One of the major things that stood out to me while looking through the WSS and Teaching Strategies website, is that the assessments have a “not yet” section for each developmental area/objective. I think that this is something important to have and makes it more user/parent friendly. This indicates that the child is simply not exhibiting the objective yet, but their skills are emerging. This is something that an educator can support a child with in order to strengthen and improve these skills. Whereas the screener testing examples have an “OK” or “Potential Delay” scoring. Using the term “Potential Delay” on a single assessment isn’t something that I would feel comfortable with as an educator. The article Moving Forward With Kindergarten Assessment Efforts states that “ It is important, however, to understand that a single assessment instrument cannot, and should not, be used to meet all of the child, instructional, policy, programmatic, and accountability purposes a state or program may have.” (Council of Chief state school officers, 2011). I don’t think that a single assessment is an adequate amount of evidence to say that a child has a potential delay. I believe that there needs to be more documented evidence and observation over a period of time before the possibility of a developmental delay should be brought to a parent’s attention.
The screeners seem to be a less detailed assessment that screen for any red flags in the developmental areas. This can possibly be quicker to do but I like how the WSS and Teaching Strategies are more interactive and provide in depth info/evidence that supports the child’s assessment. WSS uses developmental checklists that identify performance indicators. Educators create summary reports to support the checklist findings. This is something that I like about this assessment. However, I prefer how the Teaching Strategies assessment gives you a colored bar chart visual that displays the different steps within the developmental area. It allows parents and educators to see where the child is at and how to scaffold their learning for continuous progress. As the Teaching Strategies video mentions, the program “streamlines” the data and connects it all together, making it easier for an educator to present the information to families and plan for progress.
Lately I have heard a lot more discussion and emphasis on kindergarten readiness. It’s difficult to define what “readiness” looks like in an individual because there are so many different perspectives and expectations to what this entails. “Kindergarten readiness is a complex idea linked to multiple meanings and factors. Chronological age, developmental stage, specific academic and social skills, and home/school connections are associated with readiness.” (Hatcher, Nuner, Paulsel, 2012) With this being said, how does an educator prepare a child to be ready for kindergarten? What one person views as readiness, another may disagree. The assessments look at different areas such as social emotional, motor, language etc. I think that it’s important for educators to help children grow through all the developmental areas. A lot of areas will intertwine within one another. I feel like most parents deem readiness as being able to perform academic skills such as letter/number identification, reading, writing etc. This is where it’s beneficial for educators to show families the overall progress that their child has made and how it will continue to positively affect their growth. Educators can use observations, pictures, videos and children’s work to display how their child is growing/learning efficiently. Development is deeper than just how a child can perform on a piece of paper. Not to say that the academic skills aren’t important for them to know, because it is. I think it’s crucial to find a good balance, individualize curriculum to meet each child’s needs and to always remember what’s developmentally appropriate for them.
Hi Courtney!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your blog. It was great to read and understand your opinion on this week's materials. Just like you, I prefer how Working Sampling System and Teaching Strategies Gold is an online tool. With society today, we use a lot of things digital. Even children are learning how to use digital tools. I believe that with the digital tool that Teaching Strategies Gold offers where you create a developmental profile for each child, it can help the teachers and the parents stay on the same page with how their child is developing.
I agree on how you said readiness can mean many different things. In a way, it is somewhat of a controversial topic because everyone has different views. Is a child ever 100% ready for kindergarten? I don't think so. I don't think that anyone is ever ready for something in life. For example, when women say that they're not ready to have children yet and majority of women who had children say that you're never really ready. I believe in being prepared for what is coming. As educators, the best we can do is help children to be prepared for kindergarten.
Can't wait to hear more from you this semester!
Hi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteThis is my first time visiting your blog, so I am looking forward to seeing more postings from you.
You point out something very significant in the first sentence of your blog post for this week, when you talk about the “not yet” section in regard to the assessment tools. This is definitely something important to have as a part of the screening process because it does not only make it more user friendly but gives the parents a more positive way of saying that their child has not reached a certain point in their development without making it seem like there is a problem or direct concern. It’s important in everything we do that we do not limit a child in a way that makes it seem like they are not performing to the standard of everyone else. They are CHILDREN! It is abnormal if every single child were to be able to reach every milestone on perfect timing with their peers.
You make a very valid point in saying that there needs to be more documented evidence and observation over a period of time in order to bring a developmental delay to a parent, and in the day in age we are living in, society loves nothing more than to say it’s not okay to diagnose a child with a delay without the proper evidence and documentation. I myself have been through many situations where I misjudged a child because of lack of observation and lack of evidence and really, I had to take a long, hard look at myself and determine why I took it upon myself to play that role when really, I had no sufficient evidence to anything I wanted to argue about a child.
I thank you for bringing to my attention that we need to be more aware, with and without assessment tools.
Hi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think the "not yet" option is a really good option to include in our assessments, or even something like "not yet observed." We have to keep in mind that children likely behave differently at school than they do at home, than they might in the community, etc., and therefore we cannot assume that every assessment we do at school will tell the whole picture. This demonstrates the importance of working closely with families as we do assessments, something that will come up later in the semester, as what each side witnesses can be quite different from the other side's perspective.
And I also agree with your assessment of readiness, that it is often thought of as academic learning, but should be much more than that. One of the challenges about assessments is this push towards readiness, but I want to challenge this notion. For this class, we don't want to think about assessment as a function of readiness in general (because truly, is a child ever not ready for today?), but as a function of fine tuning our teaching, our curriculum, and our understanding of the children we're currently working with. If all of those are aligned, then the academic skills will likely follow. However, if we're only eying assessments as a function of readiness, we will miss out on lots of important teaching moments for the child who is in our care right now, who is ready for today, who is looking for curriculum to be meaningful, relevant and engaging. But how do we do that? What do you think? Thanks!