Development and Assessment of Young Children

Developmental assessment of Young children 4 (1+3)

Lesson 6:Trends and challenges in developmental assessment of young children

Introduction

The year 1980 brought new reform movement in education accompanied by new emphasis on testing. Efforts to improve education at all levels included the use of standardized tests to provide accountability for what students are learning. Minimum competency tests, achievement tests and scoring instruments were used to ensure that students from preschool through college reached the desired educational goals and achieved minimum standards of education that were established locally or by the state education department.

Though testing of young children is of main concern, increased use of testing has been criticized. Standardized tests and other informal measures were used to decide whether children needs admission in preschool programmes or permitted to first grade or placed in a transitional class room.

Use of tests with young children for placement purpose has serious implications because it can be developmentally inappropriate for this age group as it has strong impact on self esteem of young children. Although early childhood specialists are concerned about the trends in education and testing of young children developmentally inappropriate practices continue to expand. All the concerned people like parents, teachers and other personnel who are active in child care should be informed about the measurement of these children and when and how it should be conducted.