What should be
measured or assessed in young children?
Before
answering this question, I feel that first it is important to define what
assessment is. According to the National Association for the
Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the National Association of Early
Childhood Specialists in State Departments of Education (NAECS/SDE), describes
it as “A systematic procedure for obtaining information from observation,
interviews, portfolios, projects, tests, and other sources that can be used to
make judgments about children’s characteristics.” (NAEYC, 2006) What this tells us there’s a variety of
appropriate practices that should be used in an ongoing manner with young
children.
The
point of assessment is to enable teachers and parents to track their progress
over time, plan for their continued learning, and report effectively to each
other. Data and information will need to
be collected in a variety of developmentally, culturally and linguistically
appropriate ways.
I
have found that I can gain the most information by observing children in their
natural setting and taking objective notes and recording dialogues. Other forms of assessment such as tracking
progress through a list of standard skills, collecting their work samples and
photographs in the creation of a portfolio for each student and parent notes
and observations all put together give a more accurate picture of the
child. One single method does not measure
where a child is developmentally.
The challenge is getting parents to see that this
method is more in-depth and valuble then the “report cards” they often look
for. That is why creating a way to also
include the parents in the assessment procedure is helpful. I have done this by creting equal space for
parents to comment and give feedback when sharing their evaluations.
References
Gosselin,
K. (2004). Spotlight
on young children and assessment. National Association
for the
Education of Young Children
Singapore
According to Rotberg (2006), testing in Singapore differs
from the United States in that it is not done to evaluate teachers. The main purpose is instead to determine
student placement in their education system.
Over a 10 year span the students are tested to see if they are able to
make it into more elite programs. The
better they perform the better school they can get into. The thinking is that this will aid in
training the students to contribute to the national economy.
I chose this country because I have been recently
introduced to Singapore math in one of the schools I work with. It is completely different than traditional
programs in that the focus is more on problem solving through hands on
manipulation then on memorization. It
turns out that this is a philosophy that the country is trying to move towards
this model but it is finding that it is hard to change classroom practice since
the test require students to memorize large amounts of material.
Obviously we are not the only country that seems to
have this gap between teaching for student comprehension and flexibility and
teaching to the test.
References
Rotberg, I. C. (2006). Assessment Around the World. Educational Leadership, 64(3), 58-63.
