What You Have Learned About Why We Assess Young Children

Week One Content Review

Ernestine Brodie

Walden University

Consider what you have learned about why we assess young children. Based on pages 33-35 of Assessing and Guiding Young Children 's Development and Learning and the video segment "Overview of Assessment"," briefly explain the importance of developmentally appropriate assessments.

Assessment is a very important part to early childhood education. Assessments help educators by gaining information that can help make important decisions that will help with the development of children. Developmentally appropriate assessments can help educators learn what children can do and the things that they know. There are four purposes that the information from assessments are used for. According to McAfee, Leong, and Bodrova (2016) they are to monitor children’s development and learning, guide classroom planning and decision making to help children learn, identify children who might benefit from special help, and report to and communicate with others (p. 33).

As teachers monitor children’s development and learning, they cannot assume that every child at the same age know and do the same thing. They must take in account that children have different backgrounds including culture, social experience, temperaments, height, and weight. According to McAfee, Leong, and Bodrova (2016) teachers track and monitor a child’s change and progress over a period of time to be able to provide feedback of learning for parents, children, and themselves so that they can make the needed changes to what the children need to learn or have already learned (p.33). Assessments help guide classroom planning and decision making by helping educators to implement appropriate programs that he...

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...in a diverse society for all children (p. 18). Being objective is very important because teachers have to make assessments without prejudging or involving personal beliefs and feelings. Teachers also have to be sensitive about not labeling or placing children in categories based on assumptions. Along with fairness they have to maintain confidentiality among the children’s assessments as well. More important teachers have to make sure that the results of the assessment are used in appropriate ways that will be beneficial for the child and make sure they are used for those intended purposes.

References

Laureate Education (Producer). (2009). Overview of assessment [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu McAfee, O., Leong, D. J., & Bodrova, E. (2016). Assessing and guiding young children 's development and learning (6th ed.). Boston: Pearson