Literacy and Numeracy Assessment Methods in The Early Years

Assessment is an integral part of all learning. Educators who are responsible for the facilitation of learning are also responsible for the valid assessment of this learning. Assessment is a tool that can be used to help children attain the goal of a curriculum/framework (Perry, 2000). The forms of assessment used and the ways in which they can be administered should reflect children’s abilities, meanwhile trying to develop them. According to Perry (2000), in the years prior to school, assessment is seen as a seamless part of learning, undertaken mainly informally through observation and conversation while the children undertake their normal, self-chosen task or activity.

Observing children in daily activities: http://www.learneverydayabout.com/assessment.cfm

Before any assessment task is given to a child or group of children, it is essential for the educator to be clear about the purpose, outcomes of interest, focus for interventions, validity of assessment data, progress, procedures, and value of the assessment, to provoke a successful outcome.  Perry (2000) suggests the educator think of a number of questions prior to beginning an assessment task:

1. Why are they assessing the numeracy and literacy knowledge or skills of their children
2. What knowledge or skills are they going to access
3. For whom are they assessing- i.e. children, state education authority, program developers, school, parents, etc.
4. How are they assessing the knowledge and skills
5. When will the assessment take place

Other assessment tools may be the use of work sheets which target specific learning areas. Wren and Watts (2002), have designed the Abecedarian Reading Assessment for educators to use to maximise their effectiveness by individualising their instruction to each student’s learning needs. The Abecedarian is divided into 6 major subtests in literacy/reading development. Most of these subtests are further broken into a variety of tasks. Research (Wren & Watts, 2002) has clearly shown the benefits of developing all of the knowledge domains tested by the Abecedarian early. The preponderance of research evidence suggests that children who have phoneme awareness by kindergarten are much more likely to be successful readers in third grade than children who lack phoneme awareness.

Using specific task to assess child's progress: http://www.childchart.com/news.html

The Abecedarian Reading Assessment document includes a series of tasks which can be marked off and assessed, with corresponding score sheets, covering the areas of letter knowledge, phonological awareness, phoneme awareness, alphabetic principle, vocabulary, and decoding. The document can be accessed and downloaded for free from: www.balancedreading.com  

References:

Perry, B. (2000). Early childhood numeracy. Canberra, ACT: Department of Education,

Training and Youth Affairs (DETYA) and Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers

(AAMT)

Wren, S., & Watts, J. (2002). The Abecedarian Reading Assessment. Retrieved from Abecedarian Reading Assessment http://www.balancedreading.com/assessment/abecedarian.pdf

Assessing Children’s Literacy and Numeracy

Assessment of children’s numeracy and literacy is essential to ensure each child is benefiting and developing to the best of their ability, from the numeracy and literacy they are being taught and exposed to, and also for the educators benefit to judge whether their teaching practices are effective or need some amendment. For the purpose of this blog, I have focussed my attention primarily on one reading which I feel covers both literacy and numeracy effectively:

1. Tomlinson, C.A. (2008). Learning to love assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 8-13.

To begin with I think it is important to mention that assessments are not only undertaken by the educator or adult; children are also involved in collecting data of their progress through self-reflection and –assessment of their own work and learning. Assessments must facilitate individual and group learning, and empower the students to gauge their own progress. Tomlinson’s (2008) reading includes 10 understandings educators should be aware of around informative assessment.  Informative assessment is essential as it gives evidence of current progress, to be used to determine suitable adjustments, adaptations or supplements required into the learning experience. These understandings can apply to assessment of many areas of development, but most importantly they relate to literacy and numeracy assessment.

The first key understandings which was highlighted for me was the fact that informative assessment isn’t just about tests. Tomlinson (2008) mentions how tests are not effective for all students, and do not give an accurate result of progress for students who, although may demonstrate other evidence of learning, did poorly on tests. Tests do not show children what they know, they purely show them what they do not know, giving them little hope and confidence in themselves to be able to grow and learn further.

Another prominent understanding was around informative assessment not being separate from the curriculum. Tomlinson (2008) talks about for success, assessments must be absolutely aligned with the knowledge, understanding, and skill designated as essential learning outcomes. “Assessment needs to be part of-not apart from-curriculum design” (Tomlinson, 2008, p.11). This point is important for me as for myself, over the past two years studying education at University, I have become aware of the importance of teaching in response to the crucial learning outcomes/goals for the children, and not just teaching solely based in response to what the children liked.

The final understanding that truly stuck with me since reading the article, was “understanding 9: informative assessment isn’t just about finding weaknesses” (Tomlinson, 2008, p.12). Every educator, parent, child, etc. should be aware of this! Since practicing in a kindergarten, I feel it is so important to use assessment to accentuate children’s positives rather than negatives. We don’t need to be on the hunt for what children do not know, or cannot do, or do not understand; instead we should focus on children’s strengths, interests and learning preferences, and emphasis what does work for each individual child.  

My next blog will continue to be focused around assessment, but more so looking at the types of assessment and assessment tools available for educators, parents and children to use when assessing literacy and numeracy teaching and development.

References:

Tomlinson, C.A. (2008). Learning to love assessment. Educational Leadership, 65(4), 8-13.