Kindergarten screenings anyone?

RedHeadedLeo85

Has anyone been through this? If so, what do they do? What kind of tests do they "perform"? DD1 has her's on Wednesday and I'm just curious on what to expect. I hate walking in somewhere completely clueless. TIA

littlemermaid

Our school uses the Brigance test for Kindergarten, not sure if that's what your school uses.  My children had to recite their name, stand on one foot, hop on one foot.  Recite the alphabet as far as they knew.  Count as high as they could.  Identify colors and shapes.  It was all very basic and easy. 

RedHeadedLeo85

What is it for? It sounds like the same thing that they did with her in Head Start...

Starfish113

I'm just lurking out of boredom...

My mom is a kindergarten teacher. She mentioned today that part of the screening at her school is to have students identify body parts. I thought it was weird because she said a lot of kids don't know "neck" or "elbow".

amykins1283

At my school we use a rather informal assessment that we came up with ourselves.  It includes colors, basic shapes, recognizing numbers 1-20, counting, naming upper and lower case letters, letter sounds, some high frequency words, concepts of print (how to hold a book and track with your finger), writing first and last name, and drawing a self portrait.  We score them on a scale of 1-30.  The kids are placed in classes according to their score (the kids with very high scores are grouped together in an enrichment class and the kids with low to moderate scores and mixed among the remaining classes).

amykins1283

pita2405:

What is it for? It sounds like the same thing that they did with her in Head Start...

We use our screening to determine which kids will be in an enrichment class (as in, they already know all their letters and sounds and don't need to sit through tons of review and be bored) and the kids that would benefit from the regular kindergarten curriculum or who are going to need extra help so that we can start the ball rolling on getting them extra services like ESL (English as a Second Language) or EIP (Early Intervention Program). 

reemarie81

At my school you aren't allowed in the room when they are doing the actual screening.  I asked L what they did and he said asked his letters, numbers, etc.

RedHeadedLeo85

Hmm...thanks ladies for letting me know.

jlw2505

In MN, kids get them when they 4 typically.  My DD did hers very early due to a speech delay and us wanting to get her into the Early Childhood Special Ed for her speech delay so she now has a IEP and will be starting Pre-K this year.  They did about an hours worth of tests/games with her - they had her walk a straight line, jump and try and balance, did a hearing and vision test, played games to see how much she could answer - poitning to cetain animals, pointing to different objects, they had her write and color adn trace things.  It was not bad and she had fun.

Boizmom

They're not supposed to do them in our school district.  I know though they had Kindergarten assessment when my son was at the Early Childhood school...but he was in Speech Therapy so that might be why they did it - to see if he was "ready" for Kindergarten.  But in Kindergarten they aren't supposed to do them.