Running Head: AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 1

Authentic Assessment

Michelle Jaramillo

Fresno Pacific University

AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 2

Authentic Assessment

Each day in the Early Childhood classrooms authentic assessments are being utilized and

capturing the children’s interactions with one another in play scenarios and learning center areas.

The opportunities are very important for teachers to capture learning as it takes place in the

young child’s typical daily routine. An authentic assessment is an assessment which students are

captured performing real world tasks that demonstrate meaningful applications of essential

knowledge and skills. Authentic assessments require children to apply their skills to hand’s on

scenarios that children would typically apply in the real world. Authentic assessments generally

stay away from passive test taking applications. This form of assessment is ideal for students in

the early childhood years because children learn through play and through play children can

easily become assessed in several different areas of development. Developing a better

understanding that developmentally appropriate early childhood evaluation is necessary when

documenting a young child’s growth. Appropriate and authentic evaluation strategies, effective

use of evaluation data, and useful structure for organizing and sharing obtained formative and

summative information. The examples provided above are all the factors inquired when

formulating an effective evaluation strategy to measure a child’s progress effectively.

Over the years of education the strategies and forms of assessments used in today’s

classroom’s have changed and look differently in the classroom environment. However, no

matter how assessments change or what they may look like in the classroom the main goal for

assessments remain, assessments are used to guide children’s learning and to inform instruction,

most importantly assessments are also used to identify children’s special needs if any may not be

recognizable physically. Assessments are also put into place to assess the strengths and needs of

programs, authentic assessments hold early childhood programs accountable. The need for well
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 3

designed, age appropriate assessments and evaluations are needed to help professionals make

informed decisions in early childhood education. The need for assessment is greatly and effects

every student’s overall development. For example, the needs for assessments in the classroom

continue to grow because information collected is used to inform instruction, to help identify

children who may have a unnoticed special need or additional support, and lastly to report the

student’s progress to their families. By teachers setting up different learning centers throughout

the classroom educators are allowing children the opportunity to learn as they play. For example,

setting up a building block’s station, setting up a theatre with dress up costumes, and a sensory

station these are all great ideas to be sure and include when establishing a classroom. Many of

these learning centers and activities promote great thinking skills, imagination skills, and fine

motor along with cognitive thinking skills. By exposing children to these form of skills teachers

can test children on language development, spelling and recognizing letters in words.

Assessments of course should always be age appropriate for any child in the classroom setting.

Assessment screening and evaluation work hand in hand when assessing children,

however both processes are set up to capture different characteristics of children. For example,

assessment screening is a process intended to identify children who may need a more

comprehensive evaluation. Assessment evaluation is intended to be used when determining

initial and continuing eligibility for early intervention or special education services. Screening

could be used for children who may be experiencing difficulty in class and home work, red flags

may be easily noticed by the teacher and an assessment may be put in place to help the child

academically. A full assessment is often given when determining eligibility for a child to receive

an IEP, Individualized Educational Plan which is geared towards children over the age of three

years old. The evaluation tool may be used when determining eligibility for child to receive early
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 4

intervention services, the 0-3 early start programs are put into place in early childhood

development and meet the needs of children from birth through three years of age who are born

with a medical condition or special need. Evaluations are also put into place not only for early

intervention services but also for children who may be receiving special education such as an IEP

to monitor growth and progress while working towards goals. Evaluation involves gathering

information of measurement, comparison, and judgment of the values, quality or worth of the

child’s work. Although assessments and evaluations capture different findings of information

these two subjects create an enrich curriculum. Confidentiality is the mark of professionalism

and as the code of ethic supported by the NAEYC. Those who implement the evaluation

procedure greatly affect the outcome. There are several elements on how to become an effective

evaluator, the state of the child at the time of evaluation. The timing of evaluation is everything,

depending on the student’s schedule and amount of time spent at school all have to be taken into

consideration. An effective evaluator uses appropriate selection of data collection tools and

strategies, for example the evaluator is going to collect data that benefits the student’s outcome.

When documenting progress from evaluations teachers want to find ways to better assist the

child rather than compare and contrasts outcomes that do not pertain to the student or their

success.

Effective and authentic assessments are commonly used to determine “school readiness”

in early childhood. Early childhood educators provide all incoming kindergartners with a

readiness assessment, the assessment just like any other assessment identity’s strengths and

weaknesses the child may face academically. Readiness measures assist in determining whether

the child has acquired characteristics that equip them to come to elementary school with

knowledge of how to learn. Social and emotional development plays a huge factor affecting all
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 5

areas of development. Emotionally some children are not ready to attend kindergarten, many

kindergartners may not have had the opportunity to attend preschool, and these areas of

development will show in the child’s academic assessment. School readiness looks into the

child’s overall development, social, emotional, cognitive, fine and gross motor development.

Including of the child’s overall development when assessing school readiness characteristics

must be identified, Confidence, curiosity, intentionality, self-control, the ability to relate,

communicate, and cooperate. Early childhood education programs are valuable interventions to

assist children in developing appropriate school readiness skills needed to help facilitate the

transition to traditional schooling. There are many benefits to having and including high quality

early childhood education into curriculum and classroom activities. When teaching children in a

high quality early childhood classroom and environment the outcomes of assessments and

evaluations are much more of a success for the child. Assessing school readiness is important

when identifying emotional maturity and how this influences important aspects such as self

confidence, which works hand and hand with the child’s learning. School readiness programs are

also offered as a financial assistance to low income families for early childhood education and

care. This program gives families the opportunity to become financially self sufficient while their

child is receiving quality education to be successful in school and their future. School readiness

covers a wide range of opportunity for all children who make up the population of early

childhood.

In today’s early childhood development field there are many effective screening tools that

are used in today’s assessment screenings and evaluations. For example, familiar screening tools

such as Ages and Stages Questionnaire ASQ, Infant Developmental Inventory, First Step

Screening Test for Evaluating Preschoolers often known as first step, and lastly Parents
AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 6

Evaluation of Developmental Status. (Lipkin, 2006; Wortham, 2008) The examples provided are

mostly used when children are becoming assessed to determine eligibility for early start

intervention services; however the list of screening tools continues to grow as children enter

kindergarten and elementary school years. Anecdotal Records and observation is another familiar

tool that is used in today’s classroom and curriculum. Anecdotal observation are used to monitor

a number of things such as, how well the student is able to handle the material and task, what

was the nature of errors that were made, what strategies to be used to optimize learning, how

could the task be simplified or extended to optimize the concept of learning, and lastly what

misunderstandings exist. The main goal for anecdotal observations is particularly used for noting

and improving the student’s task performance. Overall authentic assessments continue to

improve when helping students reach academic success. Authentic assessments do not leave

behind or discriminate any student, assessments can be effective for both typical performing

students, students who are an over achiever, and students who may have some type of special

needs and learning delays.

AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT 7

REFERENCES

Woolfolk, A. and Perry, N. (2012) Child and Adolescent Development. Pearson Education Inc.,
New Jersey.

http://www.ttacnews.vcu.edu/2014/11/what-can-we-learn-from-childrens-play-using-authentic-
assessment-in-the-early-childhood-classroom/

Rice, M. Ed. M(2014)What can we learn from children’s play? Using authentic assessment in
the early childhood classroom.

https://www.cde.state.co.us/resultsmatter/observation

http://www.uen.org/k-2educator/assessment.shtml