We did it one year. We called it Jumpstart and we tested kids the week before school started.. They were already on our rosters but it let us get a headstart.. Pros- got to know the kids better even if they were not in our class, we just tested first come first serve. We also had less testing when school started and we were able to jump right in and start teaching what they needed. Cons- Some kids were shy and we didn’t get much information out of them.

 Our school no longer does that screening so we spend most of Aug, and Sept testing and in Oct start teaching what they need.

I do mine in May. That way families have enough time to make other plans if their kids are not ready yet.

Ours take place in the Spring, however, we as in Kindergarten, Teachers are not happy with that and think that they should be done before school begins in the fall. School age kids can lose some of the progression that they made during the school year, so can preschool kids. This would be a more appropriate time to assess student’s speech, developmental delays and any issues that have developed over the summer.

We do ours during Kindergarten round up at the end of April, however that only gives us about 15 of our 40 kiddos, and they are shy and still months away from being ready. Also, some move before school starts so to me it s a waste of time.

We do not, so it makes the first few weeks hectic. We do not have a way to report info to parents until October either.

Our school has KG orientation in May and they use it as one component to divide students into classrooms for the upcoming fall. We then test kids in Sept. basically letter sounds,recog., numbers etc., MAPS testing in Oct. and recently will have something called PALS to do.

We did ours in a K camp at the end of May. That way we could go ahead and seperate students into classrooms. Last year we did it at the beginning of the year because of construction and it was pure chaos.

Our K kids have a celebration before school ends… Like 5 days before. Then that is their last day. Then we schedule screenings and place kids during those last 5 days.

Our district no longer screens kinders before they arrive in the fall. It sounds great to try and screen during kindergarten roundup but out of a possible 60 kindergartners, only 9 showed up. It would be nice to screen them before school begins, but that has never been put on the school calendar.

The first three days of the school year. Then they start school the following week. There’s high mobility here so it wouldn’t be usefull to do in the spring the year before because those same kids won’t be in the school. And many parents don’t register their kids here until a few days before school starts. So they would need to be screened anyway…. So the first 3 days of the school year is just for screening. Not for school.

We screen.. But only one of us do it.. She does most of it over the summer and if the kids are not tested we do those children during phase-in.. I like to know where they are..

 I do an “informal screening” in the spring when I invite the pre-school and all interested incomings to visit my kindergarten. Like Lisa Gray, we have very poor turnout for roundup. we are a small rural school with only about 10-15 kinders each year who join in a k/1 multi-age class. I hold an orientation the day before school starts and do another “informal” then. But the real screening takes place during the first week of school. Our Resource aide (who used to be a kdg teacher at a private school) takes my kiddos and gives them the brigance screening and tests them for letter and number recognition. And….my district just purchased the right to use ESGI, which is a testing format online…it is really cool, and keeps track of everything on a website that you can access from any computer. I used it with my k’s and 1’s for report card testing, and LOVE it .

You can look it up online..it is easy to use and even an aide or a parent could do it with the kids.  And it is not that expensive…the reports it can generate, and the flashcards it will tailor to each individual child is awesome…I highly recommend it for assessment…check it out. Educational software guiding instruction…ESGI..and no, I am not a paid representative, just a satisfied customer!

 they don’t do it here 😦

 We don’t prescreen/pretest. We start screening our class the first week of school to establish a baseline for each student. We also use ESGI. It’s fabulous!! We’ve created several custom tests to suit our needs. We established benchmarks for each quarter that show each child’s progress.

 I’m doing it right now for the incoming 5 classes of 30 kids each. I sent a letter a few weeks ago asking parents to call for an appt. I assess letters, sounds, numbers to ten, shapes and name writing. I’ll use the information to see who needs kinder camp and to help balance classes.

Usually we have K-1 Reading assessments in October, January and May. This year we have talked the principal into letting us do pre assessments so we know what the students know if letter id, writing their names, dictation, and word id.

Hopefully this will help us out for the first week of school.

 We don’t–we take what we get in mid-August when school starts!