FATIMA, STANDARD 3

Standard 3 (NAEYC-INI-2010.3): Observing, Documenting, and Assessing to Support

Young Children and Families
Standard 3. Exhibit 1. School Readiness
Description
The selected exhibit is one of my assignments in SEEC 523, Assessing Learners with
Special Needs, a compulsory course for the Masters in Early Childhood program at Northern
Illinois University, which I completed in Fall 2015. The assignment was a two-page summary of
a research article related to an early childhood assessment. I think this is the best assignment
through which I could demonstrate the professional competence I acquired during completing
this assignment with regards to NAEYC standards.
Basically each standard is constructed on three important elements: knowledge, skill and
disposition. This standard also requires an early childhood teacher and educator to demonstrate
knowledge, skill and disposition to meet the standards needs. The knowledge element of this
standard requires an early childhood teacher/ educator to have full command over the knowledge
and importance of a childs assessment. An educator must know what elements/ components
constitute an assessment process and how these components are essential for a child to help him
excel in his academic and social life. For this assignment, I analyzed an article regarding school
readiness assessment in the United States. Through this assignment, I acquired the knowledge of
what school readiness assessment is, why it should be conducted, types of school readiness
assessments, which domains are considered to conduct school readiness assessments, why
considering child, school, parent, and community for conducting school readiness assessment is
important, and what characteristics of the child must be considered while conducting school

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readiness assessment. I explored different research articles in order to make my own

understanding regarding this assignment.
The skill component of this standard requires an early childhood teacher/ educator to
build their skills required to demonstrate their knowledge in the assessment process. In order to
know the success of the teaching learning process, assessment is the only tool that helps a
teacher to figure out strengths and challenges of the teaching process and what exactly his
students need. An early childhood teacher and educator must build his /her competence in
conducting assessment, and must know the purpose of assessing a child and how this assessment
can be more beneficial for him to help his students. The skill component of this standard, know
about and understand the goals, benefits, and uses of assessment and use systematic
observations, documentation, and other effective assessment strategies in a responsible way,
emphasizes not only the knowledge of child assessment but also the skills to use and demonstrate
this knowledge.
In this regard, an early childhood teacher or educator must possess the skill of
observation, which is the first and most important step to collect information on childrens
academic performance and social competence. An early childhood teacher must also possess
knowledge and skills of using various assessment strategies. The process of completing this
assignment enabled me to transform my knowledge into skills through presenting this
assignment in front of my classmates and the instructor. Not only did I share information on what
this school readiness assessment is, but I also demonstrated its proper use. In order to present this
assignment, I searched different online sources, research articles, and most importantly utilized
my instructors feedback on my assignment about school readiness assessment.

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The third element is disposition, the willingness of demonstrating ones knowledge and
skills for a particular purposeful task. This standard also demands that an early childhood teacher
and educator apply the acquired knowledge and skills to solve not only academic issues but also
help schools build healthy school-family relationships. The knowledge and skills gained from
this assignment have enabled me to develop the sense of disposition that allows me to
demonstrate knowledge about important assessment practices in the training sessions with my
trainee teachers.

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Exhibit 2. Inside HELP

Description
The second exhibit I have chosen for NAYEC standard 3 is an assessment tool critique.
This assignment was submitted for the course of SEEC 523, a required course for the completion
of the Masters in Early Childhood and Special Education at Northern Illinois University. For this
assignment, we were given the choice to select any one of the assessment tools and critique it.
The assessment tool that I selected to critique was Inside HELP (Hawaii Early Learning Profile).
This assessment tool was available at the University Learning Center and my instructor had her
own set as well. She gave me her own set to start working on this assignment.
As mentioned above and with regards to NAEYC standard 3, this assignment helped me
a lot in demonstrating my professional competence in knowledge, skill, and disposition of
acquired knowledge and skills. This assignment enhanced and updated my knowledge about
assessing young children, different assessment tools, and when and why these assessment tools
are used. For instance, the Preschool Language Scale.5(PLS.5) is used to assess the language
delay or disorders of children from birth to 7 years and 11 months, the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test (PPVT-III) is used to assess receptive vocabulary and provides a quick estimate
of the verbal ability of children from 2 years 6 months through 90 years and older, and the
Hawaii Early Learning Profile (HELP) is used to assess 685 skills from birth to 3 year old
children.
As far as the skill part is concerned, this assignment improved my critical thinking skills,
because evaluation of the assessment tool enabled me to not only search and find the links
between the effectiveness of this tool and its outcome, but also made me think about how I could
use it outside of English and Spanish speaking communities. I also highlighted some of the

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assessment tools expected outcomes when it would be used in a context where there is no trend
of family involvement. NAEYC standard 3 also requires early childhood professionals to be
well- aware of the objectives of assessment and how these assessment results would be beneficial
for classroom instruction and for improvement of students learning outcomes. I believe this
exhibit demonstrate my professional expertise in the domain of assessment and understanding of
the standard as well.
This exhibit (inside HELP) is mostly aligned with NAEYC standard 3 in terms of
building understanding regarding the importance of assessing young children, enhancing
knowledge regarding why this assessment is done, what its benefit to children and to schools is,
and why it is important to build partnership with families for a successful assessment process.
While I was in the process of doing this exhibit, I tried to understand what the actual purpose
behind doing assessment is and why different assessment tools are being used to assess the
developmental needs of the children. I also searched for why a particular assessment tool is used
to assess childrens particular skills and why it is important to involve families during the
assessment process. All these questions helped me understand HELP and made it easy to do a
critique on it. All these aspects of completion of this exhibit gradually enhanced my knowledge
and professional expertise to comprehend assessment processes and assessment tools.
This exhibit also facilitated my understanding regarding the main characteristics of
HELP, including to measure functional skills for disabilities and monitor performances over
time through natural observations. The measurement of these functional skills further guides
early childhood professionals in highlighting childrens educational needs, developing
educational goals, and suggesting adaptations and modifications in curriculum so that

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developmentally appropriate learning activities could be provided to these children. All these
areas of professional expertise are requirements of NAEYC standard 3.
Reflection on Standard 3
NAEYC standard three focuses on the competence of a teacher in terms of knowledge,
skills and willingness to apply the learned knowledge for assessment purposes. Effectiveness of
teaching and learning is gauged through assessment. A proper and scientific assessment process
ensures the improvement in teaching and learning processes and improves student learning
outcomes as well. As an early childhood educator, I had my own study objectives when I entered
the program. I was especially interested in how I can improve my skills in the domain of
assessment, more specifically the assessment of young children. I was interested in the
assessment part of the teaching, because I had experience of my trainee teachers struggling to
improve their students learning outcomes. In addition, one important factor I had observed
during my visits to schools in my province was the negligence of the assessment component.
The course Assessing Learners with Special Needs was a step towards accomplishment
of my study objectives. This course provided me with enormous opportunities to learn
assessment from a different perspective. I entered this course with the expectation of learning
formal and informal assessment, especially formative assessment, but after taking my first class,
I realized that the world of assessment is beyond my expectations and that the world has made
progress beyond the terms of formative and summative assessment. My interest in this subject
increased after the very first class. For the first time, I came to know that there are different types
of assessment tools used to assess the development of a child from birth to different age levels.
We were asked to critique two assessment tools, write summaries of any two early childhood

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assessment related research articles, and write a case study for a child with developmental
delays.
The exhibits I selected for standard three demonstrate my actual learning from this
course. Through these exhibits, I learned how to write a critique on an assessment tool. In order
to write a critique on any educational piece, one needs a full understanding of that piece, so
before doing my job, I explored google sites, searched my library resources and had discussions
with my friend to develop my own understanding. The whole process educated me a lot. These
assignments extended my knowledge regarding assessment, especially how important
documentation is in the assessment process.
As I have mentioned in the description, these exhibits enhanced my overall understanding
and knowledge about different assessment tools and more specifically about School Readiness
Assessment and Inside HELP. I also learned which domains are assessed through these two
assessment tools and how we use these assessments. The understanding and knowledge of the
assessment tools was theoretical. It is also a fact that we humans learn best when we become part
of the process. The exercise of completing these assignments upgraded and enhanced my
understanding only. The urge to use these assessment tools in real life classroom settings
remained a dream. Therefore, I am not sure if I would try to implement and use these assessment
tools in my country and in my perspective, what it would yield, and how I would be able to best
address the needs of my trainee teachers in terms of their students assessment. I feel that in order
to develop early childhood teachers and educators, there must be a system in place through
which they would be able to apply their learned knowledge. This approach will enable these
early childhood professionals to bring innovation and improve the ways through which
assessment of a child would yield better outcomes.

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I was interested in using these assessment tools in my classroom. As I have mentioned

earlier, I just got theoretical knowledge of the assessment tools. Therefore, I am interested to
register myself in a professional development workshop that only focuses on how to use these
assessment tools in our classroom settings and how to score students according to these
assessment tools. One of my classmates in this class is a professional trainer, and she is affiliated
with an organization that builds the capacity of teachers in assessment. I have discussed all the
details of the workshop and it will be one of my future professional development goals to contact
her organization and register myself in any upcoming workshop. I am also interested in
introducing these assessment tools to my trainee teachers as well. It will require me to seek
permission from the provincial education department. In order to get permission, I would build
my capacity so that I would be able to advocate in this regard, because it is my professional
responsibility to convince them to allow me to introduce these assessment tools in our schools.
In this case, if the education department agrees to introduce these assessment tools in our
schools, I have to work hard in many dimensions. For instance, I will first of all build my own
capacity to use these assessment tools, contact the organization for assessment tool purchasing,
build my staff members professional competence through training of trainers, and at last build
my teachers professional competence to use these assessment tools themselves. I would need to
devise a whole professional development plan, keeping in view the importance of on the job
support of my trainee teachers. It seems it will be a lengthy and time consuming process, but I
am determined to achieve my goals.

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