Assessment and Screenings

Assessment Tool:

Teaching Strategies Gold

Little Ones Learning uses the Teaching Strategies Gold Assessment Birth through 3rd grade. Teaching Strategies Gold is a comprehensive and flexible assessment tool that empowers early educators to understand each child's developmental progress, make informed decisions about curriculum and instruction, and foster meaningful connections with families. It aligns with Michigan's early learning standards, it supports children with disabilities, and dual language learners. Teaching Strategies Gold is an online platform that is broken down into benchmarks or ongoing assessment through checkpoints, anecdotal records, photos, work samples, and or videos. 

Once these benchmarks are completed, I go over results 2x a year at parent/teacher conferences. 

Screening Tool:

ASQ -3 and ASQ-SE

Little Ones Learning uses the ASQ-3 Screening Tool. This screening tool is used 2x a year, Fall and Spring. I chose to use this tool because it is easy to navigate and family friendly. This tool is meant for families to fill out and only takes a few minutes to do so. It helps to catch delays early and celebrate milestones. Because I know families are busy, I use the ASQ-3 as a partnership tool. I fill out a part of the screening tool and when I have questions, I am not able to answer, I ask families to answer those questions to get a well-rounded snap shot of a child’s development. Once this tool is completed, I score it and I use it to help me plan different activities that will help strengthen a child’s development. If a child scores below the benchmark score, I will discuss the results during a conference with families/caregivers to make a plan to get further evaluations done if needed.

Little Ones Learning also uses the ASQ-SE Screening Tool. This tool is used 1x, mid-year, to screen children’s social/emotional development. I decided to begin using this tool because I’ve seen a delayed development in social/emotional development since COVID. Early identification of social-emotional problems is crucial to building a strong foundation to learning.