This blog post provides information about the features and administrative guidelines for several popular kindergarten readiness screeners, summarizing information from an Ask an Expert response.
Concerned About Kindergarten Readiness? Informed Decisions About Screeners Can Help
Kindergarten is the launchpad for formal education and marks the beginning of school-age learning. Educators, caregivers, and parents can use information gathered from kindergarten readiness screeners to understand children’s current developmental strengths and potential areas of need. Screeners are important sources to inform instructional decisions, gather baseline knowledge about young learners, and monitor development and growth. That’s why having information to help with deciding which screener to use and how to interpret and use screening data to improve learning is crucial.
The Niswonger Foundation, a technical assistance provider and REL Appalachia partner in northeastern Tennessee, wanted to identify available kindergarten readiness screeners and to better understand the best practices for implementing them. REL Appalachia developed an “Ask an Expert” response to the following questions about kindergarten readiness screeners from the Niswonger Foundation:
- Inventory: What evidence about reliability and validity exists for screeners that districts in the region are currently using to assess kindergarten readiness?
- Screener design: What are the characteristics of valid and reliable kindergarten readiness screeners, including which domains they assess and how they are administered?
- Implementation: What are promising strategies for training and supporting educators to reliably administer kindergarten-readiness screeners? What are best practices for using kindergarten readiness screening data?
The information in the Ask an Expert response may be useful to educational decisionmakers (such as state and district administrators), teachers, professional organizations (such as teacher associations), parent organizations, and educational supporterswho are seeking evidence-based screeners for assessing kindergarten readiness. All interested groups can use information about the screeners’ contents, administration method, consistency, and other features to make informed choices about which measure would be most suitable for their purpose and target populations.
To inform its Ask an Expert response, REL Appalachia examined the features and administrative guidelines for several popular kindergarten readiness screeners to answer questions posed by the Niswonger Foundation. This blog summarizes that information.
Understanding consistency and accuracy for kindergarten readiness screeners
A principle of good assessment is that the instrument used should have evidence that it is both reliable (shows consistency in results across administrations) and valid (actually assesses the traits it claims to measure) for both the purposes and the populations for which it will be used.1 REL Appalachia’s Ask an Expert response provides information on reliability and validity for commonly used screeners (such as DIBELS, easyCBM, TS Gold) to assist with reviewing the evidence and selecting among available tools. Most screening measures included show strong internal consistency, which means there are correlations between items measuring the same or similar domains. Most screeners also show evidence of construct, concurrent, and criterion validity, all of which relate to how accurately the screeners measure the skills and domains they intend to measure. What is critical to examine is the psychometric quality of each instrument because a low-quality measure could produce inaccurate or inconsistent results. Screening tools with unreliable results can lead to incorrect decisions about a young student's current skills, knowledge, and learning progress.
What do the selected kindergarten readiness screeners measure?
Many early childhood assessment experts recommend assessing a wide range of developmentally and educationally significant skills rather than a narrow set of skills.2 3 This could include assessing skills in more than one developmental domain. To document the different developmental domains and administration methods (i.e., direct child assessment, observation, or both combined) used in some of the most popular kindergarten readiness screeners, REL Appalachia’s response included the table below. As the table indicates, whereas the “language and literacy development” domain was the most common one represented across the assessments REL Appalachia reviewed, the “approaches to learning” domain was the least represented. Most of the screeners required direct assessment methods to gather information from the child using standardized questions and materials. A subset of measures employed observation methods alone or in combination with direct assessment methods. The number of assessed domains and administration methods will impact the comprehensiveness of each screener and its necessary resources (such as time, materials, and training qualifications) to administer.
Domains assessed and methods of administration by assessment
Screener | Approaches to learning | Social and personal competency | Language and literacy development | Cognition Math | Physical development | Administration method |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aimswebPlus | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Combination | |
| Bracken | ✔ | ✔ | Direct | |||
| Brigance | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Combination |
| DRDP-K | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Observation |
| DIBELS | ✔ | Direct | ||||
| ESI-3 | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Direct | ||
| easyCBM | ✔ | Direct | ||||
| myIGDIs | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Combination | |
| PALS-K | ✔ | Direct | ||||
| STAR | ✔ | ✔ | Direct | |||
| TS Gold | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | Observation |
Reproduced with permission from Ask An Expert Kindergarten Readiness Screeners
What are best practices for the administration and use of kindergarten readiness screeners?
Panels of early childhood assessment experts have developed and published recommendations on how to train and support educators to administer kindergarten readiness screeners.4 5 Experts recommend that training address both the purpose and appropriate use of the screener, its limitations, and its proper administration methods. All publishers of the reviewed kindergarten readiness screeners provide information, technical support, and/or training (such as materials, webinars, and training regimens). The Ask an Expert response outlines the implementation support available for each screener, including ongoing technical assistance, and suggestions for additional local implementation practices, such as ongoing monitoring of implementation fidelity.
A panel of early childhood assessment experts recommended that screening systems include action plans to use what is learned from the measure to support children’s continued development.6 REL’s response includes suggestions for how data from screeners could be used and cautions about misuse.
Screeners can be used to:
- Individualize classroom instruction (especially with accompanying reflective guidance and/or coaching).
- Identify students for additional assessment.
- Monitor students’ learning and progress.
Screeners should not be used to:
- Deny or delay entry into kindergarten.
- Diagnose learning problems.
Conclusion
Available kindergarten readiness screeners provide a glimpse into a child’s current development, but each has its own unique features, strengths, and limitations. The following questions may help guide screening instrument selection decisions, implementation, and use of the information produced:
- What are your priorities (as an educator or administrator) for a screener?
- How can you use screening data appropriately to improve learning and instruction?
- How will you change practices in the classroom based on what a screener tells you?
- How will the screening results inform what information you share with families?
To see the list of screeners, information on reliability and validity, and other considerations for kindergarten screener selection and implementation, access the full REL Appalachia response: Ask An Expert Kindergarten Readiness Screeners.
1 National Research Council (NRC). (2008). Early childhood assessment: Why, what and how, ed. C. E. Snow & S. B. Van Hemel. National Research Council of the National Academies. The National Academies Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/12446/chapter/1
2 National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). (2003). Early childhood curriculum, assessment and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8. https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/position-statements/CAPEexpand.pdf
3 NRC. (2008). Early childhood assessment: Why, what and how, ed. C. E. Snow & S. B. Van Hemel.National Research Council of the National Academies. The National Academies Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/12446/chapter/1
4 NAEYC. (2003). Early childhood curriculum, assessment and program evaluation: Building an effective, accountable system in programs for children birth through age 8. https://www.naeyc.org/sites/default/files/globally-shared/downloads/PDFs/resources/position-statements/CAPEexpand.pdf
5 NRC. (2008). Early childhood assessment: Why, what and how, ed. C. E. Snow & S. B. Van Hemel. National Research Council of the National Academies. The National Academies Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/12446/chapter/1
6 NRC. (2008). Early childhood assessment: Why, what and how, ed. C. E. Snow & S. B. Van Hemel. National Research Council of the National Academies. The National Academies Press. https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/12446/chapter/1
