I serve as a North Carolina Kindergarten Demonstration classroom teacher, which means my role extends beyond the classroom. These families travel up and down the East Coast, as well as to areas such as Michigan, to work in agriculture. Many of our migrant families return to the area year after year during spring and early summer. Most of my DLL students live in homes where Spanish is the primary language some children are learning both Spanish and a dialect of Mixtec at home, but these students communicate in Spanish (and in their emergent English) in the classroom. I teach kindergarten in a rural, high-poverty school in North Carolina that has a diverse student population, including children who speak a language other than English at home and whose parents (and often other family members) are migrant workers, often coming from Mexico. Intentional assessments prevent unintentional errors These varied strategies are important for all young children, and especially so for dual language learners (DLLs).

We use varying methods of observation and assessment to find out what young learners are able to do, so that we can help them progress. We use assessments to find our students’ strengths and to figure out which areas we need to target for early intervention. Intentional teachers gather data that are needed to guide instruction, ensuring that all children grow and learn at the right pace. But I know that long before this age of high-stakes accountability, intentional teachers were developing and using assessments as powerful tools in their toolboxes. Like many teachers, I have felt dread when someone mentioned assessments. It would be easy to have a sweeping negative view of assessments in the current climate. I will never forget the defeat on one child’s face as she looked up at me with a quivering chin and said, “But I can’t read.” Despite how positive and nonchalant I tried to be during that assessment, assuring her that I did not expect her to read the words, the formal assessment experience affected this child’s confidence and her excitement for learning. I have sat with many frustrated children, some near tears, as I asked them to read sight words during their second week of kindergarten. Even when children are just beginning to learn English, I am required to assess them in English-according to the script, not to their needs. Timed assessments and scripted directions, which must be read word for word, provide valuable information but offer no flexibility for our young learners.

Teachers are often not allowed to assess their own students (in order to protect the integrity of the results), and the results are sometimes used to measure teacher performance (whether or not the assessments have been designed and validated for use in high-stakes decisions). For example, we could delay assessing reading skills if a child did not yet show an understanding of the difference between letters, words, and numbers.Īssessment in today’s kindergarten classrooms, unfortunately, looks at times like what we would expect in upper-grade classrooms, with proctors and secure testing materials.

We had the flexibility to evaluate children in areas that were appropriate for them. My colleagues and I used our own assessments and observations to plan instruction based on what our students needed. When I first began teaching, educators’ observations and self-made assessments were honored as appropriate ways to document young children’s growth and mastery. Over the 20 years I have been a kindergarten teacher, assessment has changed dramatically.

Kindergarten game teacher mission