How many know just how many upper and lower case letters children should be able to identify by the time they enter Kindergarten? How many are challenged to justify whether or not a child's development and learning is considered typical or on track? Or confronted with the pressure to show growth for …
assessment
Podcast 6: A Map to the Stars
Serving groups of children with diverse abilities just got a bit more doable. Reach for the Stars (RFTS), Planning for the Future has been revised and it is better than ever. …
Podcast 4: Five Courageous Steps to Conversations that Change Education
In this Pre-K Teach & Play podcast episode, I offer five alternatives to an approach to early childhood assessment, which tends to favor fear, punishment, and standardized testing. The alternatives (aka solutions) are offered as a counter to making high-stakes decisions based upon scores, …
Podcast 2: 7 Developmental Progressions to Troubleshoot when Children are Struggling
Development and learning tend to follow typical or expected progressions. For example, our brains develop from the brain stem up, we develop from the inside of our bodies out, and we go from externally controlled, to internally controlled. When children struggle to develop or learn, taking a look …
Podcast 1 – My Messy Divorce from Assessment: Who gets the kids?
Let me explain why a divorce between me and assessment appears to be inevitable. In this podcast, I share the story of my dissertation- and how I went from infant massage to authentic assessment. This is “how we met” - and you’ll see why I fell head-over-heels for data. But assessment has a few …
3 Teach & Play Tips for Playful, Child-Led Assessment
Let's talk about the gap between how we’ve been taught to assess children, and other more playful and ultimately more informative ways, that leave you and the child smiling, instead of crying with frustration. …
