Staff Workshop Instructions: Working With Families to Assess Children

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Instructions for Workshop Leaders

1> Goals

• To further develop teachers' knowledge of assessment strategies.
• To further develop skills in observing and interpreting observations.
• To effectively build assessment partnerships through collaboration with families.

2> In Advance

Visit www.naeyc.org and print documents on Early Childhood Assessment and have teachers read the handout. Ask them to bring an observation of children engaging in free play, focusing on one child but including the dialogue and actions of the others. Teachers should make certain their observations are anonymous.

3> Begin the Workshop

Start by reviewing authentic assessment procedures. You can describe the differences between screening, diagnostic assessment, standardized, and authentic assessment. You will want to inform any new teachers of existing assessment techniques and remind former teachers of the center's procedures. You might review the process followed in your center to create Assessment Portfolios for each child. In one center, teachers select a drawing/scribble/writing sample to include in the portfolio each month, as well as specific observations of children's mathematic, literacy, and other skills. Describe how to interview or conference with individual children to assess their development, strengths, and needs. Asking children to tell you all they know - or want to know - about a specific topic is a useful interview technique.

Another assessment technique is to ask children to perform a task. For example, you might review how to determine children's concepts of print by handing them a familiar book upside down and asking a child to read it to you. The child who turns the book right-side up and begins to tell about the story and pictures at the front, turning pages as she does so, has appropriate concepts of print. Teachers may review additional assessment techniques that they have found useful in the past.

4> Continue the Workshop

Review methods of observing and recording children's growth, development, and learning. Then ask teachers to group themselves by the age of the children they work with. For example, all teachers of 3 year olds would work together and so on. In turn, ask teachers to read their anonymous observations. After a teacher reads the observation, the group should discuss what the behaviors mean. The participants will be learning not only to conduct systematic observations but also the skills of interpreting what is observed and reflecting on their significance.

5> Conclude the Workshop

To conclude the workshop, talk about developing communication and collaboration skills with parents in order to create effective assessment partnerships. Using the observation, ask each teacher to practice communicating assessment to family members by articulating their interpretation of the observation they completed to the group. Ask the group, in turn, to role-play being family members.

Now brainstorm ways of involving parents in assessment partnerships. You might suggest parents observe how children handle books at home, to identify their favorite story or book, save a sample of children's scribbling/drawing/writing, or note when children recognize graphics such as McDonald's or other billboards and signs. You might also ask parents to record how children interacted with others at a party or with neighbors or to observe their skills with using numbers.

Carol Seefeldt, PhD, professor emeritus of the University of Maryland, College Park, and visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, has worked in early childhood education for more than 30 years.

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