This fall, the students of the high school class of 2031 walked into their kindergarten classrooms for the first time. The start of kindergarten is an exciting time for students, parents, and teachers; but it is also an important time to assess a child's developmental readiness for school.
Kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs), also known as kindergarten readiness assessments, formative assessments, or early learning inventories, help educators better understand and support students' knowledge, skills, and behaviors at the start of kindergarten. Learn more about KEAs and school readiness with the following resources from across the 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs):
Kindergarten entry assessments
- Kindergarten Entry Assessments: What You Need to Know. REL Midwest recently released a video and handout [187 KB ] explaining what KEAs are and their uses and benefits.
- Helping Kindergarten Teachers Understand Their Students and Tailor Instruction. This blog post discusses REL Midwest's partnership with the Illinois State Board of Education in training educators to use the state's Kindergarten Individual Development Survey, or KIDS.
- Trainings Support Teachers to Understand and Use Kindergarten Formative Assessment Data. This blog post outlines how REL Central partnered with the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction to provide a series of trainings for teachers in using the state's new kindergarten formative assessment.
- States and Districts Can Make Greater Use of Kindergarten Assessments to Understand Students' Knowledge, Skills, and Growth. Learn more about the KEAs being used in the mid-Atlantic states in this REL Mid-Atlantic blog post.
- Early Learning Inventories: Insights from State Colleagues. This REL Southwest webinar includes a panel of state education leaders discussing their experiences and lessons learned around selecting and implementing early learning inventories.
- Studying the Validity of New Mexico's Kindergarten Observation Tool. This video discusses the findings of REL Southwest's report on whether New Mexico's KEA, the Kindergarten Observation Tool, measured the dimensions of children's knowledge as intended.
School readiness
- Exploring State-by-State Definitions of Kindergarten Readiness to Support Informed Policymaking. In this blog post, REL Northwest examines definitions of kindergarten readiness and school readiness in use across the country.
- Indicators and Measurements of School Readiness. REL Midwest searched through relevant research in these Ask A REL responses on indicators of school readiness for children and defining and measuring school readiness.
- Preparing a School-Ready Child. This REL Southeast infographic [689 KB ] visually outlines the key aspects of school readiness, which go beyond school-ready children to include school-ready families, schools, and communities.
- Equipping Parents to Support Kindergarten Readiness. This REL Midwest webinar explores the nonacademic components of school readiness and how parents can help prepare their children for those components of kindergarten.
- Preschool to Kindergarten: Successfully Navigating the Transition. This webinar from REL Southwest focuses on the pivotal transition to kindergarten and school, a process that begins during preschool and continues through grade 3.
- Effective Components of Successful Early Learning-to-Kindergarten Transition. Learn about early learning-to-kindergarten transition efforts at the state, district, and school levels in this REL Northwest webinar.
