Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community:
Individualizing: A Plan for Success
Appendix E
| Contents
| Preface
| Introduction
| Module 1
| Module 2
| Module 3
| Module 4 | |
Ongoing Assessment in Head Start
Ongoing assessment is Step 4 in The Individualizing Cycle. During this step, staff and families collect information about each child's changing interests and needs and progress toward meeting developmental goals.
Ongoing assessment ensures that Head Start children are continually being observed and that their progress is documented. Staff and families need up-to-date information to individualize a child development program.
There are a number of strategies staff and families can use:
A portfolio is a collection of up-to-date information that documents a child's progress and changing characteristics. Teachers and home visitors are responsible for maintaining portfolios, and families participate in collecting items to include in them. Each portfolio includes information from a number of sources such as those listed above. These items provide a dynamic history of how children learn and develop social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills.
Portfolios serve several purposes. Head Start staff can use them:
Work samples are examples of children's work that are saved to record the children's progress. They are the heart of a child's portfolio. Here are some examples.*
Samples of children's work completed at home and in Head Start settings:
Photographs of children's work and accomplishments:
Photographs of children involved in everyday routines and activities:
Written records:
Audiovisual records:
Staff, families, and children (beginning at about age three) can all play a role in selecting work samples to include in a portfolio. Families might contribute items such as drawings done at home or examples of skills they have observed the child using. Other members of the Head Start team can contribute their ongoing observations and information. Children can also help the adults select items to include. This allows children to make judgements about their work. In addition, children get the message at an early age that self-assessment is an important part of learning and growing. If children need help selecting samples, the adults can ask questions such as, Which painting was the most fun to do? or Which books do you think you'd like us to read again?
It takes practice to become skilled in selecting examples that truly represent a child's work. It may help to remember that a portfolio is an ongoing record of a child's growing skills. Just as a standardized test tries to measure children's progress and mastery of skills, so too should the samples in a portfolio illustrate the child's progress and skills. If Desiree, for example, learns to make a block tower, this milestone is worthy of being included in her portfolio. Her portfolio would include an anecdotal record describing the accomplishment or a photo. In the same vein, if Amad habitually enjoys cooking in the housekeeping area, then this behavior represents his interests and play preferences. Ongoing observation notes of his play or an audiotape of him talking to other children about the meal he is cooking are appropriate additions to his portfolio.
To summarize, work samples should:
The containers used to house portfolios must be expandable, durable, accessible, and portable. Accordion files, donated pizza boxes, or plastic containers with lids serve this purpose well. Portfolios are confidential records and should be stored in an area that can be locked.
As a rule, only persons with a need to know should have access to a child's portfolio. To protect the privacy of children and families, you should:
It is recommended that you add something to each child's portfolio every 2 weeks. To make updating a team effort, staff can share the responsibility and set a staggered schedule so they do not have to update all portfolios at one time. Date each entry to show when it was completed.
Portfolios are growing collections of information about a child. To be useful, the information in them should be stored by category. For example, you might want to tie your categories to your program's curriculum, use the developmental domains, or select categories by program option or the child's age. The following example shows how to organize entries in a preschooler's portfolio by using activities as categories:*
*Based in part on Cathy Grace and Elizabeth Shores, et al., The Portfolio and Its Use: Developmentally Appropriate Assessment of Young Children (Little Rock, Ark.: Southern Association on Children under Six, 1992), 6; and Portfolio of Developmental Progress: Celebration of Childhood Learning (Department of Defense Dependent Schools--Germany, Early Childhood Task Force, 1994).
