Kindergarten Assessment: Integrating Instruction and Activities

This assignment focuses on kindergarten assessment, specifically exploring the integration of instruction and activities. The author reflects on their experience, emphasizing the importance of informal assessment methods in observing and understanding student performance. The assignment highlights the use of art instructions and the creation of activities tailored to assess student abilities. The author discusses the benefits of informal assessment, including the ability to provide feedback to teachers and parents. The assignment also references relevant literature, suggesting the use of picture cues and prompts to support student learning and achieve set goals. The author also highlights the importance of providing opportunities for free choice and the use of varied materials to enrich the learning experience. This assignment offers insights into effective kindergarten assessment practices and classroom strategies.

INTEGRATING
INSTRUCTION

The informal and formal assessments are set of procedures which help in providing necessary
information regarding the development of students’ performance, growth and achievements. My
experience with kindergarten has helped to realize the importance of informal assessment by
giving them art instructions. The kindergarten stage is an important learning stage, I felt more
responsible while designing assessment using activities that are fit to assess the ability of
students and are carried out as normal activities. As discussed with my mentor the opportunities
provided by informal assessment helps in designing activities which help in observing children
and don’t disturb the activities of the classroom. The success of including informal assessment
in my class helped me derive important information that can be used by me to give feedback to
other teachers and parents. As suggested by the mentor, the informal assessment is a reliable and
valid method which is backed by fairness and practicality to include activities which help the
kindergarten children to follow instructions. The opportunity for improvising can be achieved
through application of simple plans and taking initiative for obtaining goals by providing
opportunities to play or create with a wide array of materials or activities. The materials that are
used for the purpose of class activities can be rotated periodically and making activities which
are child directed and provides opportunity for making free choice (Pyle & DeLuca, 2017). In
my experience I found that enrichment support can be achieved through using picture cues with
kindergarten children and providing them with prompts to assist them in initiating and doing
activities. The model planning is also good support for the purpose of achieving set goals
(Regenstein et al. 2018).
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References
Pyle, A., & DeLuca, C. (2017). Assessment in play-based kindergarten classrooms: An empirical
study of teacher perspectives and practices. The Journal of Educational Research, 110(5), 457-
466.
Regenstein, E., Connors, M. C., Romero-Jurado, R., & Weiner, J. (2018). Effective Kindergarten
Readiness Assessments: Influencing Policy, Informing Instruction, and Creating Joyful
Classrooms. YC Young Children, 73(1), 36-43.
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