Kyle Snow, who heads the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC )  Center for Applied Research, released a new report offering guidance to states on kindergarten readiness and other large scale assessments.

Over the past few years, interest in assessing children as they enter kindergarten has gained momentum in states. Roughly half of the states have instituted some form of kindergarten entry or readiness assessment, even before the development of such an assessment was highlighted in the Race to the Top, Early Learning Challenge funding competition. The development of readiness assessments has varied across states in terms of the areas of child development and knowledge evaluated, and their use for policy and practice purposes.

The report, “Developing Kindergarten Readiness and Other Large-Scale Assessment Systems: Necessary Considerations in the Assessment of Young Children,” presents a framework for the development and implementation of large-scale kindergarten readiness assessments. The Center for Applied Research at NAEYC has developed this guidance to support states' development and implementation of kindergarten readiness assessment systems. Such systems, properly developed and implemented, can contribute greatly to the success of early childhood programs and early elementary programming to identify and meet the needs of children entering kindergarten.  The considerations presented in this paper are built around NAEYC positions related to assessment and research on child assessment. While focused on large-scale assessment of young children, the guidelines included here are intended to inform considerations about early childhood assessment beyond the implementation of kindergarten entry assessments. Read more about this report at http://www.naeyc.org.

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