Washington's Kindergarten Entry Assessment Report

This descriptive study examines the development and early implementation of Kindergarten Entry Assessments or KEAs in 12 districts and 23 schools within four RTT-ELC states (Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington) during the 2014–15 school year. To see the entire report, go here: Case Studies of the Early Implementation of Kindergarten Entry Assessments (KEAs).

The study is intended to help states learn from the experiences of other states as they work to develop and implement their own KEAs and to use KEAs to improve instruction and learning.
Key findings:

State officials and stakeholders in all four case study states considered multiple criteria when developing or adopting KEA measures: 

• reliability and validity, 
• appropriateness for all students, 
• usefulness for informing classroom instruction, 
• usefulness for informing early learning policies and program improvement, 
• feasibility of administration by teachers, 
• and cost. 

The four states trained teachers on KEA administration through self-paced webinars, in-person presentations, and train-the-trainer models. A majority of the interviewed teachers said the training prepared them to administer the KEA to students, though many teachers reported that they had difficulty in determining what were appropriate accommodations for English learner (EL) students or (dual language learners) and students with disabilities and indicated that they needed further assistance. 

Recommendations for Policymakers & Administrators

• Be clear about how KEA results will and will not be used by interested groups (i.e early childhood programs, Kindergarten teachers, school administrators, parents and legislators). 
• Use KEA tools that will take into account students with disabilities and EL student populations. 
• Be aware of other assessment requirements placed on this population of students and if possible eliminate or combine other skills assessment/inventory requirements. Provide the teachers taking the inventory with assistance to minimize time collecting and reporting assessment data. 
• Properly prepare, train and provide guidance and coaching to teachers that will be administering KEA. This will help ensure consistent and uniform results to provide the most accurate snapshot of students’ abilities. 
• KEA results must be delivered in a user-friendly and timely report in order for educators and parents to best utilize the information to help address each student’s needs. 
• Tie results back to preschool instruction and analyze data in order to identify instructional areas that early learning programs could help children be better prepared for kindergarten. 

Washington State’s KEA is called the Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills or WaKIDS. As with much of the work surrounding the early learning environment in Washington State, the Department of Early Learning (DEL) worked with public and private partners in developing WaKIDS. This includes:

• The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction 
• The Gates Foundation 
• Thrive Washington 
• The Early Learning Regional Coalitions 

There are three components to WaKIDS:

• Family connection welcomes families into the Washington K-12 system as partners in their child’s education. 
• Whole-child assessment helps kindergarten teachers learn about the skills and strengths of the children in their classrooms so they can meet the needs of each child. 
• Early learning collaboration aligns practices of early learning professionals and kindergarten teachers to support smooth transitions for children. 

The intended purposes of the Whole-Child Assessment component (i.e., GOLD®) of WaKIDS are to:

• Help kindergarten teachers plan classroom instruction and individualize educational supports for each student. 
• Engage, welcome, and partner with families and inform them about children’s learning strengths and needs. 
• Inform decisions about early learning and K–12 education policy and investments at the community, district, and state levels. 
• Inform early childhood education providers about children’s learning strengths and needs.

Washington WaKIDS Timeline

(Information from Exhibit 8)

2009: Legislature appropriates funds to identify and evaluate a KEA process.
2009–2010: Advisory team and committees review tools, select GOLD®, and develop WaKIDS administration process.
2010–2011: Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is piloted and evaluated.
2011–2012: Legislature passes SB5427; WaKIDS is voluntary in state-funded full-day kindergartens this school year.
2012–2013: WaKIDS is mandatory in all state-funded full-day kindergartens this school year.

Exhibit 9. Percentages of Washington Students Demonstrating Kindergarten Readiness

Exhibit Reads: 40% of all Washington kindergarten students demonstrated skills indicating full kindergarten readiness. SOURCE: Data from State of Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction n.d.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Planning for the Future of Early Learning in WA: ELAC's Latest Meeting

Yesterday, DEL's Early Learning Advisory Council (ELAC) met in Lacey to discuss the future of early learning programs in Washington state. To learn more about ELAC, refer to June's blog post about their last meeting.

Agenda items included but were not limited to:

• The Parent Advisory Group (PAG)
• DEL is currently in the review process after receiving 87 applications following the July 15 deadline. More information will be released in the coming weeks regarding the final members of this group. For more information about PAG, click here: Parent Advisory Group.

• The Child Care Development Fund (CCDF)
• The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is a federal grant that supports low-income working families by providing access to affordable, high-quality early care and after-school programs. 
• As CCDF is a federal grant, the federal government updates and issues new requirements to it's recipients. Some of the requirements that DEL is currently working on with advisement from ELAC are:
• support family engagement in child care settings to promote healthy child development
• social/emotional development and preschool expulsion policies
• child care subsidy policies (e.g. allowing homeless families to receive subsidy before submitting required documentation such as immunization records).

• Advancing Racial Equity
• As stated in June's blog post, ELAC will advise DEL on early learning policies and incorporate the Racial Equity Theory of Change (link courtesy of Thrive Washington) into the Council's feedback when considering early learning programs.With that in mind, ELAC members discussed doing the following moving forward:
• develop an annual reflection on progress made in racial equity
• DEL collects data regarding the successes and barriers that people face in their communities
• promote specific training and/or presentations regarding racial equity around the state
• construct a Racial Equity Toolkit with data as a main component
• data includes indicators like "number of Washington children participating in home visiting and preschool dis-aggregated by race and ethnicity" or "number of early learning professionals that take training on culturally or linguistically responsive services."

• The Early Start Act



DEL staff presents about the Early Start Act at yesterday's ELAC meeting.

• DEL staff presented on their hope for implementation of the Early Start Act as it was signed into law on July 6. To read more about the Early Start Act, check out last week's post about the Early Start Act Q&A panel at Starting Strong.
• Early Start Act topics at this ELAC meeting included Early Achievers and standards alignment. For up-to-date information on the Act's requirements and supports, go here: DEL's Early Start Act pages. 

ELAC meetings are generally held six times per year and host a variety of early learning advocates (regional coalitions like Child Strive of Pierce County, the Inland Northwest Early Learning Alliance, Investing in Children: Coalition Central, North Central, Northwest, Olympic-Kitsap Peninsulas coalitions, SOAR of King County, Southeast and Southwest coalitions, and Visions for Early Learning of West Central Washington). ELAC also welcomes government agency representatives from the Department of Social and Health Services, the Department of Health, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and Thrive Washington. Legislators also attend regularly. For  more information about ELAC, check out DEL's page dedicated to this group.

Washington Early Learning Partners Sign Resolution and Host Brainstorming Session

In front of more than 1,000 early learning professionals and K-3 teachers, the Department of Early Learning (DEL), the Department of Health (Health), the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), Thrive Washington (Thrive), and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) signed a joint resolution, re-establishing their commitment to collaboration.

Washington early learning partners sign a joint resolution committing
to  collaboration in early learning
 at the Starting Strong conference in Tacoma.

Following this signing at the Starting Strong conference, the partners hosted a break-out session inviting input from the conference attendees on the 2015/2016 school year's priority strategies. These strategies are garnered from the Washington Early Learning Plan. The partnership uses these as a framework, as the strategies within the plan emphasize the vision that children in Washington will start life with a solid foundation.

Conference attendees visiting seven tables representing each priority and gave feedback. Participants were asked for ideas on improvement or ways the partners could accomplish goals pertaining to each priority.

The focused strategies were:

• “Build Continuum of Infants and Toddlers Services and Programs”
•  “Make Home Visiting Available to At-Risk Families”
• “Ensure Social-Emotional Learning – Parents, Caregivers, Early Learning Professionals; Provide Health, Mental Health and Social-Emotional Consultation in Early Learning Settings; Ensure Continuum of Social/Emotional Learning— Children, Expand Compassionate Schools – Reducing Effects of Complex Trauma”
• “Strengthen Public Awareness and Action”
• “Implement Comprehensive Professional Development and Compensation System”
• “Expand Early Numeracy Programs; Align Prekindergarten and K-3 Instructional and Programmatic Practices; and Implement Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (WaKIDS)”
• “Ensure Developmental Screening and Connections to Responsive Supports”

The strategies discussed were chosen based on the urgency or momentum of each priority. Each of these strategies is something that three or more members of the partnership will pursue jointly. 

The Washington early learning partnership hosts a
Starting Strong break-out session dedicated to
brainstorming on early learning plan priorities.

In addition, each agency is working on its own priorities in early learning, either as described in the larger ten-year plan, or to meet an emergent need.

In order to successfully carry out any of the 2015/16 strategies, the partnership must meaningfully engage a broad range of constituents and stakeholders, beginning with parents and other caregivers, and including tribal governments, federal, state, and local jurisdictions, and an array of non-profit, research, philanthropic and community partners, particularly those focused on leading for equity, and closing opportunity gaps. 

The partnership must include families in the decisions that affect them. With each strategy -- and throughout their work -- the partnership will focus on key questions, such as: 

• is it good for kids, families, and providers?; 
• do some benefit more than others?; 
• who lacks access and why?; 
• what data and information is missing?; and 
•  might there be any unintended consequences? 

In the preamble to the priorities, it states,

"We will drive our work to ensure equitable access and help to close gaps. Only by closing gaps will we be able to ensure a bright future for all children, families, and communities in Washington."

Special thanks to all of the attendees of Starting Strong and for all of the thoughtful and constructive brainstorming that occurred at the partners' break-out session!

"Love. Talk. Play." this Father's Day

Washington's "Love. Talk. Play." campaign is well-established across the state, but in case you haven't heard, the study-based initiative advocates a healthy, loving and educational relationship between children and their parents beginning at an early age.

A child’s early experiences shape his or her brain structure and cognition. “Love. Talk. Play.” has teamed up with researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences (I-LABS) to look at the science behind why love, talk and play are important to the development of babies and toddlers.

In honor of Father's Day, consider how dads might play a role in daily special interactions with children. 

Love:
Social interaction and imitative learning play an important role in early brain and behavioral development. Love is just as important as nutritious food to raise a healthy child. Your gentle touch, attention and understanding help your child grow in every way. 

Dr. John Gottman discusses this role in his book, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child. 

"Dads have a pivotal role in their children’s lives. Research shows that when dads act as an emotion coach, by valuing and encouraging emotions, children do better in school, handle moods better and recover from emotional events faster," said Gottman.

Activity idea: Read with your child. "Love. Talk. Play" suggests cuddling with your child while reading, giving them your full attention. 

Talk:
Children’s early language skills predict future reading abilities, and skills not developed early are difficult to remediate later on. As soon as your child is born, start talking, singing and rhyming about anything and everything. Check out the recent Seattle Times article regarding a study that found differences in the way mothers speak to children versus their fathers. 

“Even in singing to babies, moms will sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle,’ and ‘ABC’ and dads will sing rock songs," said Tonya Bergeson-Dana, assistant professor at Indiana University Medical School, which runs the Babytalk Research center. 

Whether it's a high-pitched nursery rhyme or a rock anthem, communicating with your child is vital for healthy development.

Activity idea: Teach your child a song. "Love. Talk. Play." suggests sharing a song you enjoyed as a child.

Play:
Human cognition and innovation depends on memory, logic, mathematical reasoning, and the manipulation of physical tools and abstract symbols. Playing is not only fun; it’s also how your child learns. In another recent Seattle Times article, the effectiveness of play in learning is highlighted. 

"Play is often perceived as immature behavior that doesn’t achieve anything," says David Whitebread, a psychologist at Cambridge University who has studied the topic for decades. "But it’s essential to their development. They need to learn to persevere, to control attention, to control emotions. Kids learn these things through playing."

Check out the recent DEL blog post about play and learning that references Dr. Whitebread, and another blog post by Paul Nyhan for "Love. Talk. Play" partner, Thrive Washington called "Students are Ready for More STEM and Play in Preschool, Two Studies Find."

Activity idea: Make a meal together. "Love. Talk. Play" suggests letting kids play with pots, pans, spoons and cups to pretend to cook or making a game out of trying new foods.

"Love. Talk. Play." is sponsored by Thrive by Five Washington, the state’s nonprofit public-private partnership for early learning, the Department of Early Learning (DEL) and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, and it is supported by many other statewide and local organizations.