Kindergarten Assessment

Septemberbaby2008

Hi, I'm just wondering what a Kindergarten assessment is- is it a test? Does anyone know what types of questions are asked? I was told Italy last only about 15 minutes or so.

CareBear0607

I take it your child is entering Kindergarten?  The teachers will just get a basic sense of what your child knows.  This helps them place children appropriately once school starts.  Our district looks for things like: do they know colors and shapes, recognize letters and numbers, write their name, how high can they count, can they read or know any sight words.  

Septemberbaby2008

Yes, she will enter Kindergarten at a pretty competitive public school. I was just wondering what might be asked or at least what to expect. Thank you for the great information

neverblushed

I think most schools use this as a chance to get the sense of the new crop of kindergartners so that they can form balanced classes the next year.  If they just do it randomly, one teacher could get a ton of shy kids while another gets the majority of the boisterous ones.

My sense is that they are more interested in a child's demeanor and personality than academics, although they may check for basic school-readiness stuff like letter recognition, pencil grip, counting objects, using scissors, etc.  There will be kids entering K who don't have some of those skills, and they will want to distribute those kids over the different classes.

ss+el

I have never heard of such a thing. If my son had one, no one told me.

cautionwillburneyes

Back when my kids took them, they were asked to write with a pencil and spell their name aloud, asked their phone number and address, rhyme a couple of words, demonstrate how to get a raisin out of a narrow bottle (reason dumping it out), stack a few blocks, cut with scissors,  skip, throw and kick a ball.  That's all I can remember - it's been a few years.

Septemberbaby2008

Yes, so we had the assessment and it took about 20 minutes. They took kids away (2-3 kids at a time) behind closed doors. Then I appears that they wrote their name, had to draw a picture if themselves, asked to write number, asked about the alphabet, and some common site words and a few other things (cannot remember). The strange things after the kids were done they would come out with the teacher and we (the parents) all waiting in a small area got to listen to each child's assessment results. I thought that should be done in private. I guess it is not a big deal but kind of felt bad for some parents who seemed to be making excuses for why their child could not do somethings.

Spin313

Our school does it...It lasts about 10 minutes. The kindergarten teachers meet with the kids and make it seem like fun activities (can you sing the ABC's with me?, let's count to 20, show me how you use scissors, which letter makes the...sound?, do you know which shape this is?, etc).

macchiatto

Seems like it varies a lot from place to place. Ours isn't until August so I don't know yet what all it involves.

heatherwhite1984

public schools in my area use the dial-3 screening. it assess children on motor, language and concept development. some schools do it in may to help do any additional planning for budgeting, one-on-ones, etc. some schools wait and do it in september since a lot can change over the summer, and the fall gives them more of an accurate picture of where the child(ren) are. 
the dial-3 screening asks children to say specific words - looking at articulation, count as high as they can, sort shapes and then sorting in sub categories of colors and shapes, writing their name, identifying some letters (upper and lower case), catching a bean bag, hopping on one foot, jumping both feet of the ground, stacking blocks, identifying parts of their body, finding pictures where the starting sound, coming up with rhyming words, and much more. depending on how engaged the child is (there is a behavior component too - does the child wiggle, pay attention, start before directions, etc) it takes about a half hour. all questions have specific answers they are looking for so they can be scored.
parents should be asking for all reports, even if they are internal assessments for their own planning.  with the dial-3 there is also a parent questionnaire so that the teachers can learn more about the child(ren) and how they are at home and what the parents are observing.

kmh2201

In our district, they assess:  knowledge of letters, numbers/counting, shapes, and colors; if the child can write their name; if the child can read and maybe do any math; fine and gross motor skills; and socialization skills.  While DS was with the teacher for his assessment, we sat with the principal to talk about his strengths and areas that he could use work on.  In our district, the main outcome of the assessment is whether the child should to into young 5's kindergarten or regular kindergarten.

emberlee3

DS's kindergarten assessment is in 2 weeks, so we shall see. It is only scheduled to take 15 minutes.