Many 5-year-olds are likely preparing for the end of their preschool days. They get to attend what some like to call “the big kid school” this fall.
Area school districts are also getting ready for these students as the Ohio Department of Education is launching a new kindergarten readiness assessment.
The hope is that teachers and parents can help support children in their first year of school.
Measuring Readiness
In the past, incoming kindergarten students in public schools took the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment — Literacy (KRA-L).
According to the Ohio Department of Education, the KRA-L was the first required standardized literacy screening done for all children entering kindergarten (effective in 2007).
Children participated in a variety of activities recognizing capital and lowercase letters, rhyming words, and answering why and when questions.
Stephanie Siddens, the director of the Office of Early Learning and School Readiness at the Ohio Department of Education, says the new assessment will be an expansion of the KRA-L.
“We have Ohio Early Learning and Developmental Standards, which focus on not just the academic, but also the social, emotion and physical,” she says. “It’s a really good way to (evaluate) individual strengths.”
The assessment can be given at the beginning of the school year through Nov. 1 for all kindergarteners, which is a longer timeframe than the previous version.
“It will have six components: social skills (including social and emotional development, and approaches toward learning), mathematics, science, social studies, language and literacy, and well-being and motor development,” according to the Ohio Department of Education.
“We are ensuring it’s developmentally appropriate for young children,” Siddens says.
Parents Should Know
This is an appraisal of the child’s skills, which means there is no pass or fail. And it does not prohibit any child from entering kindergarten, Siddens says.
“There are a variety of areas that we would assess that are similar (to KRA-L), we are just expanding the assessment to provide different ways for them to demonstrate their skills,” she says.
The student, for example, might be asked to select or sort a shape. The teacher might be observing how they relate socially or emotionally to their peers.
She adds the language and literacy portion (to be done by Sept. 30) will meet the third-grade reading guarantee, which is a program that “identifies children that are behind in reading in kindergarten through third grade.”
“I think the children will enjoy some of the components of the assessment and will see them as fun activities that are part of the class,” Siddens says. “Parents will get good information in terms of their (child’s) skills to enter kindergarten.”
Getting Ready
Teachers are getting ready for the new assessment, which will launch this fall.
To support the program, the state received a federal Race to the Top — Early Learning Challenge Grant in 2011 to fund the initiative to help close the “kindergarten readiness gap.”
Since then, state officials have been developing the program. In fact, some schools in the area piloted the assessment last semester, such as Evamere Elementary (grades K-1) in Hudson.
Evamere Principal Beth Trivelli says the teachers conducted the emotional and social foundation of the assessment.
“(The teachers) felt like they got very good results,” she says. “It was very beneficial, the concern is the amount of time (it’s going to take to complete). We won’t know until we see the whole test.
“I think it’s important to look at the whole child, we know with young kids, the social and emotional piece plays a key role,” Trivelli adds about the assessment.
She also advises parents with incoming kindergartners to read to them, work on vocabulary and have kids do more independent activities.
