THE Early Childhood Commission (EEC) is currently engaging a team to craft the Age Four Readiness Assessment, designed to inform children’s level of preparedness for the primary education system.

“Research has shown internationally that children who are not ready for primary school have poorer academic outcomes, which lead to higher levels of drop out and antisocial behaviour, including criminality and violence,” said ECC chair Dr Maureen Samms-Vaughan, noting the value of the assessment, which is being developed in line with the National Strategic Plan for Early Childhood Development in Jamaica, 2008-2013.

“International research has also shown that more than half the achievement gap identified at the primary level between students was already present at kindergarten. Research from the Profiles Project from the Department of Child Health at UWI (University of the West Indies) has also shown that achievement gaps for children from the lower socio-economic groups widen as the children move to primary school,” she added.

The national strategic plan provides for, among other things, early and effective screening, diagnosis and intervention for at-risk children and households.

At-risk children, according to the plan, are “children who have health, behaviourial or developmental problems or who live in situations that could prevent them from developing as they should”. Families or households at risk are described as “those that are in situations that could prevent young children from developing as they should”.

The activities to be carried out to meet the goal of early diagnosis and intervention include the development and implementation of a national policy on screening and early identification for children and households at risk.

Samms-Vaughan, who was responding to Career & Education queries in writing, noted that the assessment, which is not a diagnostic test, would form a part of the Ministry of Education’s National Assessment Programme, which currently begins at grade one.

Meanwhile, the assessment to evaluate children’s readiness for primary school will be done on the basis of more than their ability to complete academic tasks — reading, writing and arithmetic.

“School Readiness has been identified as having five main domains… Indicators will be developed that measure each one of the domains,” Samms-Vaughan said.

Those domains, she said, include:

* the physical – health, gross motor skills (for example, running and jumping) and fine motor skills (for example, holding a pencil and using fingers well);

* the social – social skills (for example co-operation, empathy and self-care) and emotional skills, such as emotional regulation, including conflict resolution);

* approach to learning – ability to use skills learnt, attention and focus;

* language development – verbal skills and early literacy; and

* cognition – reasoning, thinking and general knowledge.

Samms-Vaughan would not get into the details of the precise composition of the team that will develop the programme, but said it will “necessarily include experts skilled in test development and early childhood development”.

“Test development is a long process, which includes piloting and validation of test items on large numbers of children. This process is necessary to ensure that when the test is administered, it truly reflects the status of readiness of children. This will take approximately 18 months,” she said, noting the process that would have to adhered to once the team is selected.

Once the development of the test is completed, it will be administered nationally in the next academic year.

Precisely how it will be administered will depend on the final indicators in the assessment.

“But for most preschool readiness assessments, the class teacher reports on the skills that they have observed children to have. The ‘test’ setting — with an examination paper that is graded — typically used for children at primary and secondary level is not appropriate for young children,” Samms-Vaughan told Career & Education.

“It will be important to provide training for persons on the philosophy behind the assessment, the purpose and uses of the assessment,” she added.

Once the test results are in, Samms-Vaughan noted that there are a number of uses to which they would be put, not the least of which will be to determine the individual needs of children.

“This allows teachers to provide individualised instruction as required for children and guides parents on areas of support their children may need at home,” she said. (It will also be used) to evaluate the progress in children’s development nationally over time. Of course, in our situation, when the assessment is being administered for the first time, it will initially provide us with baseline data from which to monitor progress.”

Beyond that, she said the results would be used to:

* evaluate the quality of the learning environment, including the curriculum in use and its implementation; and

* identify geographic or other sub-areas where specific intervention may be necessary to support schools.

“On an individual basis, a child’s specific needs can be identified and appropriate interventions and referrals made. The selection of the end of the second year of preschool — age four years — for administration is in keeping with similar international assessments. However, the time of administration was also chosen to allow a full year of intervention for children who may need this support,” Samms-Vaughan said.

“When children are transitioning to primary school from preschool, it will be clearly determined whether the child needs no additional support and can proceed to the regular primary environment, needs additional support that can be provided within the primary environment or needs support which is best provided in another environment, such as a special-needs environment,” she added.

At the school level, Samms-Vaughan said “school boards and teaching staff can assess the needs of their children and their schools.”

“Nationally, readiness assessments allow us to identify strengths and challenges in our current preschool system, we can then build on strengths, and identify strategies to address challenges, based on evidence. National assessments are also used to monitor and evaluate the interventions which we make,” she noted.

“It is important to understand that readiness of children for school is only one component of readiness. Readiness of schools for children and readiness of parents and communities to support children are equally important to ensure overall readiness of young children,” Samms-Vaughan added.

The precise cost of developing the assessment was not immediately clear, but Samms-Vaughan said that the Early Childhood Commission had “requested and received support from UNICEF for this aspect of the development of the National Strategic Plan for ECD (Early Childhood Development)”.