Towards better writing assessment in early years: Aligning purpose and practise
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Date
2024-11-05
Authors
Shostak, Cassidy
University of Lethbridge. Faculty of Education
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Faculty of Education
Abstract
In early childhood education, writing assessments are typically structured to gather information about students' writing skills to evaluate if they are progressing toward the grade-level outcomes established by the curriculum. However, using the curriculum as the sole framework for defining these constructs can contribute to a limited understanding among teachers regarding student development and learning. This approach may also hinder their ability to effectively use assessment tools with validity, reliability, and fairness. This project was influenced by my reflection on my own assessment experiences and my engagement with research in the field to develop a writing ability construct. This construct serves as a framework to identify the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that young students need to successfully engage in writing tasks, ultimately facilitating the creation of a writing assessment based on scenario-based tasks. I sought to answer the question: how do I assess the choices made by first-grade students during the writing process to provide more targeted instruction? Based on my experience and research, I built a useful writing evaluation construct for early grades which focusses on contextual impact, cognitive resources and process, text resources and process, language resources, multimodal resources, personal resources, and developmental variation. These resources were then utilized to build assessment tasks aimed to immerse students in authentic writing experiences that align with real-world communication needs.
Description
Keywords
Writing assessment , Early childhood education , Construct , Theory of Action , IDAF , Writing evaluation