The InvestiGator Club® Prekindergarten Learning System: Assessment Tools

Imagine that you are using a map to find your way along a hiking trail. What do you do first? Most likely you look at the map and find your starting point. You find your starting point because you must first consider where you are before you make a plan for where you want to go.

And so it is with teaching. You can’t effectively figure out how to get where you are going without considering what your students already know and can do. That is what classroom assessment is all about: trying to figure out where kids are in relationship to where we would like to get them. No wonder research shows that the effective use of assessment with young children leads to greater gains in learning; teachers who recognize how their children are doing are better able to help them learn.