Maryland Guide for Early Childhood Education

For this update I chose to reflect on the Self-referenced form of assessment. In my reading, I was drawn to the “Clay on Observation Surveys” part of the chapter. In this discussion I will share some of my experience with the Maryland Kindergarten Readiness assessment program. The KRA is part of Maryland’s Supporting Every Young Learners pedagogy. The Ready for Kindergarten (R4K) includes four domains that are assessed. Social Foundations, Language and Literacy, Mathematics, and Physical Wellbeing and Motor Development make up the four domains that are assessed. In our state, local districts and schools within their district have an option to assess a sampling of students that is pulled through the Maryland State Department of Education or as is the case in my school, all entering kindergarten students. It is time consuming as all assessments must be completed by the end of October. I feel that the snapshot that this gives my teachers is very valuable and allows them to target instruction much sooner than has been the practice in the past.

The assessment is developmentally appropriate and uses a mix of direct performance and observations scored by the use of a rubrics. The direct performance is accomplished in a one on one setting and uses a technological platform for students to respond to selected response type questions. The performance tasks are made through observations of students in authentic situations by trained teachers.

Clay mentions in her discussion the need for a standard way of administering the task. Our teachers do go through an initial training with an assessment of their ability to observe and use the rubric correctly. Each year thereafter, teachers must go through a refresher training and once again successfully pass the assessment to be qualified to administer the KRA in the fall. Our training module involves face to face, hybrid/blended, or an online only format. In my county, we have a number of trainer of trainers who administer either the face to face or the hybrid/blended formats. We are small enough that I “encourage” my staff to attend together to further the professional development and engage in those targeted conversations and planning. This assures that they are confident in assessing our students and fidelity with the results that they receive.

Professional Development Cycle

The instructional value is that the results are available almost immediately for the teachers to use in planning for their instruction and as I mentioned above, they immediately begin to differentiate and form their initial small groups in both reading and mathematics.

As a resut of the work, each country is provided a report card. This is NOT a reflection of the Kindergarten teachers, but a reflectiion of how the current Kindergarteners entered the public school. Below is our 2017-18 score card.