Kate Samp for Strategies for Children

The more ready Minnesota children are to succeed in kindergarten, the better they tend to perform on the state’s assessments of reading and math in third grade, according to a recent study “Assessing the Validity of Minnesota School Readiness Indicators.”

Using 32 indicators in five domains, Minnesota aims to have all children enter kindergarten school-ready by 2020. Since 2002, it has used the Minnesota Work Sampling System Kindergarten Entry Developmental Checklist (MWSS) on a sample of 5-10% of entering kindergartners to assess children’s progress in personal and social development, language and literacy, mathematical thinking, the arts, and physical development and health. Of the 25 states that collect school readiness data, Minnesota is the only one that does not collect information on all or almost all incoming kindergartners, the report notes.

After controlling for income, race/ethnicity, parent education, gender, and special education status in kindergarten, the Minnesota report finds that children who were proficient on the kindergarten entry assessment were two to three times more likely to score proficient or higher on the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment in reading and math in third grade than children who were not proficient on the MWSS in kindergarten.

The MWSS indicators are aligned with the Minnesota Early Childhood Indicators or Progress and with the state’s K-12 Academic Standards.

“Kindergarten teachers are trained, either in-person (one full day of training) or on-line (approximately three hours), to assess children’s proficiency using the MWSS,” the report states. “During the first eight weeks of school kindergarteners are observed by their teachers in the classroom environment. At the end of the eight weeks, teachers rate children as ‘Proficient,’ ‘In Process’ or ‘Not Yet’ on each indicator…. Using a new overall proficiency standard of attainment of 75% or more of the total points across all 32 items, 53% of kindergartners demonstrated school-ready proficiency [in 2009]. This and other proficiency rates are unchanged since 2007.”

One of the report’s recommendations is to collect school-readiness data on all incoming kindergartners in Minnesota, instead of the current small sample. “Collecting data on all children,” the report states, “would allow the identification of children who are not school ready and the specific problem domain(s) in order to more specifically target academic interventions.”

(Post script. Massachusetts is in the process of implementing a pilot Massachusetts Kindergarten Entry Assessment in two dozen districts.)

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Moving from “Children at Risk” to “Children at Promise”

Posted in Assessments, Early educators, Early Learning Challenge, Federal, Funding on May 30, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

Photo: Alessandra Hartkopf for Strategies for Children

For years, “children at risk” have been the buzzwords used for describing vulnerable children. Why not think instead of “children at promise” – of assets rather than deficits? This was the theme of last week’s Seventh Annual Community Dialogue on Early Education and Care at Wheelock College – “Moving From At Risk to At Promise: Transforming Policies, Practices and Communities to Support Young Children and Their Families.”

“We went from ‘A Nation at Risk’ [1983 report – ‘A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform’ – of the National Commission on Excellence in Education] to children at risk,” said J. Andres Ramirez of Rhode Island College in his opening address. “The rhetoric changed from a whole nation to pinpointing specific students… I think we should think about children placed at risk. We are trying to change that to children placed at promise. What will it really take?”

Part of the answer, Ramirez said, comes with aligning “mandated curriculum and standards” with “students’ needs, rights and background” and with the accumulation of educators’ experience or the “thought collective of the profession.”

If Ramirez set the intellectual tone for the day, then Helen Blank, director of leadership and public policy at the National Women’s Law Center, set the political tone. She issued a strong call to action after tracing the history of efforts to expand access to high-quality early education and care. As promising as the federal Early Learning Challenge is, she said, it is not enough. (Read Helen Blank’s speech.)

“This is an exciting yet challenging time for young children and early childhood with the growing discussion about the need to lay a strong foundation in the early years. Yet with all this talk in this extraordinarily hostile economic and political climate, we walk a tightrope in terms of sustaining forward momentum while avoiding the danger of promising to do more with less,” Blank said. (more…)

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At the April EEC Board Meeting

Posted in Assessments, Dept. of Early Education and Care, QRIS on April 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

The Massachusetts Board of Early Education and Care voted at its April meeting to revise child care subsidy regulations, effective July 1. Roughly 56,000 children currently receive state financial assistance for early education and care.

The vote came a year after the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) released proposed amendments for public comment. The regulations approved last week encompass both substantive and technical changes to subsidy regulations and reflect feedback received over the past year. (See the PowerPoint presentation EEC Regulation Reform: Subsidy Revisions and Final Draft.) One substantive change requires children benefiting from state subsidies to regularly attend their early education and care programs or risk termination. Another changes the methodology for determining the eligibility of self-employed parents. The EEC board, in its April 10 vote, approved the proposed regulation revisions, with two amendments. The first amendment stipulated how parents whose children receive child care subsidies may include study time in calculating their eligibility. The second amendment called for EEC Commissioner Sherri Killins to return to the board within 90 days with a management plan for the subsidy appeal process.

The board also heard a presentation — Alignment of Inclusive Preschool Learning Environments with the Quality Rating and Improvement System ( QRIS) – about state-funded grants designed to support creating inclusive environments for preschool children with disabilities. Proposed conditions for fiscal year 2013 (more…)

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In Quotes

Posted in Assessments, Quotes on April 6, 2012 | 1 Comment »

“There are legitimate reasons why assessing preschool children has been an unpopular idea. When assessment systems result in high-stress experiences for our children or purposeless additions to professionals’ plates, we can all be concerned. However, by neglecting to regularly evaluate our young children’s language and early reading skills, we have done more harm than good. We need to put our efforts into selecting multiple measures and interpreting their results in appropriate ways to promote student success. It is how assessments are used—and with whom and how the results are interpreted and used—that can be positive or negative, accurate or inaccurate. When used in accurate and ethical ways, assessments can be the critical difference between a child receiving the help he needs or struggling in reading.”

Nonie Lesaux, Harvard Graduate School of Education,”Turning the Page: Refocusing Massachusetts for Reading Success,” 2010

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