Progress Monitoring in Early Childhood: Generating a Discussion

1. Progress Monitoring in Early Childhood: Generating a Discussion Judy Carta, Juniper Gardens, University of Kansas Nan Vendegna, Colorado Results Matter Kathy Hebbeler, ECO at SRI International Moderator: Christy Kavulic, OSEP OSEP Project Director’s Conference Washington, DC, July 2008

2. Monitoring Progress or Implementing Progress Monitoring: What Do We Mean? Kathy Hebbeler Early Childhood Outcomes Center at SRI International

3. Or What happens when a general early childhood perspective on assessment meets a special education perspective on assessment? Early Childhood Outcomes Center

4. Will it be this? Early Childhood Outcomes Center

5. Or this? Early Childhood Outcomes Center

6. Mark Wolery, Monitoring Children’s Progress and Intervention Implementation “Each interaction with children provides opportunities to gather information for making decisions about progress and intervention programs….such assessment is called monitoring.” From McLean, Wolery & Bailey, 2004 Early Childhood Outcomes Center

7. Neisworth & Bagnato, DEC Recommended Practices: Assessment “Beyond the eligibility or gate-keeping purpose, assessment also is critical for program planning, monitoring (formative) progress, and for program (summative) evaluation.” Early Childhood Outcomes Center

8. Historical context: Times are changing • General early childhood community has gone from being negative about assessment to embracing assessment – the right kind of assessment • No: IQ tests, “readiness tests” that exclude • Yes: Curriculum-based measures to inform instruction Early Childhood Outcomes Center

9. National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) “High quality programs are informed by ongoing systematic, formal, and informal assessment approaches to provide information on children’s learning and development.” Early Childhood Outcomes Center

10. Council of Chief State School Officers “Ongoing assessment through observation, analysis of children’s work, and use of valid and reliable instruments and processes helps teachers to know how to plan the learning environment and experiences.  It supports instructional planning for individual children and for the group.  It is key to assuring successful early learners.” Early Childhood Outcomes Center

11. Naming ongoing assessment in EC • Curriculum-based assessment • Curriculum-embedded assessment • Criterion-referenced assessment • Instructional assessment • Formative assessment Early Childhood Outcomes Center

12. Historical context: Times are changing • Response to Intervention (RTI) • Much attention in K-3 (or higher) • Involves a particular type of assessment (GOM) or (CBM) • Models to apply principles to programs for younger children development Early Childhood Outcomes Center

13. What kind of assessment is going on in EC programs across the country? • We don’t know • Probably many programs with no ongoing assessment or poor assessment • Trend seems to be toward more and more adoption of curriculum-based assessments in regular EC (consistent with NAEYC recs) • Head Start has been promoting ongoing assessment. Creative Curriculum fairly commonly used tool. Early Childhood Outcomes Center

14. What kind of assessment is going on in EC programs across the country? • Will see more assessment for accountability • For OSEP reporting, EI and ECSE programs are using a variety of approaches to collect data on child outcomes including curriculum-based assessment. Early Childhood Outcomes Center

15. What comes next for ongoing assessment in early childhood? Early Childhood Outcomes Center

16. Early Childhood Outcomes Center

17. Common Ground • Importance of ongoing assessment • Developmental trajectories • Some children will not make progress • Important to identify those children • Important to adjust child’s program (instruction/intervention) and monitor success of the adjustment Early Childhood Outcomes Center

18. Choices for Teachers and Administrators • Curriculum-based assessment • Curriculum-based assessment plus GOM(s) or CBM(s) • GOM(s) alone (poor choice)? • No ongoing assessment (poor choice) Early Childhood Outcomes Center

19. Quick Easy to learn Administered one-on-one Intervention or instruction not linked to tool Better researched with regard to trajectories, psychometric properties Lends itself well to charting growth Lends itself well to analysis Central to RTI Not as well known in EC Features: General Outcome Measures Early Childhood Outcomes Center

20. Comprehensive Takes time to learn and master Time-consuming to complete assessment Data collected as part of ongoing classroom activities; integral to instruction Helps teachers be better observers of children Helps teachers know what to teach Data do not lend themselves well to aggregation Not as psychometrically “developed” Features: Curriculum-based Early Childhood Outcomes Center

21. Unanswered questions • Can a curriculum-based tool provide enough information to identify children in need of additional help? • Will a GOM tool and a curriculum-based tool identify the same children? Early Childhood Outcomes Center

22. Unanswered questions (Cont’d) • Can EC teachers and care providers, many of whom have limited education, be expected to learn and implement both types of assessments? • How is an administrator or director who learns about both to reconcile these perspectives? Early Childhood Outcomes Center

23. The time and skill issue for EC • “The most effective uses of CBM in the formative evaluation of individual student programs almost certainly occur in setting where individual (special) education teachers have the time and skills to respond to the charted progress of individual students.” Deno, 2003 Early Childhood Outcomes Center

24. Mark Wolery, Monitoring Children’s Progress and Intervention Implementation “Each interaction with children provides opportunities to gather information for making decisions about progress and intervention programs….such assessment is called monitoring.” From McLean, Wolery & Bailey, 2004 Early Childhood Outcomes Center

25. Can there be TWO kinds of progress monitoring in early childhood? Early Childhood Outcomes Center