Assessment
Assessment items ask you to select, interpret, and act on evidence of young children's learning - and to recognize what a given measure can and cannot tell you.
Types and purposes
- Screening: brief, flags children who may need further evaluation.
- Diagnostic: detailed, pinpoints specific skills before instruction.
- Formative: ongoing during learning, drives next steps (observations, questioning, work samples).
- Summative: end of unit or year, judges achievement.
- Progress monitoring: repeated measures showing whether an intervention is working.
Early childhood tools
Anecdotal records, running records, checklists, rating scales, work sampling, portfolios, and photo documentation are authentic because they capture behavior in familiar settings. Norm-referenced tests compare a child to peers; criterion-referenced measures compare performance to a defined skill standard.
Technical vocabulary
Validity means the test measures what it claims. Reliability means consistent results across time and raters. Bias means items or procedures disadvantage a group for reasons unrelated to the construct. High reliability does not guarantee validity.
Worked example
In May, a kindergarten teacher needs each child's letter-sound knowledge. Best approach: an individually administered letter-sound inventory recorded on a criterion-referenced sheet - it isolates the skill, works with nonwriters, and yields instructionally useful data. A group paper-and-pencil test confounds the skill with fine-motor and test-taking ability.
Traps
Swapping validity and reliability; basing placement or diagnosis on a single screening score; treating formative evidence as a grade; writing observation notes that are judgmental rather than objective, dated, and specific.