Assessments in Kindergarten

During the 11 year that I taught kindergarten, I spent countless hours checking off the letters, sounds, sight word, numbers, etc. that each of my students recognized, meeting with them one-on-one to assess them. It was a tedious process, and when i calculated the number of items i was checking off for uppercase and lowercase letters and sounds, and 50 sight words, for 20 students, it was over 3,000. No wonder i dreaded assessment! Then, after recording the data, I had to go back through and make sense of it. This prompted me to create a tool to assist me, which would replace the paper check-off lists, cut my assessment time down, and allow me to analyze and use the data. ESGI (Educational Software for Guiding Instruction) was born. I would love feedback from any K-1 teachers who use paper to check off letter recognition, sight words, phonic components, phonemic awareness, etc. You can check out ESGI at http://intro.esgisoftware.com or via the video on my profile. I am working to improve this web-based tool in my mission to free K-1 teachers from the cumbersome task of 1-on-1 assessment! Please, let me know what you think!

Tags: assessment, kindergarten

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Permalink Reply by Greg Gorman on February 13, 2009 at 11:33pm

yes, simple, lots of room for improvement. you have an impressive resume, which language is next? Looks like you add a lot of value to your district, and have customized applications to fit your needs. good to see. many districts i have seen have IT departments that are bogged down, putting out fires, and rarely have time to be proactive.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Gorman on February 14, 2009 at 8:22am

Where do you find the time!?!? I saw Negroponte speak at ISTE a few years ago - he was amazing.

I appreciate the offer, and will, at some point, move to open source. I have more ideas for programs, and would love to get them started and then be able to collaborate on development. You never know, maybe we'll get this universal courseware platform going

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Permalink Reply by Greg Gorman on February 14, 2009 at 10:19am

Wow, you have your hands full. It's amazing you can work so much, sleep so little, and still have the patience to nurture a family with 3 kids. You certainly are committed to your job, and not just the technology part, but also the education aspect. Thats great

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Permalink Reply by Mark Pennington on June 29, 2009 at 4:40pm

I worked in kinder classes for five years as a reading specialist. I frequently assessed students or taught the class while the teacher assessed students. In response, I developed six whole class (or small group) alphabetic and phonemic awareness assessments that save an immense amount of time. With a little care, modeling, and practice, the diagnostic/formative results are just as valid/reliable as the time and life-consuming one-on-ones. Of course, there's always Johnny, who will have to be diagnosed one-on-one. Of course, he's reading Shakespeare already.

Try the assessments and see what you think... and get some sleep. Free phonemic awareness assessments at http://penningtonpublishing.com/assessments/Phonemic%20Awareness%20...

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Permalink Reply by Ariel Conlon on November 7, 2012 at 9:49am

I am a Kindergarten teacher in my 11th year at this grade level. You are correct when you say the one-on-one checking of letters, sounds, sight words, numbers, etc. is a very tedious and cumbersome process, especially in the beginning of the school year. Every year, I always have to beg my family to help me get all of the initial assessments done in a timely manner. In my district, we have no paras, so I am left to try to assess 23/24 5 year-olds, while maintaining crowd control on my own-a very difficult task in August! I feel as though the way that we assess the students is not as effective and efficient as it should be. You are also correct when you speak of the paperwork you try to make sense of. Using a new computer-based system like the one you showed in your video sounds like a wonderful, efficient idea! I especially like how the common areas of concern are graphed and displayed for the educator's use. This makes so much sense, I've just never had the time to sort through and determine what common areas of strengths or weaknesses my class had with over 3,000 bits of information. If I had this data available for my use, it would be used to help drive my instruction right off the bat when the school-year begins instead of spending 2 weeks trying to assess all students and then interpret the large amounts information.
My school has recently adopted the STAR Early Literacy computer-based assessment for Kindergarten. However, we do not find the test reliable or valid for several reasons. First, in order to be successful on the assessment, a Kindergartener must have working knowledge of how a computer and mouse works, and many of them don’t. Especially students who are at-risk and have no prior experience with a computer. Also, at times they are unable to hear and don’t tell an adult until the assessment is over-if at all. At the beginning of the year, many young students are just too shy or intimidated to speak up for themselves. We have also found the reports to be too overwhelming and unclear. Assessments should be used to drive your teaching and this assessment does not. When we used to use DIBELS as an assessment, I knew exactly what I needed to teach and who needed interventions or enrichment.
I am eager to sign up for your free trial this week. I will let you know how it works for me and my class. Thanks so much!