{"id":9717,"date":"2025-07-10T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/?p=9717"},"modified":"2025-07-09T09:38:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T16:38:52","slug":"making-sense-of-early-childhood-assessment-four-things-to-consider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/2025\/making-sense-of-early-childhood-assessment-four-things-to-consider\/","title":{"rendered":"Making sense of early childhood assessment: Four things to consider"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"There is consensus among educators that assessments should be purposeful, aligned to instruction, and beneficial to student outcomes. However, there is a vein of debate running through the\u00a0early childhood field\u00a0as some professionals voice concerns over the increasing emphasis on assessment of young children, often focusing on standardized tests. In order to navigate these concerns with integrity, it is important to understand some of what is at the root of the issues. Here are four challenges that need to be considered with early childhood assessment.<\/p>\n

1. Accounting for developmental variability<\/h2>\n

Professionals in early childhood education recognize that typical children develop at different rates in different domains. Because of this, concerns arise about assigning younger children to fixed-form assessments designed to compare students to a proficiency norm, as has been common among state summative assessments in grades 3\u20138. Typically, the information produced by a fixed-form proficiency-based test is weaker for students well above and below grade-level proficiency marks. Given the greater individual variability that younger children exhibit, some professionals are concerned that some assessments may offer imprecise information for children at lower and higher levels of achievement.<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0Division for Early Childhood notes<\/a>, \u201cVery young children learn and grow at remarkable and unpredictable rates that are unmatched during other age periods. Because of this, scores from assessments administered to very young children tend to be unstable.\u201d This has two repercussions for those with concerns. First, one-time snapshots are likely to be less meaningful for younger students. Second, professional judgment is a key factor in determining how ready each child is (particularly at and before kindergarten entry) for a certain approach to assessment.<\/p>\n

The variability of young children\u2019s abilities relates to two key early childhood topics that carry significance for assessment: developmentally appropriate practice and opportunity to learn.\u00a0NAEYC<\/a>\u00a0defines developmentally appropriate practice as pedagogy and care drawing from three sources of knowledge:<\/p>\n