Assessment of Young Learners Instructions

Hello everybody, I am back to share all about two articles that I read explaining different ways teachers have to evaluate the learning of young child. In both articles I found the development of Early Literacy skills, Instructional Activities to Promote Early Literacy Skills, and one of the many important ways that I could use to evaluate the child.

Theme: Development and Significance of Early Literacy Skills

Evidences

Article #1 ASSESSMENT OF PRESCHOOL EARLY LITERACY SKILLS: LINKING CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL NEEDS WITH EMPIRICALLY SUPPORTED INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES

According to Assessment of Preschool Early Literacy Skills: Linking Children’s Educational Needs with Emprically Supported Instrutional Activities “ Children who are poor readers tend to continue to struggle with reading and writing, and read less than their peers who are more skilled in reading. As a consequence, children who are poor readers tend to receive less practice in reading and less exposure to content knowledge, vocabulary, and other language skills than do children who learn to read early and well (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1998; Echols, West, Stanovich, & Zehr, 1996; Morrison, Smith, & Dow-Ehrensberger, 1995). Knowledge about the causes, correlates, and predictors of children’s reading success and reading failure in the early elementary grades has expanded greatly in the past several decades (e.g., National Reading Panel, 2000; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). This knowledge has been incorporated into methods of identifying, monitoring, and helping struggling readers in the elementary school grades. More recently, research has highlighted the significance of the preschool period for the development of skills that contribute to children’s acquisition of reading skills (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998).”

References

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). Assessment of Preschool Early Literary Skills: Linking Children's Educational needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities. psichology in the Schools , 15.

Article #2 CLOSING THE GAP EARLY: IMPLEMENTING A LITERACY INTERVENTION FOR AT-RISK KINDERGARTNERS IN URBAN SCHOOLS.

 According to Closing the Gap Early: Implementing a Literacy Intervention for At-Risk Kindergartners in Urban Schools “It is well known that a performance gap in literacy achievement exists for students in urban schools from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds and that these high-needs communities typically have a greater proportion of at-risk students (Flood & Anders, 2005). In the development of reading and writing skills, the academic performance gap is evidenced early on as a deficit or lag in oral language and emergent literacy (i.e., phonological awareness and letter-sound knowledge) skills (Adams, 1990; Bradley & Bryant, 1983). Unfortunately, students who have early difficulties in oral language are at risk for later reading problems (e.g., Menyuk & Chesnick, 1997). To address this challenge in literacy education, researchers are documenting literacy initiatives or programs that have been particularly successful in improving literacy achievement for students in urban school districts (e.g., Teale & Gambrell, 2007). Christopher J. Lonigan, Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011).

References

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). Assessment of Preschool Early Literary Skills: Linking Children's Educational needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities. psichology in the Schools , 15.

Theme: Instructional Activities to Promote Early Literacy Skills

Evidences

Article #1 ASSESSMENT OF PRESCHOOL EARLY LITERACY SKILLS: LINKING CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL NEEDS WITH EMPIRICALLY SUPPORTED INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES

 Christopher J. Lonigan, Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). found "Although not as well researched as interventions for older children, there is a growing body of research supporting the use of instructional practices and activities to promote preschool children’s early literacy skills (see Lonigan, Shanahan, & Cunningham, 2008; Lonigan, Schatschneider, & Westberg, 2008b; see also the What Works Clearinghouse [WWC] website at www.whatworks.ed.gov). These research reviews identify instructional practices that are supported by causally interpretable evidence (i.e., research studies that rule out alternative explanations for observed gains in children’s skills). The types of instructional practices related to reading outcomes that are supported by research can be grouped into two categories: those that promote the skills primarily associated with decoding print (i.e., code-related skills) and those that promote the skills primarily associated with comprehending what is read (i.e., meaning-related skills).”

References

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). Assessment of Preschool Early Literary Skills: Linking Children's Educational needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities. psychology in the Schools , 15.

Article #2 CLOSING THE GAP EARLY: IMPLEMENTING A LITERACY INTERVENTION FOR AT-RISK KINDERGARTNERS IN URBAN SCHOOLS

 Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011).Study found the following: Our KELT program is unique in that the K tutors were provided with a specific    curriculum based on the Ontario Ministry of Education (2006) kindergarten program and oral-language developmental continuums (Brailsford & Stead, 2006). An intervention program must be specific and focused, not just more of the same thing over a longer period of time. Specific expectations from the areas of oral language and reading were selected by the education and ESL (English as a second language) consultants and the speech-language pathologist to address oral- language and emergent-literacy skills (see Table 1). The expectations directly link to the assessment tools that are administered.

References

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). Assessment of Preschool Early Literary Skills: Linking Children's Educational needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities. psichology in the Schools , 15.

 Theme: Standardized Assessment

Evidences

Article #1 ASSESSMENT OF PRESCHOOL EARLY LITERACY SKILLS: LINKING CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL NEEDS WITH EMPIRICALLY SUPPORTED INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011).Study found the following: A   standardized measure is one in which a common set of stimulus materials and questions, a consistent set of administration procedures, and conventional scoring procedures are used, and the scores are often based on a norming sample. Standardized measures allow meaningful comparisons among children (or between assessments of a single child over time) because they (a) have clear and consistent administration and scoring criteria (i.e., the measure is always given and scored in the same manner), (b) demonstrate generally good reliability and validity, and (c) raw scores are converted into scores that reflect a child’s performance relative to the performance of a normative group. Because the assessment is the same for each child administered the measure, resultant scores have consistent meaning across children, examiners, and assessment sites. Standardized measures are usually normed within large and representative samples. Two types of standardized measures have potential utility for identifying children who need additional instructional support for early literacy skill development: screening/progress monitoring assessment and diagnostic assessment.

References

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). Assessment of Preschool Early Literary Skills: Linking Children's Educational needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities. psichology in the Schools , 15.

Article #2 CLOSING THE GAP EARLY: IMPLEMENTING A LITERACY INTERVENTION FOR AT-RISK KINDERGARTNERS IN URBAN SCHOOLS

According to Closing the Gap Early: Implementing a Literacy Intervention for At-Risk Kindergartners in Urban Schools “the evaluation of the KELT program involved a quasi-experimental design in which students in the program (KELT group) and those not in the program (comparison group) were longitudinally tracked on measures of oral-language and emergent-literacy skills over the kindergarten school year. To assess the effectiveness of the program for enhancing students’ oral-language and emergent-literacy skills, we carried out a repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). We had one within-subjects factor (time: pretest vs. posttest) and one between-subjects factor (program group: KELT group vs. comparison group) on six dependent variables (six assessments in the battery). This analysis found significant program group by time interactions for four of the six assessments: concepts of print (F[1, 74] = 19.52, p < .01), phonemic awareness (F[1, 74] = 4.43, p < .05), letter-sound knowledge (F[1, 74] = 6.83, p < .01), and word knowledge (F[1, 74] = 19.30, p < .01). As shown in Figures 2 and 3, across four of the six assessments, the KELT group’s average rate of growth was faster than the comparison group’s. Note that these results included phonemic awareness and letter-sound knowledge, two critical skills shown to support the development of English reading (Adams, 1990; Bradley & Bryant, 1983), achieved as a result of instruction in the con- text of meaningful learning experiences.”

References

Christopher J. Lonigan , Nicholas P. allan, and Matthew D. Lerner. (2011). Assessment of Preschool Early Literary Skills: Linking Children's Educational needs with Empirically Supported Instructional Activities. psichology in the Schools , 15.