An evaluation of a kindergarten screening program
Creators: name: Cryderman, Lawrence
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: A school district kindergarten screening program was evaluated in terms of its organizational and assessment procedures and its effectiveness in identifying children who were judged as having learning and reading problems at the end of grade one. From a review of the literature on kindergarten screening and the early identification of children with potential learning problems, general guidelines for kindergarten screening were formulated by the researcher. The kindergarten screening program's organizational and assessment procedures were evaluated in terms of these general guidelines. Omnibus screening inventories suitable for a kindergarten screening program were surveyed in terms of their theoretical orientations, areas of behavior assessed, availability of statistical reliability and validity data, administration times, and availability of follow-up program and remedial suggestions. The Santa Clara Inventory, of Developmental Tasks (I.D.T.), used in this study, was compared to these other omnibus screening inventories. At the end of grade- one, results of teacher ratings and the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test (Level 1, Primary Form A) were gathered on 'high risk' (HR) and 'not high risk' (NHR) groups identified by the kindergarten screening program. The identification effectiveness of the kindergarten screening program was examined in terms of true negatives, true positives, false negatives and false positives. Chi-square values and contingency coefficients were generated to measure the relationships between kindergarten identification by the screening program and end of grade one measures. Evaluation of the organizational and assessment procedures indicated that the kindergarten screening program had strengths in terms of a planning committee and follow-up diagnosis. Weaknesses were that goals, objectives and the overall plan were only partially specified, the assessment was only partially structured and related to the kindergarten classroom, no parental information was gathered, and not all children were assessed. Further weaknesses were that the assessment instrument required too much time to administer, and lacked reliability and validity data. The assessment did not reveal strengths in the child's learning style and was limited in its meaningfulness to the kindergarten program largely because the kindergarten teacher was not the key person in the screening program. Other areas of weakness were that the screening program did not evaluate all of the remedial programs, did not systematically follow through to grade one and lacked in-service training for screening personnel. Results on the Santa Clara I.D.T. indicated that it does not assess some important areas, lacks established reliability and validity data,/and was too long to use as a screening instrument. Results on the identification effectiveness of the kindergarten screening program indicated that it was quite effective in identifying 'not high risk' (NHR) children but not as effective in identifying as 'high risk' (HR), children who would later indicate learning and reading problems. Less than a third of the HR children demonstrated learning and reading problems at the end of grade one and the chances were about 50/50 that an identified HR child would have a learning and/or reading problem. However, the overall relationship between the kindergarten screening identification and the end of grade one measures was positive and significant largely because the screening program was effective in identifying those children who did not demonstrate learning and reading problems at the end of grade one.