Ready for Kindergarten • Overview

Grade K Ready For Kindergarten

Kindergarten Readiness Assessment

In Maryland, early childhood professionals share accountability for the results of providing early learning opportunities. Determining the results of any such assessment is rooted in each practitioner’s interaction with the young child as a learner. This relationship defines an in-depth understanding of the strengths and needs of individual learners, and informs motivation for learning, instruction, and interventions.

The assessment of young children should promote learning, not simply measure it. The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA), administered by kindergarten teachers between the beginning of school and October 10, is one part of the Ready for Kindergarten assessment system in Maryland. The KRA and other appropriate assessment tools provide data that teachers can use for individual instruction and ensure quality early-learning opportunities for children by building on the strengths of every child. Specifically, high quality assessment tools are designed to:

• Measure entering students’ skills and abilities in relation to end-of-prekindergarten standards;
• Provide information about what children are able to do as they transition into kindergarten and what supports children will need to actively and effectively engage in and benefit from classroom instruction;
• Assist teachers with data-driven instructional planning, intervention, and enrichment; Inform decision-makers about professional development needs; and,
• Provide families with information about their children’s learning and development.

This page references information found at Ready at Five Links to an external site. and Maryland Public Schools Links to an external site.

How is Readiness Measured?

The Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) provides a framework to assess what kindergarten students should know and be able to do when they enter kindergarten. The KRA is a developmentally appropriate assessment tool administered to incoming all public-school kindergarteners that relies on selected response items, performance tasks, and observations of children's work and play to measure specific skills and behaviors across four learning domains

• Language and Literacy
• Mathematics
• Social Foundations
• Physical Well-Being and Motor Development.

The KRA looks at the knowledge, skills, and behaviors necessary to be successful in kindergarten and provides rich data about every student. This allows teachers to use the information from the KRA to identify learning needs and inform families about specific ways they can support their child’s learning.

In the KRA, kindergarten readiness is identified as:

• Demonstrating Readiness – a child demonstrates the foundational skills and behaviors that prepares them for curriculum based on the kindergarten standards.
• Approaching Readiness – a child exhibits some of the foundational skills and behaviors that prepares them for curriculum based on the kindergarten standards.
• Emerging Readiness – a child displays minimal foundational skills and behaviors that prepares them for curriculum based on the kindergarten standards.

Children whose readiness skills and behaviors are identified as “developing or emerging” require instructional support to be successful in kindergarten. More information about the Ready for Kindergarten system and the KRA are available online.

This page references information found at Ready at Five Links to an external site. and Maryland Public Schools Links to an external site.