DEL.ICIO.USTesting becomes constant in kindergarten
New program involves frequent assessments
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, September 08, 2008
The Lawrenceville kindergarten lesson begins with circle time. Children rush to their spots on the carpet giggling and teetering into squat position unaware that a new series of tests soon will follow.
Katie Wright of Dyer Elementary School introduces a shy girl with brown hair named Mariana Morales as the focus of the lesson. The girl’s first name is written on construction paper.
Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com
Mariana Morales matches letters. Children don’t realize their teacher is assessing their progress over time.
Vino Wong/vwong@ajc.com
Students in Rwanda Boone’s class (left) at Flat Rock Elementary School in Lithonia dance and sing. Masadericka Ampofo, 5, (above) paints a mask. ‘It has the potential to give more immediate feedback to the teacher without having the high-stakes emotional baggage,’ said education expert Robert Schaeffer.
Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com
Katie Wright (right), a kindergarten teacher at Dyer Elementary School in Lawrenceville, works with student Mitch Blythe (center) on matching upper- and lower-case letters as classmate Nathalie Rodriguez keeps working on her own.
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“What do we know about first names?” Wright asks her students. “Names always have a capital letter.”
The children point to the capital M and spell out the word M-a-r-i-a-n-a, counting each letter. Then, comes the tricky part — Wright turns the name into an alphabet puzzle.
As kids playfully sort through the letters at work stations, Wright watches closely with clipboard in hand observing every movement, assessing their progress on a checklist. Can they recognize the letters and the sounds they make? Are any letters upside-down? Do the children socialize and share?
The examinations can be repeated numerous times each day or week in today’s Georgia kindergarten classrooms under a new state program that gives kindergarten teachers the flexibility to continuously assess students. The data collected on each kid is fed into a computer that can spit out progress reports on how close a child is to meeting the Georgia Performance Standards for students.
The initiative, called GKIDS (Georgia Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills), replaces the traditional triannual pencil and paper test used in the past by Georgia kindergarten teachers to rate students. The upgrade means more frequent assessments and academic rigor for 5- and-6-year-olds in kindergarten, a place where nap time has been eliminated and free play is fleeting.
Metro educators say the yearlong evaluations should provide a more accurate picture of what a kindergartner knows because they are done over time. Some teachers, who received training over the summer to deliver GKIDS, already have begun the impromptu assessments, which can be performed in the areas of English/language arts, mathematics, approaches to learning, personal and social development, social studies, science and motor skills.
National child education experts say such diagnostic assessments are what more savvy states are using to test the abilities of young students. “It has the potential to give more immediate feedback to the teacher without having the high-stakes emotional baggage for little kids,” said Robert Schaeffer of Fair Test. “The purpose of assessments ought to be to improve learning and teaching.”
Benefield Elementary School teacher Anna Berenyi said she carefully explained GKIDS to parents at a recent curriculum night so they wouldn’t “stress out” over their children’s performance.
“It’s not a one-time shot,” Berenyi said. “If it’s not a good day, the child is tired, we are going to do it again. We want to see … week by week, can that child show me all the time that they really understand the concept.”
Berenyi sends home newsletters reminding parents to review classwork. The material could be assessed later.
Most times, kindergartners being assessed have no idea. The evaluations can be done as they work on group tasks or go it alone.
“The GKAP [the old kindergarten test] really had to happen on a one-on-one basis between a teacher and student,” explained Tony Eitel, executive director of assessment and accountability for DeKalb County’s schools.
“Clearly a student would know they were being assessed and so would every other kid in the room,” he said. “GKIDS is very different from the traditional paper and pencil test. … It is really designed to provide a glimpse of a student’s readiness for first grade.”
Schools can use the data from GKIDS to tailor lessons to improve weaknesses so a child can perform better on classwork and the Georgia Criterion-Referenced Competency Test in first grade.
“We can talk to parents using data instead of observations,” Wright said. “It will show their growth through the year.”
DeKalb County Schools has provided kindergarten teachers with a rigorous pacing schedule for GKIDS assessments that will continue through April.
It will be one of the first metro Atlanta systems to send home GKIDS progress reports to parents in mid-September.
On Tuesday, Lithonia parents who come to Academic Night at Flat Rock Elementary, a school with wireless technology and active boards in some kindergarten classrooms, will be given a crash course on understanding GKIDS and its new buzz words, like “emerging,” to describe kids who have not yet gotten the standard, but show promise.
The initiative has influenced the new kindergarten report card for DeKalb, which will be a standards-based GKIDS report.
“We have been talking about standards since last year,” said principal Shelton D. Wright. “Our parents know it’s coming.”
In Gwinnett County, some public schools will send home GKIDS data as progress reports.
For example, at Dyer Elementary, parents will get a GKIDS report in October and the system’s new kindergarten report card at the end of the nine-week marking period. Gwinnett’s new kindergarten report card uses some GKIDS terminology.
GKIDS data also can be generated weekly for curious parents or whenever they schedule conferences.
Yolanda Hardman, a Gwinnett teacher and the mother of a Dyer kindergartner, said she is looking forward to poring over her child’s profile to see where he needs work. She likes the idea of more assessments.
“It’s a new program … it’s less intense,” Hardman said. “He doesn’t even know he took a test.”
