At the December 11, 2023, Board of Education (BOE) meeting, Dr. Laura Norbut, Stafford’s chief academic officer, presented the board with a look at the Kindergarten Entrance Inventory (KEI) results — and the data shows that students who attend Pre-K in Stafford have a leg up when they enter kindergarten.
The KEI occurs at the beginning of the school year and provides a snapshot of students’ capabilities as they start their journey through school. Teachers score children on language, literacy, numeracy, physical/motor, creative/aesthetic, and personal/social skills. The capabilities teachers are looking for include the following:
Language — The ability to follow simple directions, recount information from a story, and follow two-step directions.
Literacy — The ability to hold a book and turn the pages from front to back, recognize the presence of letters on the page, and start to identify sounds.
Numeracy — The ability to count to 10, identify shapes, and do basic sorting.
Physical/motor — The ability to jump, run, balance, write, and draw.
Creative/aesthetic — The ability to draw, paint, sing, and participate in pretend play,
Personal/social — The ability to interact with peers, work cooperatively, and get support from an adult when there is conflict
Students are categorized into performance levels: Level 1(emerging), Level 2 (inconsistent), or Level 3 (consistent). Level 1 students require more instructional support, while level 3 requires minimal support.
Of the 89 students tested this year, most are in level 3, and the performance remains reasonably consistent over three years. Significantly, when Dr. Norbut compares students who attended West Stafford School’s Pre-K program to those who did not attend Pre-K at all or attended it elsewhere, the West Stafford School students outperform the others in all but two categories — language and personal/social skills.
“It tells us that we have a very strong Pre-K program here in Stafford Public Schools,” Dr. Norbut said. She also pointed out that attendance is important, spurring Superintendent Steven A. Moccio to talk about the problem of chronic absenteeism. The district is forming an attendance committee to focus on the issue of chronic absenteeism.
Dr. Norbut also noted that Stafford will adopt a reading pilot program called Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) in January. According to the Amplify CKLA website, it “is the leading early literacy curriculum grounded in the Science of Reading. By combining knowledge-building and research-based foundational skills, our instruction guides educators in developing strong readers, writers, and thinkers.” Two teachers per grade level will pilot these programs, which align with state requirements.
New board member Jen Biedrzycki asked if we know what the other Pre-K programs are doing to help them perform well in the language and personal/social skills categories. Dr. Norbut said she would have to look further into it. She also noted that the pandemic has led to declines in the personal/social category across the country.
Aaron Hoffman indicated he would like to track the students who did not attend Pre-K to see if the students catch up eventually or continue to lag behind. Dr. Norbut said that was something the district could look into monitoring.
Comentarios