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EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION—ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION: WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

gilbert r. gredler

University of South Carolina

The field of early childhood education has undergone several changes over the years. Current is- sues concerning assessment-intervention programs for kindergarten and first grade children are ex- amined. The future state of the field and how it will impact the role of the school psychologist are discussed. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Introduction

The purpose of this article is twofold. One is to discuss four trends in the assessment and in- struction of “at-risk” children in kindergarten and first grade that are predicted to continue into the next millennium. (1) Changes in theoretical focus; (2) increasing emphasis on early childhood in- terventions; (3) increased discussion of flaws in assessments to identify “at-risk” children; and (4) the influence of parental concerns and legal decisions. The second is to discuss the impact of these trends on the role of the school psychologist.

Emergent Trends

The four emergent trends that are predicted to continue into the next millennium are: (1) changes in theoretical focus; (2) increasing emphasis on early childhood interventions; (3) increased discus- sion of flaws in assessments to identify “at-risk” children; and (4) the influence of parental concerns and legal decisions.

Changes in Theoretical Focus

School readiness is the concept traditionally used to identify the essential characteristics or re- quirements for the young child to benefit from education. The term “readiness” implies that the child is able to benefit from a structured school experience. There are a number of differing theoretical perspectives about the nature of school readiness, and these perspectives have a distinct bearing on educational practices. For many years, the maturational perspective has predominated among school personnel. This theory views the child as an organism whose readiness inextricably is linked with biological unfolding. It is best described by such maturationalists as Grant (1989) and Uphoff & Gilmore (1985).

From the 1930s to the 1980s, this view was the major theoretical perspective accepted by schools. Its impact was felt in a number of areas. The maturationalists fought to increase the entry age for school. Over the last thirty-five years (1963–1998), the required entry age for kindergarten and first grade has risen steadily. It was stated that children needed “time to grow.” Therefore, the use of retention for the “immature” child, as well as the establishment of prekindergartens and tran- sition rooms for the “unready” child, were the favored intervention approaches. Though important psychologists such as Gates, as early as 1937, provided practical research results demonstrating that appropriate instructional methods and curriculum materials were closely linked to a child’s progress in reading, Gesellian psychology remained dominant in American schools.

In the early 1980s, another theory took center stage. Robert Gagné (1977, 1985), an education- al psychologist, emphasized the role of the environment and/or the curriculum in human/behavioral development. His cumulative-skills perspective emphasized that three principles contributed to suc- cessful learning. They are (1) providing instruction on the set of component tasks that build toward the final task, (2) ensuring that each component task is mastered, and (3) sequencing the component tasks to ensure optimal transfer to the final task. The importance of the cumulative-skills model is

that education should identify the sequences of skills that build on each other and proceed to teach these skills. Thus, Gagné laid the groundwork for the importance of designing and implementing ef- fective instructional approaches to help the child progress in learning.

In the 1980s, the perspective advanced by Vygotsky, a Russian psychologist of the 1930s, be- gan to influence school practices related to readiness. One of Vygotsky’s main contributions was his questioning of the definition of developmental level as the tasks that the child can carry out inde- pendently. He stated that a better measure of child’s potential for development consists of tasks that the child can complete in collaboration with an adult. Vygotsky’s concept of readiness makes use of the ‘zone of proximal development.’ This concept places major emphasis on the child’s interactive social experiences with more knowledgeable members of society (Gredler, 1992b).

Heartening for the field of early childhood education is the appearance during the 1980s and 1990s of a number of sophisticated theories (from psychologists such as Gagné, Piaget, Vygotsky, and Clay) concerning the development of the child—theories that questioned the saliency of the mat- urational approach. It is projected that these theoretical perspectives will gain in influence. Despite the entrenchment of the maturational approach in many public schools, the popularity of the matu- rational definition of readiness is on the wane.

Increasing Emphasis on Early Childhood Interventions

The introduction of new intervention programs for young children has been more influential than any other event within the last thirty years in reducing the need for individual assessments of young children by the school psychologist. These sophistical programs have demonstrated that they will be able to handle a number of learning problems of “at-risk” children in an effective manner. For example, the Writing to Read program (Martin & Frieberg, 1986) was added to the kindergarten program in the Tulsa school system. Its use resulted in a large number of children improving their readiness status despite their original low ‘developmental age’ on the Gesell test (Zenka & Keatley, 1985).

The introduction of a Reading Recovery program is another intervention that has aided a num- ber of first-grade children, who had been referred for learning difficulties, to progress successfully. This program perhaps has been the most influential of the early-intervention programs to date. Chil- dren who demonstrate poor performance in reading and writing are selected for the program. Al- though the target group consists of the lowest achievers in these two skill areas, selection does not depend on screening by the school psychologist or elementary-school counselor. No child is excluded on the basis of IQ, language background, learning-disability status, or ethnic background (Clay, 1987).

The program provides individual tutoring for the children 30 minutes per day for 12 to 20 weeks. The children are removed from the classroom for the tutoring and work with a specially trained teacher. A critical feature of the program is that the first two weeks are spent in establishing a close relationship with the child in an assessment in a thorough manner of the child’s learning strategies and knowledge. Thus the program makes use of the important features of therapeutic tutoring, as out- lined by Rie (1974). Included are reducing the child’s fear of the teaching adult; providing an atmo- sphere where concern about possible failure is reduced; and providing an emotionally supportive at- mosphere wherein children will feel comfortable in using reading strategies they already know and in learning new ones. Children are not referred to special education for classification as possible learning-disabled cases. Instead, appropriate intervention is provided as soon as signs of difficulties with the reading process are noticed.

An important investigation of how a Reading Recovery program reduced the incidence of learn- ing disability placement in one school system was undertaken by Lyons and Beaver (1995). A large number of low-achieving first-grade students in Ohio were classified as learning disabled (LD) by

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school psychologists prior to entering first grade. Implementation of a Reading Recovery program in the schools resulted in a reduction of children classified as learning disabled from 36% to 6% over a five-year period. At the same time, the number of first-grade retentions was reduced by two thirds. Such a development significantly reduces the need for individual psychoeducational assessments.

It is also important to note that when Reading Recovery students were followed from the first through the fifth grades in a California school district, more than 75% of the children who received the full Reading Recovery program demonstrated average or above-average scores on standardized reading tests at the end of the fifth grade (Brown, Denton, Kelly, & Neal, 1999).

Another example of the effectiveness of Reading Recovery is seen in developments in a New England state. New Hampshire is a state that, up to the 1980s, had been known for its allegiance to the Gesellian maturational philosophy. As a result of commitment to this belief, New Hampshire schools placed heavy reliance on placement in transition rooms and first-grade retentions as the schools’ solution for children with possible learning difficulties.

The majority of school psychologists in that state followed the Gesellian approach and utilized the Gesell test for screening children as ‘developmentally immature.’ However, due to the interven- tion of Helen Schotanus, an elementary-education consultant from the State Department of Educa- tion, the legislature funded and implemented the Reading Recovery program for many schools in the state. In the past nine years, the number of children enrolled in transition rooms has plummeted from 2,397 to 732 placements, a decline of more than 69%. It is predicted that the influence of the theo- retical perceptions of Gagné, Vygotsky, Clay, and like-minded educators and psychologists will pre- dominate in the millennium.

Another helpful intervention program involved the implementation of a program modeled af- ter Slavin and colleagues’ Success for All (1992). Implemented in six disadvantaged schools in Aus- tralia, the program’s emphasis was on the provision of an early language and library curriculum for kindergarten students. The children made significantly more progress on a number of literacy mea- sures (Center, Freeman, & Robertson, 1998). The authors remark: [The data presented] “demon- strates graphically and substantially greater literacy success for disadvantaged or delayed students can be routinely ensured in schools through teacher commitment, parent involvement and the best available classroom programs” (pp. 167–168).

Issues in the Screening and Assessment Process

Screening programs for school readiness are currently in place in many school systems today. However, a number of problems are inherent in their design and use—problems of which the user may not be aware.

These problems include the following: First, if a child entering kindergarten is labeled as ‘at risk,’ we actually are speculating the child will have difficulty in learning because poor performance in reading has not appeared yet, and in most instances, formal instruction has not been introduced (Potton, 1983). Second, language problems, delays in neurodevelopment, and behavioral problems may not be signs of learning problems. Instead, they may reflect problems in children who are mild- ly retarded or maladjusted (Keogh & Bernheimer, 1996). Other factors include variations in the be- havior of the developing child, which, in turn, lead to low reliability of results from test measures. The large error in predicting who is truly ‘at risk’ is also related to the skill of the teacher, the in- structional methods in use, the frequency of school changes, and frequency of attendance of the child. These factors do not enter into the predictions of at-risk status. Therefore, predicting the outcome of a young child’s performance on either academic or behavioral measures is subject to a substantial rate of error. At-risk groups formed on the basis of a score from a screening procedure will exclude a number of vulnerable children (false negatives) and will also include many children who will turn out not to be really at risk (false positives) (Kingslake, 1983). Misidentifying children as false pos-

The Future of Early Childhood Education 75

itives and placing them in an intervention program that is unnecessary for them obviously will dis- tort the seemingly beneficial effects of the particular intervention program.

The overall effectiveness of a prediction matrix often is misunderstood. The reason is that the high-effectiveness index reported for an instrument frequently reflects more the ability of the screen- ing measure to predict (accurately) the academic performance of the children who were considered originally not to be at risk (Leach, 1981). The high prediction rate of those who do succeed masks the large error rate in the prediction of who are at risk. Leach (1981) also determined that screening procedures were usually more accurate in predicting successful children than those who might fail (p. 192).

Many American educators and psychologists support the use of screening and readiness tests to such an extent that alternative approaches that could be used to monitor performance of the students and to improve academic functioning often are not attempted. Utilization of teacher ratings in place of psychometric measures will not necessarily improve decision making as teachers also make many errors in attempting to predict learning/behavioral problems in kindergarten and first-grade children.

Because the high-error rate in predicting who is at risk for learning problems is inherent in so many of the developmental screening and readiness measures available today, their use in the com- ing years definitely will decline.

Dworkin (1989) also has spoken out sharply against the use of developmental-screening and school-readiness tests. He suggests a process of ‘developmental surveillance.’ Such surveillance would include obtaining relevant developmental information, engaging in careful observation of children, and attending to parental concerns (pp. 620–621). School psychologists, working in con- junction with early childhood education personnel, effectively could carry out all of these functions.

The Role of the School Psychologist in Early Childhood Education

The four trends that previously have been described will obviously impact the role of the school psychologist in the coming years. How the school psychologist might function is now discussed.

The assessment role of the school psychologist will be expanded rather than diminished; how- ever, it will take on quite a different character. Gone will be the simple IQ/Achievement discrepan- cy reports now used to gain entrance to LD status for first- and second-grade children. Gone will be screening measures such as curriculum-based assessment (CBA) with its emphasis only on the child’s reading rate. Instead, the school first will be engaged in more meaningful diagnostic prac- tices. Consideration of cognitive abilities will be only one facet of the assessment process when a child is referred for possible learning problems. The school psychologist will be involved in (1) de- veloping an initial diagnostic formulation; (2) attempting to delineate the learning problem in more specific detail; (3) analyzing the referral question from school personnel; (4) addressing teacher and parental concerns; and (5) helping coordinate an intervention plan (Aylward, 1994).

School psychologists will utilize algorithms or “decision trees” (Alyward, 1994) to aid them in arriving at a meaningful diagnosis. The same approach to meaningful assessment is mirrored in the diagnostic model presented by Berninger (1998). She states, “We need a multi-domain develop- mental approach to differential diagnosis of school age disorders . . .” (p. 97). Five domains or areas are suggested for assessment: (1) developmental history; (2) coexisting medical conditions; (3) brain functions (i.e., motor, memory, language, perceptual, executive functions, etc); (4) school function- ing, and (5) family, school, and classroom stressors and supports (pp. 97–99).

In addition to the use of the above-mentioned diagnostic models, school psychologists and teachers working with kindergarten and first-grade children will incorporate and utilize the concepts of emergent literacy as developed by Marie Clay (1987). The school psychologist will also be as- sessing the young child’s competency in the following areas: directional learning, concepts about print, and sequential ability in writing, and ability to locate letters and words. The school psycholo- gist also will be utilizing well-constructed criterion-referenced measures.

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To help implement the increased attention to the learning problems of young children, the school system will restructure the kindergarten, first and second grades into one separate unit.

A school psychologist will be attached full time to such a unit depending on the size of the class enrollment. In addition to the psychoeducational assessment role, the school psychologist will have an expanded consultation function. Because a student’s behavior is often the result of complex in- teractions between the student and the school setting, there always will be a need for a school psy- chologist to bring expertise, understanding, objectivity, and impartiality in making decisions about children.

The Consultant Role

The school psychologist also will carry out consultant activities. Dessent (1992) states that the behavioral method is “currently looking distinctly yellow at the edges.” It is inadequate to cope with the increasingly complex problems with which [school] psychologists are confronted (p. 51). To fa- cilitate the consultation process, “models based on individual consultations are unlikely to be total- ly adequate for this purpose, given the greater complexity of group interactions” (Sigston, 1992, p. 28). Therefore, as we enter the millennium, the school psychologist in early childhood education also will be trained in organizational consultant approaches as described by Schein (1987, 1988) and Ar- gyris (1976).

Calls for assessment of children for possible retention in kindergarten and first grade will have disappeared since no such decisions have to be made either at the end of kindergarten or first grade. Secondly, young children will not be assessed for learning-disabled placement since more appropri- ate interventions will have been put in place. This obviously creates more time for the school psy- chologist to be engaged in consultation and counseling activities.

The Influence of Parental Concerns and Legal Decisions

Unnoticed by many professionals in psychology and education has been the increase in parental concerns about various facets of present-day early childhood education. Parents have become more active in the schools, and they are increasingly vocal about their concerns. Analysis of interviews of parents in Florida, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Texas indicated concerns about (1) school screen- ing and assessment practices; (2) lack of definable criteria for retention; (3) the focus on ‘late’ birth- days to the exclusion of other factors considered more indicative of competence to begin school; (4) legal issues, (5) the social effects of retention, and (6) the nature of the curriculum (Gredler, 1992a).

Among the specific comments were the following:

(1) “We’ve been told that the school never retains children for academic reasons; only for so- cial reasons. What are the criteria? We are never told of the specific reasons.”

(2) “The teacher told me my child will probably be in the transition room next year. How can they know that it will be the best placement when my child has been in kindergarten only six weeks?”

(3) “My child has been labeled ‘emotionally immature’; also ‘developmentally young.’ What are the criteria and who decides?”

(4) “My child was tested with four readiness tests during the kindergarten year—A Gesell and Metropolitan in October and the same tests in April. Isn’t that too much testing?”

An important legal decision also has impacted the field of early childhood education and has fostered increased parental involvement. In 1987, a mother, objecting to the assignment of her daugh- ter to a developmental kindergarten, brought a class-action suit against the New York State Depart- ment of Education. The legal action resulted in the following decisions: (a) The child was to be trans- ferred to a regular kindergarten, and no kindergarten child could now be placed in a developmental kindergarten without the written consent from the parents; (b) the court stated that the readiness test in use (the Gesell) did not meet professional standards of reliability and validity and thus was inap-

The Future of Early Childhood Education 77

propriate. Also placement in the developmental kindergarten was based solely on the results of this one measure; (c) the court stated that children could not be placed in a separate class with separate educational programming and removed from the regular school environment “without first demon- strating that such children possess handicapping conditions, the nature and severity of which pre- cludes regular placement . . .” (State of New York, Department of Education, 1987, p. 19); (d) the school used two kindergarten teachers in the evaluation process. No other specialists were involved in the evaluation and placement process; other disciplines needed to be involved.

Placement procedures for prekindergarten and transition-room programs had become a nation- al problem by the late 1980s. Two states, Pennsylvania and Michigan, have incorporated into their State Department of Education codes regulations ensuring certain rights to parents of kindergarten and first-grade children. These regulations state that children who meet the entrance age for kinder- garten or first grade cannot be required to be placed in a transition or prekindergarten class.

The increasing concerns of parents, federal court decisions, and state department of education regulations described in this section, will have a clear impact on early childhood education in the coming years.

Summary

A number of aspects about the future direction of early childhood education have been pre- sented. These issues are summarized below:

(A) There is a definite trend to change screening practices for kindergarten and first-grade stu- dents. ‘High-stakes’screening, wherein decisions about a child’s placement in kindergarten or first grade are made on the basis of a brief screening measure, will disappear in future years.

(B) The important contributions to the instructional climate that has come from the field of ear- ly childhood education, educational psychology, and reading will continue to provide im- portant insights in educating our young children.

(C) Legal decisions and parental concerns will continue to reinforce the importance of provid- ing a positive school climate for our young children.

(D) As full-time members of the early childhood education team, the school psychologists’ role will include (1) psychoeducational assessment, (2) consultation, and (3) counseling func- tions within the new organizational structure of primary education. Kindergarten, first, and second grades now will be combined into one primary-educational unit. Assessment of children for possible retention in kindergarten and first grade will have disappeared since no such decisions will be made at the end of kindergarten or first grade. Children will not need to be assessed for transition-room or LD placement since more appropriate interven- tions will be in place. Obviously, this will create more time for the school psychologist to engage in consultation and counseling activities.

(E) More emphasis also will be placed on understanding the problems and functions of the school as a complex organization. The school psychologist will be available to talk to par- ents who are concerned about their children’s learning, and early childhood education teachers will welcome the supportive role of the school psychologist.

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