The Pudding

The results are in!  After nine months of instructing and assessing in various forms, I have comprehensive data on my students’ growth in literacy.  How did they do?  Each child achieved an average of 80 percent or better on a wide range of literacy assessments!

Because pre-k children often don’t show you everything they know or can do with one type of assessment, I used two types of assessments and incorporated all the objectives from each into my calculations.  One type were performance-based assessments that include anecdotes and work samples collected while the children play and interact throughout the day.  I supplemented these with standardized assessments administered by me to each child to test skills like letter identification and rhyming words.

Overall, 10 children out of 14 achieved 100 percent on the standardized assessments and 9 achieved 90 percent or higher on the performance-based assessments.  I’m especially impressed by the individual gains made by the children, such as:

• Awana, who often struggled to move forward in letter identification and listening skills, in the end achieved 85 percent on the standardized assessments and 83 percent on the performance-based assessments.
• Tanasia, who started off the year too shy to even come to school the first day, achieved 100 percent mastery on the standardized assessments and 88 percent on the performance-based assessments.

I realize some in the early childhood community are skeptical of the extent to which standardized assessments are developmentally appropriate.  I agree that such tests could potentially produce inaccurate results, given the young age of my students.  I try to reduce the potential for inaccuracies by identifying the assessments as “fun games to play with the teacher,” which can help the children feel more at ease and less stressed by the experience.  I ask students if they would like to play with me, and many times they jump at the chance to spend some one-on-one time with the teacher, especially since they get to press the “easy” button (thanks, Staples) when they finish.  I remember Tyrique expressing sadness that he could not play our “game” a second time.

Consistency between the scores given by the two types of assessments suggests that these techniques can help produce more reliable results from the standardized variety.  The results also show general consistency between the two kinds of assessments.

Standardized assessments are necessary in my case because the kindergarten teachers who will have my students next year use them and not performance-based assessments.  This begs the question, of course, why are kindergarten teachers not using performance-based assessments?  I think they should use some combination of the two, at a minimum, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their students’ strengths and needs.

I am very proud of my students’ growth and know that the combined efforts of Ms. Morrison, Ms. Bimba, each child’s family, and me contributed to their success.

Snowed Under

No, I’m not digging out from an anomalous May snowstorm, but I do feel quite overwhelmed by end-of-the-year paperwork.  Like other teachers, I have mostly assessments and annual school wide forms to complete this time of year.  My pre-k program has additional sets of the former handed down by the district and the state.

The state mandates the use of ELAS, a performance-based assessment system focusing on six language arts/literacy expectations. Normally, I would not voice concerns about ELAS; despite the tedious paperwork involved, it has been very helpful as a tool for targeting the strengths and weaknesses of my students.  My concern is this: the collection period for ELAS ends in June, but my support person from the Office of Early Childhood has insisted we hand in the paperwork nearly a month earlier. Why? My guess is because other pre-k sites have been delinquent in handing in paperwork on time in the past.

The problem with this creative revision of the ELAS timetable is threefold:

1.    This time of year many pre-k students start to demonstrate remarkable academic progress, especially those who entered pre-k younger than the other students.  If we stop collecting anecdotes and work samples from those children in mid-May (to ensure we can finish the paperwork before Memorial Day), we may fail to capture this growth and, thereby, provide the state, our schools, and parents with inaccurate results.

2.    We are also responsible for a social skill checklist and the district’s experimental assessment forms (requiring the collection of anecdotes covering over 30 expectations) in the same time frame.  Now, I am all for an Amazing Race-style challenge for teachers to balance three assessment systems, simultaneously, while also instructing students.  But, if we are really in early childhood for the children and not just to satisfy the sadistic cravings of paperwork hungry bureaucrats, we should think realistically about how our demands on teachers affect their ability to perform in the classroom.

3.    I have always handed in paperwork on time along with additional individualized action plans for my students.  If the folks at the Office of Early Childhood were as organized and well managed as they should be, they would put additional pressure only on those teachers who need it.  In a sense, they should differentiate their approach to employees in the same way that they require teachers to differentiate our approach for the varying needs of our students.

Well, I have to go now…because this paperwork is not going to fill out itself.

Not all Assessments are Created Equal

Recent debate over Head Start’s National Reporting System got me thinking about the challenges of assessing what three and four year olds know and what they have learned from their pre-k teachers. Early Stories sums up the NRS debate with some great examples.

Not being a Head Start teacher myself, I have never administered the NRS.  I am required, however, to use the Brigance screening in the beginning of each school year to identify developmental delays.  While some of the sections are helpful (e.g., following two and three step directions; fine motor and gross motor evaluations), many of the questions seem to measure a child’s exposure to certain words and objects rather than development.  For example, in one section Brigance asks the child to identify a picture of a tractor.  I personally fail to see how the inability of a four year old from the inner city to identify a tractor indicates any sort of delay in her development.  The test also requires children to identify several body parts including the jaw and ankle, a stretch for any four year old in my opinion. 

I think my ideal pre-k assessment tool would breakdown the four areas of child development (i.e., social/emotional; physical; cognitive; and language) and be able to measure each of those components regardless of a child’s background.  Unlike the Brigance screening, such an assessment may have to be partially or entirely performance-based since a child may not reveal the full extent of his problem-solving or language skills in a single one-to-one interaction at the start of the year.  A teacher can, however, observe a child within the context of play with materials and areas the child has chosen. 

Creative Curriculum’s assessment system is entirely performance-based, uses the “developmental continuum” to assess all four areas of development, and is both the most comprehensive and least biased assessment I have seen.  While it can be quite helpful in providing information about your students, it is not necessarily the most accessible data for kindergarten teachers to use the following year, so I do think the more traditional assessments (e.g., letter identification, book handling checklist) have a role to play. 

Curriculum Connections

Noticeable growth in pre-k is all about making meaningful connections. The connections happen when a child links decisions about sharing to consequences, a letter she sees on a label to a friend’s name, or a discussion about hibernation to the cave she built with blocks. Children’s ability to link pieces of information reveals their progress in a wide range of social and academic skills.

The approach and underlying principles of a pre-k curriculum can significantly influence a child’s ability to form such connections and, in turn, the quality of pre-k programs.  While many pre-k curricula seem similar because of a common emphasis on “learning through play,” the structure and focus of those activities can dramatically differ. 

During my first year teaching pre-k, my school used Curiosity Corner, a highly scripted program with weekly themes and daily activities laid out in extensive detail. Everything from theme-related art activities to the specific questions to ask children during story time was handed to me on Day One.

How closely was I supposed to follow the script?  I distinctly remember an instance when my resource teacher from the Office of Early Childhood first applauded my open-ended and higher-level thinking questions used in a whole group discussion and then instructed me to keep the manual in front of me to make sure I was following along.  Well, I wasn’t following along, but that’s because the direction of my students’ comments diverged from the script, which was written without a true understanding of their interests and backgrounds.  Imagine that!

It turns out my resource teacher was often just as torn as I was about “following suit” and meeting the needs of actual children.  She would say when that door closes, its your classroom, but at the same time ensure I fulfilled all of the curricula’s criteria when supervisors from Curiosity Corner came in. 

We now use Creative Curriculum, an unscripted program focusing on building meaningful relationships between students, teachers, teaching assistants, and family members.  We focus on developing student interest driven activities and a structured but flexible classroom environment responsive to the diverse needs of children.  I, of course, have to plan more, but my ideas come from observations and reflections of my students’ skill deficits, strengths, learning styles, and interests.  Their connections to the material and teaching strategies produce that noticeable growth I mentioned.

For example, this week Kevin and I were in the Dramatic Play area when I showed him an airplane ticket he could use during our topic study on transportation:

Kevin: Wait a second, Ms. Pappas…the airplane can’t go straight up.  It first needs to roll on the ground really fast and then fly up, like the geese in the book.  He had to run real fast and then fly up too! 

Ms. Pappas: Great connection to the book about birds.  We read that book a long time ago.  Give yourself a connection kiss.

The movements we first used to compliment our initial discussions about geese and airplanes were clearly evident in the hand gestures Kevin used as he made his point.  And his interest in both areas helped invest him in the thought process needed to build on prior knowledge to generate new ideas. 

I am curious to hear from other teachers, administrators, and parents about the successes and challenges of various curricula. 

Which Came First, the Assessment or the Children?

Ravon: Ms. Pappas, look, I found the word calcium on my milk.

Ms. Pappas: Wow!  Great job, Ravon.  How do you know it says calcium?

Ravon: Because I see the letter “C” with the other words like “cat” and “car.”

At this moment, I am thinking three things:

1. I am so proud of Ravon;
2. How fast can I write down exactly what he said on my clipboard, so I can use this exchange as evidence of his growth in early literacy?; and
3. How will I ever balance active teacher-student engagement with anecdotal note taking if the school district requires me to collect anecdotes on another 50 skills for still another assessment system?

While I appreciate the value of performance-based assessments in helping me target individual student needs, I also sometimes wonder if a drive to make assessment as comprehensive and in-depth as possible comes at the expense of quality teacher-student interaction.  I am not sure if state and district policymakers realize what their mandates look like on a day-to-day basis at the school level.

In my school, we now have four types of assessment, soon to be joined by a fifth:

1. The Early Learning Assessment System (ELAS) – a state mandated performance-based literacy assessment charting student growth in six areas.  Reported three times per year.
2. A district mandated checklist charting growth in the areas of social emotional, gross motor, and fine motor development.  Recorded twice per year.
3. A district mandated beginning of the year Brigance Screening used mainly to identify any developmental delays.
4. Math checklists from the district mandated math curriculum charting growth in various skill areas. Recorded three times per year (recommended but not required).

Recently, the pre-k teachers in the district had a workshop on Creative Curriculum’s comprehensive performance-based assessment, which covers 50 skills and is recorded three times per year.  I personally like Creative Curriculum’s assessment the most and hope the district will replace other assessments with it.  All signs, however, suggest the district will make it supplemental and, therefore, probably more cumbersome than helpful, despite its potential to hone in on a wide range of student needs.

I would love to hear about teachers’ and administrators’ experiences in other states and school districts - just post a comment and we can compare and discuss.

Not Your Grandmother's Scantron: Assessments in a Pre-k Classroom

The first years of school are far too critical to waste time on ineffective strategies. Accountability in pre-kindergarten programs is therefore vital to the academic and social growth of our youngest learners.

The word "accountability" may conjure images of standardized exams and hours of tedious test prep—not exactly what we would deem appropriate for a four year old. So what do assessments and accountability look like in a pre-k classroom? Well, despite the obvious attraction of handing a multiple choice test with fifty rows of neatly curved "a to e" oval bubbles to a four year old, the reality is that assessment in pre-k just isn't that easy. Yet that doesn't mean accountability in pre-k is or has to be non-existent.

Four year olds don't always show you what they know. Their moods, interests, and developmental stage can affect their performance on a day to day basis. And if they do demonstrate growth in a particular skill area, they certainly do not all do it in the same way like drawing a picture or responding to questions orally. But if you watch and interact with them everyday, all day, while taking anecdotes and collecting work samples, you can have the data needed to chart growth, design properly differentiated lessons that meet the needs of all learners, and hold programs accountable. My students' words, actions, drawings, and singing are my "a, b, c, d, and e" answers.

Take Tanasia, for example. For the first two months of school she spent the majority of her day either bawling and asking, over and over, "When is my mommy coming?" or in a state of total silence. Our one-on-one interactions often incited desperate pleas for her mother. Then, in early October I began to observe her making connections between the print around her and her friends' names during choice time. That is when I knew not only that she was starting to adjust and build relationships, but that she was picking up on basic literacy skills. She would point to letters on labels in Dramatic Play and say to her friend Karen, "Look, it's the K like in your name." If I confronted her with a barrage of letter identification questions, she would clam up and start to cry. I began to address more and more of those skills during choice time where she felt increasingly comfortable.

One of my students last year struggled with letter identification but masterfully used movement to act out stories or create his own. My extensive anecdotal notes reflected these weaknesses and strengths. I consequently decided to address the latter with the former by working with him one-on-one to create movements for each letter. We waddled like penguins for the letter "P," made elephant noises with a long trunk for the letter "E," and so on. I recently met up with him down the hall in his kindergarten class, at which point he pointed out a letter and made the movement we had devised.

My recent analysis of the anecdotal notes revealed that Kevin (aka the "anti-sharer") is a visual learner. Stay tuned for a post focusing on how my aide and I teach the fairness of sharing using a visual approach that puts him in charge.

Learning from Each Other

Partnership and cooperation between teachers and parents are so critical to pre-k. What happens at home impacts events at school and vice versa. Even though I spend months interacting with my students, recording their progress, and collecting their work samples, I need parental involvement to fully understand each child’s interests and needs. And I need parents’ trust if I’m going to get the information that, as David’s mother put it, will help their children go “sky high and have a better life.”

For example, last week our school held a parent-teacher conference night. But well before that week, I laid the groundwork to make sure my students’ parents came. I share information about their child's progress 2-3 times per week, either orally for those parents who drop off and pick up their children or through informal notes to those parents who work during school hours. I also reinforce that they are always welcome in my classroom by inviting them to special events like “Family Show and Tell” and our “Giving Thanks Party.” The use of both formal written invitations and constant oral reminders to anyone and everyone in the family we see helps boost attendance and demonstrate my sincere desire to invest each family member in their child’s education. Then, during conferences, I use an open dialogue format, as opposed to a more overbearing and arrogant top-down approach with me talking at them. Rather than just delivering and explaining the report card, I use an individualized action plan to guide discussion of the child’s strengths, target areas, and ways both families and I can move the child forward.

This last time, thirteen out of fourteen parents or guardians showed up for conferences. Several parents remarked that their child does things like rhyming and retelling stories at home -- activities I’d not seen these children do in school. This information is invaluable, since I now know the issue is not a skill deficit but a matter of not feeling comfortable or motivated to show these skills in the classroom. Now I can design teaching strategies that more accurately reflect each child’s needs. Thank you, families!

I think results like these prove that parents will make time to be involved if teachers make time for them and create strong home-school connections.