Independent School Prepares Youngest Students for Success with Developmentally-appropriate Diagnostics

New Haven, CT | serving 140 students in Jr. Kindergarten – Gr 6

SUMMARY

A small and diverse independent school, St. Thomas’s Day School prides itself on its ability to work as a team to make sound instructional decisions for every child. Educators at St. Thomas’s Day have been using the Children’s Progress Academic Assessment (CPAA) since 2008 to support their rigorous curriculum in the earliest grades. Teachers and administrators have found that the CPAA allows them to collect the data they need to make decisions thoughtfully, quickly and accurately while also motivating young students to do their best in an engaging, stress-free environment.

I’ve been in this profession for many years and it’s very exciting for me to see the children using this tool. The CPAA gets us exactly the information we want in a much more child-friendly way. Some of our teachers would never go back to using the tools we had before Children’s Progress. It’s part of who we are now – part of our fabric.

Roxanne Turekian
Assistant Head of School

CHALLENGE

Prior to using the CPAA, St. Thomas’s Day School was using the BOEHM Test of Basic Concepts in Kindergarten to track language development, as well as informal assessments administered by teachers in Jr. Kindergarten – grade 2. Starting in grade 3, they use the paper and pencil version of the Comprehensive Testing Program (CTP), a reasoning/ achievement test from the Educational Records Bureau (ERB).

Educators wanted to get a better sense of student needs before grade 2 and were interested in finding a tool that would be developmentally appropriate for the early childhood population. Assistant Head of School Roxanne Turekian says, “Other assessments we had tried in the past had made both children and teachers anxious. Plus there was nothing of this nature available for math.” The school needed a tool that would be quick and easy for teachers without adding more administrative work to busy schedules. It was important that the tool would be capable of generating data that could be put to use immediately to support grouping decisions as well as identify instructional needs for young children. It would also be ideal if it could provide diagnostic information for both literacy and mathematics.

SOLUTION

Since 2008, St. Thomas’s Day has been using the CPAA in Jr. Kindergarten – grade 2. The assessment is administered as a universal screener to all students three times a year and used more frequently with those who need additional support. Covering both early literacy and mathematics, the CPAA allows teachers to assess a wide variety of concepts in a short timeframe and provides important information about mathematics skills that was unavailable with the tools they were previously using.
The St. Thomas’ team uses a holistic approach when analyzing each child’s performance. Educators continue to take multiple data points into account (including the CPAA, informal classroom assessments and behavioral data) to draw a comprehensive picture of progress and needs.

Turekian reviews the data regularly and analyzes both school-wide trends and individual classroom and student needs. She meets with each teacher to discuss the data and identify specific next steps. The team finds that CPAA reports make grouping decisions and choosing activities for differentiated instruction much more efficient.

The CPAA also helps the team monitor progress longitudinally before the students first take the CTP in Grade 3. Educators use this data to identify trends in the early grades and work with both struggling and high achieving students to get everyone on the right track.

In addition to fostering collaboration and ensuring the best choices for each child within the school, CPAA data helps educators communicate with parents. Teachers sometimes use summary reports as an objective resource during parent conferences.

IMPACT

The CPAA has played an important role in improving data-driven decision-making at St. Thomas’s Day. “It helps us provide additional support to children who need it and also identify high performers who are ready for something more challenging,” says Turekian. Educators especially appreciate being able to view assessment results right away and track data over time.

Developmentally Appropriate Format Ensures More Accurate Data
The child-friendly format of the assessment has been a benefit for both students and teachers. Children work at their own pace without the anxiety often associated with formal group paper and pencil testing. Students are excited to use the computer-based program and educators are able to glean more accurate data because students are motivated to display their true abilities. Turekian mentions being initially hesitant about using a computer-based tool. “I was concerned about kids being on the computer,” she says, “I wanted them to be active and playing. But after trying the CPAA, we found that the computer can be a great tool that gets us the information we need very quickly and in a developmentally appropriate manner for our youngest children.”

Time Savings
Since the CPAA is designed to integrate with a regular school schedule, administering the assessment is a seamless process. “We just use our scheduled computer time. The kids are in and out in 20 to 30 minutes,” says Academic Technology Director John North. “As soon as they walk out the door, teachers can look at the data.” Turekian agrees and notes, “The CPAA cuts out a lot of the time we spend on other assessments. Groups are done automatically in the reports.”