Child Assessment
Assessments (formal and informal) can help programs learn more about children’s individual development and learning needs through data that can be used to create lesson plans, improve classroom strategies, and support conversations with families.
Professional Learning Resources
This section includes professional learning resources that can help practitioners deepen their understanding of quality for this topic.
Publication
This broad collection of resources includes an assessment guide for program leaders and strategies for observing young children. Although this site was developed for Head Start programs, much of the content explores assessment practices that apply to all types of early learning programs.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool
Online Course
Grow with Me is a course designed to provide caregivers of infants and toddlers with the skills and knowledge to support developmental assessment. This course focuses on the importance of monitoring young children’s developmental progress, different methods and formats of assessment including developmental milestones checklists, factors to consider when assessing young children from diverse backgrounds, and what to do with assessment results for an individual child, whole classroom, or program.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler
Online Course
This course by Texas A&M AgriLife explores how curriculum and assessment are implemented through a model of planning, assessment, and modification. This course is $12 to access.
Age(s): Preschool
Publication
This guide provides information and resources to build practitioners’ knowledge on using student assessment tools, informal or formal, to track students’ learning. This learning resource acts as a support to practitioners when measuring children’s developmental progress, and it provides a general written process for using student assessment tools to inform instruction.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool
Online Course
This course from Texas A&M AgriLife offers practical tips on how to prepare to do assessments in preschool classrooms and how to best support children using assessment results. The course is $12 to access.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool
Online Course
This course within the Family Engagement series on CLI Engage has a particular focus on gathering family input and helping families with understanding their child’s assessment results. Login or create your free CLI Engage account to access this course.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool, School-age
Toolkit
There are many tools available to help practitioners and families learn about children’s growth and development. The resources on this page provide information about developmental milestones, developmental screening tools, and Early Childhood Intervention services for children with developmental delays or disabilities.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler
Guide
This guide from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) focuses on how schools can make use of assessment data to improve teaching and learning. The guide recommends that schools set a clear vision for schoolwide data use, develop a data-driven culture, and make data part of an ongoing cycle of instructional improvement.
Age(s): Preschool, School-age
Implementation Tools
In this section you will find tips, strategies, examples, and specific tools and products that can improve your implementation of practices related to this topic area.
Guide
Authentic assessment practices involve observing children’s engagement in everyday activities. Use the assessment information to identify classroom activities and teacher-child interactions that promote a child’s engagement in the activities, maximize the child’s learning opportunities, and promote child participation and learning in classroom activities.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool
Checklist
CDC’s developmental milestone checklists are communication tools intended to encourage ongoing conversations between families and professionals. They also help promote early identification of and action on potential developmental concerns so that children and families can get the early services and support they may need.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool
Assessment
Circle Progress Monitoring (C-PM) is a free preschool assessment system that was validated in multiple research studies. Programs can choose which measures to use, and results are available in family-friendly reports. Texas Rising Star programs are eligible to access C-PM at no cost through the TSR Online program. Follow instructions for TSR Online access when creating your CLI Engage account to start accessing this assessment.
Age(s): Preschool
Checklist
Developmental milestones are things most children (75% or more) can do by a certain age. These milestone checklists are divided into age ranges and areas of development, and they can be used by families or program staff of children from birth to 48 months of age. This informal student assessment tool supports early learning programs to measure children’s developmental progress.
Age(s): Infant, Toddler, Preschool
Observation Form
Assessment practices should include receiving input from families on children’s developing skills. The Circle Progress Monitoring: Family Observation Forms are appropriate for preschool children and can be used in conversations with families to identify skills that could be supported at home and at the program.
Age(s): Preschool
