Amanda P. Williford, Ph. D., Research Associate Professor, UVA CASTL (Photo by Sanjay Suchak, University Communications)
Amanda Williford, a research associate professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, is leading the way in helping Virginia roll out the Kindergarten Readiness Program, a readiness assessment for incoming kindergartners.
The Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program (VKRP) expands the assessment of children kindergarten beyond literacy (PALS), to include the school readiness domains of math, social skills, and self-regulation. The data provides school divisions with a more comprehensive understanding of how kindergarten students are entering elementary schools in terms of key readiness skills. Piloted in 2014, the program is now headed into its third year in partnership with the Virginia Department of Education and will be implemented at scale across the commonwealth this fall.
Williford recently sat down with UVA Today to discuss the need for such a program.
Q. What is Virginia’s Kindergarten Readiness Program about?
A. Virginia’s Kindergarten Readiness Program is an assessment system designed to help schools have a good understanding of where children are in their learning as they enter kindergarten. It measures a child’s readiness across four areas: math, literacy, social skills and self-regulation. What support will a child need to be successful in school? We can’t know that if we don’t have a good understanding of where they currently are.
Q. On a national level, where does Virginia stand in terms of assessing children’s kindergarten readiness?
A. Right now, Virginia is a little behind because the only consistent measure used by all school divisions, the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening, focuses solely on children’s literacy skills. In essence, Virginia has good information about children’s literacy skills as they enter kindergarten, but there is clear consensus that children need foundational skills across a wider range of early learning domains, like math, social skills and self-regulation.
Across the U.S., many states have kindergarten entry assessments that measure these multiple facets of learning. The Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program is working to follow suit.
Read more of the interview with Williford from UVA Today here.