Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community:
Individualizing: A Plan for Success
Module 4

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Responding to Children's Progress--The Ongoing Process Continues


In this module, participants learn about the purpose of and strategies for ongoing assessment. They also learn to use portfolios to maintain current information about a child's development and progress.

Outcomes

As a result of completing this module, staff will be able to:

Key Concepts

Background Information

Through ongoing assessment, Step 4 in The Individualizing Cycle, staff and families collect information about the child's changing interests, needs, and progress toward meeting developmental goals. Head Start staff and families use strategies for ongoing assessment that range from ongoing observations to checklists to anecdotal reports to collections of children's work. Ongoing assessment documents each child's progress and identifies changing interests and needs. It provides up-to-date information about each child's unique characteristics, which is used to plan and implement an individualized curriculum. Ongoing assessment is built into the daily, weekly, and long-term planning process of an individualized child development program.

For many years, early childhood educators used standardized achievement and readiness tests to assess children's progress and determine their readiness for kindergarten. However, more recently, many early childhood professionals have determined that these testing methods do not provide sufficient, adequate information for measuring children's progress, in part because they do not reflect the ways in which young children learn. Standardized tests can be one part of the ongoing assessment process; however, they should be supplemented with other sources of information.

Portfolios

Many early childhood professionals now advocate the use of portfolios as a developmentally appropriate alternative to standardized tests for measuring young children's progress. Portfolios include information about a child that was collected from a number of sources such as ongoing observation recordings, screening and/or in-depth developmental assessments, and anecdotal records. They can include checklists, photographs, and summaries of conversations with families. Work samples--examples of children's work that were saved as records of the children's progress--are a major component of each child's portfolio.* See Appendix E for a list of work samples. These items record and document a child's progress through the curriculum and serve as a dynamic history of how children learn and develop social, emotional, physical, cognitive, and language skills.

Portfolios also document interests, pinpoint potential areas of need, and describe how life experiences may be affecting the child's growth and development. Portfolios can demonstrate results of the individualized plans for children with disabilities. They are also the mainstay of ongoing assessment. Portfolios serve three major purposes.

Portfolios Are Used to Share Information

Portfolios are a natural vehicle for sharing information. Agendas for staff-family conferences and home visits can originate in the profile of the child's ongoing development found in the portfolio. In addition, the portfolio may contain answers to questions raised at the conference. For example, Mr. and Mrs. F. want to know if Renee, who attends the infant-toddler center at a Head Start migrant program, will benefit from the materials and activities in the preschool classroom when the crops are in and the family moves upstream. Her portfolio includes a checklist assessment of skills, examples of scribbles that she wrote spontaneously, and a log of books Renee enjoyed at home and at the center. In addition, anecdotal observations and running records document Renee's growing motor skills, mastery of self-help skills, and her creative approach to problem solving. In fact, there are probably dozens of items in the portfolio about Renee's skills and interests.

Portfolios Are Used for Planning

Education staff and families can also use portfolios for planning. Because the portfolio is a dynamic record of a child's progress, it is an ongoing source of information that can be used for individualizing. Staff and families use screening and ongoing assessment information as the basis of their original plans for individualizing. They use information from portfolios to regularly update goals and plans for each child. In some instances, reviewing portfolios lead staff and families to identify signs that a child has a health and/or developmental problem that was not identified during the screening process. The child can then be referred for an evaluation so the problem can be diagnosed and addressed.

Portfolios Support Transition

Portfolios can be used for supporting a child's transition from Early Head Start to Head Start to another program or elementary school. With parental permission, the portfolio often accompanies the child to the new setting. This allows the child's new teachers and administrators to offer an appropriate curriculum. Portfolios that accurately represent a child's background, skills, interests, and needs will continue to inform staff and families long after the child has left Head Start.

Maintaining Confidentiality

When a program begins using portfolios, it is important to establish safeguards for ensuring confidentiality. As a rule, only persons with a need to know should have access to a child's portfolio. See Appendix E for additional guidelines for protecting the privacy of children and families.


Activity 4-1:
Every Portfolio Tells a Story		 Workshop icon Purpose: In this activity participants learn to use individual portfolios to conduct ongoing assessment, to document a child's progress, and to identify a child's changing needs and interests.

Outcomes:

Participants implement an ongoing assessment system that documents each child's progress and changing characteristics in a portfolio that includes screening and ongoing assessment results, samples of the child's work, completed checklists, ongoing observation notes, family-provided information, photographs, and other data demonstrating a child's progress.

Participants select work samples that represent a child's skills and interests to be included in the child's portfolio.

Participants collaborate with families to review each child's progress, set new goals, and plan individualized strategies for encouraging development at home, at the center, at an FCC home, and/or during group socialization sessions.

Materials:

  1. Explain to participants that this activity will focus on accomplishing ongoing assessment by maintaining individual portfolios that document each child's progress.

  2. Ask participants to offer examples of how young children change. Their suggestions might include the following:

    • Grow (taller, larger, stronger)
    • Make developmental progress in all domains
    • Overcome fears and anxieties
    • Develop new fears and anxieties
    • Lose interest in one thing and become interested in another
    • Respond to life experiences (a new home, birth of a sibling)
    • Gain specific skills that are used in new activities (after a baby learns to crawl, she can explore the environment)

    Trainer Preparation Notes: If possible, use an actual portfolio in your discussion. Remove the child's name to protect confidentiality.

  3. Distribute Appendix E: Ongoing Assessment in Head Start, and discuss questions 1 through 3. Reinforce the importance of monitoring and responding to children as they grow and change.

  4. Introduce portfolios as an effective strategy for ongoing assessment: collecting, documenting, and reviewing information about a child's progress and changing characteristics. Review questions 4 and 5 in Appendix E.

    Explain that a portfolio is used to:

    • Record and document a child's progress
    • Describe how the child thinks and learns
    • Document social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills
    • Depict the child's interests
    • Involve the child in assessing his or her own work
    • Assess the effectiveness of current individualized practices
    • Set new goals for the child
    • Plan new ways to encourage the child's development

    Review the information about work samples in Appendix E (questions 6 through 11). Note that these are the heart of the portfolio because they are concrete representations of the child's interests, abilities, and accomplishments.

    Trainer Preparation Notes: In Head Start, portfolios are most often used to document the progress of preschool-age children. However, portfolios can also be used to maintain up-to-date information about infants and toddlers.

  5. Ask participants to form four small groups. Distribute Handout 24: Creating a Portfolio and review the instructions. Give participants 30 minutes to complete this assignment.

  6. Ask each group to work with another group to take turns discussing their completed handouts. Provide chart paper and markers. As one group presents the work samples they included in the child's portfolio, as described in Handout 24, members of the other group should record information about the child on the chart paper. For example, if Group A's portfolio includes a photograph of the child lacing his sneakers, Group B could record information about the child's small motor skills. If the work samples truly represent the child's interests and abilities, they should create a portrait of the child. Give participants 30 minutes to complete this sharing activity.

  7. Reconvene as a full group. Ask participants to report on their results. To guide your discussion, include these questions:

    • What did the work samples tell you about the child?
    • In addition to the work samples, what other sources of information would round out the picture of this child?
    • What information should be included in an infant's portfolio?
    • What information should be included in a toddler's portfolio?
    • What information should be included in a preschooler's portfolio?
    • How can you involve families in collecting information to include in portfolios?

  8. Ask participants to write down their greatest challenge in using portfolios for ongoing assessment. Have them form pairs to discuss each challenge and jointly develop solutions so that they can use portfolios for ongoing assessment in their program.


Activity 4-2:
Putting the Pieces Together		 Coaching icon Purpose: In this activity, participants develop a system for maintaining, updating, and using individual portfolios as a means for conducting ongoing assessment.

Outcomes: Participants implement an ongoing assessment system that documents each child's progress and changing characteristics in a portfolio that includes screening and ongoing assessment results, samples of the child's work, completed checklists, ongoing observation notes, family-provided information, photographs, and other data demonstrating the child's progress.

Participants select work samples that represent a child's skills and interests to be included in the child's portfolio.

Participants collaborate with families to review each child's progress, set new goals, and plan individualized strategies for encouraging development at home and in Head Start settings.

Materials:

Coach Preparation Notes: In Head Start, portfolios are most often used to document the progress of preschool-age children. However, portfolios can also be used to maintain up-to-date information about infants and toddlers.

  1. Explain to participants that this activity will focus on creating a picture of a child using up-to-date information collected from multiple sources. Participants will plan a system for maintaining and using portfolios. They will apply the system to create a child's portfolio.

  2. Distribute Appendix E: Ongoing Assessment in Head Start and discuss the questions and answers about ongoing assessment, portfolios, and work samples.

  3. Distribute Handout 25: Getting to Know All about You and review the instructions. Have participants complete this assignment before the next coaching session.

  4. Meet with participants to discuss their experiences using multiple sources to collect up-to-date information about a child. Ask participants to use the information they collected to describe the child's characteristics, interests, and progress toward developing cognitive, language, social, physical, and emotional skills. If there are gaps in the picture of the child, discuss what information is missing and how it can be collected. Encourage participants to seek information from the child's family.

    Coach Preparation Notes: If possible, use an actual portfolio to demonstrate how the contents are organized. Remove the child's name to protect confidentiality.

  5. For each participant, provide a container that can be used to create a portfolio and materials they can use to organize their collected information. The container should fit in whatever locked space is used to store confidential information. Ask participants to create a system for maintaining, updating, and using portfolios in their program. The system should include procedures for maintaining confidentiality. Next, participants should apply this system to organize the information they collected in Step 3 into a portfolio. Have the participants complete this assignment before the next coaching session.

  6. Review participants' completed portfolio systems. Discuss the steps they need to take to begin using portfolios as their primary strategy for ongoing assessment.

  7. Ask participants to share the portfolio created in this activity with the child's family.


Activity 4-3:
Making Conferences Work for Everyone 		Workshop icon Purpose: In this activity, participants will learn how to plan and hold conferences with families to review children's progress, set goals, and develop individualized strategies for encouraging learning and development.
Outcome:

Participants collaborate with families to review each child's progress, set new goals, and plan individualized strategies for encouraging development at home and in Head Start settings.

Materials:

  1. Explain to participants that this activity will focus on how staff-family conferences can be opportunities to use the results of ongoing assessment to review a child's progress, set new goals, and develop new strategies for encouraging development.

  2. Ask participants to form five small groups. Distribute Handout 26: What's Right? What's Wrong? and review the instructions. Assign a vignette on the handout to each group. Give participants 20 minutes to complete this assignment.

  3. Ask groups to present their vignettes and share their responses to the questions What's right? and What's wrong? Use these presentations to describe the purposes of conferences and to list strategies for planning and holding staff-family conferences. After the group presentations, distribute Handout 27: Conference Checklist, which summarizes the key steps in planning and conducting conferences. (Tell participants to ignore the time limit in the instructions as it refers to Activity 4-4.)

  4. Ask participants to compare their approach to planning and holding staff-family conferences to the suggestions in Handout 27: Conference Checklist. Ask participants to select an idea from the handout to try in their program and to explain to a partner why this idea will contribute to an individualized child development and education approach.


Activity 4-4:
Using Conferences to Support Individualizing 		Coaching icon Purpose: In this activity, participants plan, hold, and document staff-family conferences so they can jointly review a child's progress; assess the effectiveness of strategies used at home and in Head Start settings; set new goals; and develop strategies for continuing to encourage a child's development.

Outcome:

Participants collaborate with families to review each child's progress, set goals, and plan strategies for encouraging development at home and in Head Start settings.

Materials:

  1. Explain to participants that this activity will focus on how staff-family conferences support individualizing. Participants will assess their current practices, and plan, hold, and evaluate a conference with a family.

  2. Use the following questions to discuss staff-family conferences:

    Why is it important to hold staff-family conferences?
    How do they support individualizing?

  3. Distribute Handout 27: Conference Checklist and review the instructions. Give participants 30 minutes to complete this checklist.

  4. Discuss participants' completed checklists. Ask questions such as:

    Are there items on the checklist you don't do now but would like to do in the future?

    Are there items on the checklist you don't do now because you do not think they are necessary?

    Coach Preparation Notes: How you complete the next step will vary depending on the time of year you are using this guide. If you are using the guide at a time when conferences are normally held, you can proceed as described in Step 5 of this activity. If not, you may need to adapt the instructions to accommodate program operations. For example, if it is early in the program year, the conference might focus on collecting information about the child rather than on sharing information about the child's progress.

  5. Have participants plan and hold a staff-family conference. Before each conference, use a blank copy of Handout 27: Conference Checklist to review the participants' plans and offer suggestions, if appropriate. During the conference, conduct an ongoing observation.

  6. After each conference, meet with participants to discuss what you saw and heard, offer feedback on how they worked with the family to individualize the program for the child, and agree on strategies to implement in future conferences.


Next Steps:
Ideas to Extend Practice		 Next Steps icon Participants can build on the skills developed through this guide by completing the following activities, independently or with other staff. Some of these activities can contribute to the participants' professional portfolios.

Present a Workshop on Selecting Work Samples

Hold a workshop for participants and families on how to select work samples to include in a child's portfolio. Use the workshop as an opportunity to develop criteria that staff and families (and preschoolers) can apply as they decide which items truly represent a child's current skills and interests.

Possible Portfolio Entry: List of selection criteria for work samples


Develop a Handbook for Conducting Conferences

Develop a handbook on planning, holding, and documenting staff-family conferences. Describe your recommended practices and include planning and documentation forms. Provide examples that show how successful conferences contributed to an individualized child development and education approach. Offer suggestions for ensuring sensitivity to each family's culture and language.

Possible Portfolio Entry: The table of contents from the handbook


Create Lists of Age-Appropriate Portfolio Items Invite parents and colleagues to help you create a list of items that would be appropriate to include in portfolios for children of the ages served by your program. For example, if you work in a migrant program serving infants and toddlers, your list would address those age groups. The items on your completed list should contribute to creating a picture of the child's changing characteristics and progress. Make a separate list for each age group served by your program. Disseminate draft copies of the lists to parents and staff and ask for feedback. After you have finalized the lists, share them with parents at enrollment or during the screening process.

Possible Portfolio Entry: Completed lists of items to include in portfolios for children of different ages

*P. Carini (1978) in 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).

Handouts

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