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(Unit 5) Topic 3: Back-to-School Transition Tools for the Early Childhood Teacher

2 Clock Hours of Early Childhood Education

Beginning of the Year Assessment

In addition to assessment during individual lessons, teachers will also need to conduct beginning of the year assessments with each student. 

​Topic 3 Page 6

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This type of assessment is more generalized and includes many different areas of development including:

• physical/motor (fine and gross)
• social and emotional
• cognitive
• literacy
• mathematical
• behavior/temperament

Regardless of the age group that you work with, all children will need to be assessed at the beginning of their time with you in order to establish a baseline. ​

Doing so will allow you to set realistic goals and targets for the student during the school year. Familiarize yourself with whatever assessment system you will be using. There are numerous beginning of the year assessments that you can use. Talk with your director about which one will work best for your specific classroom/center. You will want to be comfortable performing the assessment, so the validity is not compromised. This same assessment will be given again at the end of the year, so educators can easily compare and hopefully show growth. ​Infant and toddler assessments will likely consist of observational data and some sample work. Preschool children will be assessed in multiple ways including sample work, observational data, and more formalized baseline assessments.

It’s also a good idea to set a schedule for completing your assessments. Generally, you will want assessments to be completed by the end of the first two weeks of the year. Create a timeline and map out which students you will be assessing on what days. Do your best to stick to your schedule, but also be aware that occasionally things will come up. Maybe the child you planned to assess that day is out sick. Just like in most areas of teaching, you will need to be adaptable. 

​Once you have all of the results of your assessments, you can plan for beginning of the year conferences. This will give you time to go over where the student is developmentally as well as academically with parents and guardians. This will also give you time to discuss ways you can work collaboratively to map out a plan for growth for the child.  

• ​Back-To-School Backpack: Think About Assessment
• Assessing Development and Learning in Young Children​

(Unit 5) Topic 3: Back-to-School Transition Tools * Navigation Menu