Education

Harvard Tip Sheet Helps Teachers Explain Assessments to Families

By Julie Blair — July 10, 2013 1 min read
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In my discussions with early-childhood educators, I’ve learned that one of the trickiest things about teaching little people might be figuring out how to assess them.

There are all kinds of metrics and rubrics and national discussions about how to use assessments in children ages 5 and under, but in the end it’s still sometimes difficult.

For example, my own 3-year-old uttered hardly a peep her first six weeks of preschool leaving her terrific teacher to wonder if indeed she had any language skills at all.

That’s not uncommon for the very shy—or for the babies of large families who have much older siblings who often speak for them.

Moreover, teachers like mine must figure out how to deliver such assessments to families and make them meaningful.

Our friends at Harvard University have put together a tip sheet on this very topic, which I stumbled upon today. While not specific to the early years, it talks generally about explaining assessments to families.

I think you’ll find a lot of goodies to extrapolate here.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Early Years blog.