Assessment of

Early Literacy
Skills
WHAT IS AN ASSESSMENT ?
Assessment - is an integral and
indispensable part in the teaching-learning
process because it provides teachers and
learners with some of evidence of learning
before, during and after the teaching
process.
 These evidence of learning outcomes help
the teachers make informed decision
 To plan the learning activities appropriate to
student’s levels and contextual background.
 To proceed with the next lesson if learners
have proficiently manifested the learning
outcomes or to reteach the lesson for mastery
level.
 To provide learners with feedback of their own
progress so that they can monitor and act
upon their progress and be responsible for
their own learning.
 Evaluation implies bringing meaning to
that information through complete
examination of ALL the assessment
information. That analysis and
reflection leads to informed
instructional decisions based on the
interpretation of evidence gathered
through multiple assessments.
 Evaluation includes the collection of
information, its interpretation, and
informed decision – making. Through
observation and interpretation of processes
and products in meaningful contexts, test
scores and grades have the potential to
shape the plans for a balanced language
learning experiences; separately, test
scores and grades are just information.
Both assessment and evaluation inform
language instruction through the
assessment of learning, for learning,
and as learning
 Alllanguage assessments in MTB-MLE program
in the Philippines stem from the measurable
performance standards (PS) translated into
detailed and task-specific learning
competencies (LCs). The PS provides the
scaffolding for frequent self, peer, parental, and
teacher assessment; hence, planning for
instruction is integral to balanced learning
experiences and planning for assessment is
integral to learning.
Into this chapter you will learn how to plan
assessment to assess language macro- and micro
skills through a use of appropriate measures that
will assess students learning in specific early
literacy skills.
WHAT IS ASSESSMENT?
 Assessment is an integral part of education
and in any form and in any type of curriculum.
In fact, everything about education begins with
assessment.

 Assessmentinvolves the use of empirical

data on student learning to refine
programs and improve student learning.
(Assessing Academic Programs in Higher
Education by Allen 2004)
WHAT IS ASSESSMENT?
 Assessment is the process of gathering
and discussing information from
multiple and diverse sources in order to
develop a deep understanding of what
students know, understand, and can do
with their knowledge as a result of their
educational experiences; the process
culminates when assessment results are
used to improve subsequent learning.
(Learner – Centered Assessment on College:
shifting the focus from teaching to learning
by Huba and Freed 2000)
WHAT IS ASSESSMENT?
 Assessment is the systematic basis for
making inferences about the learning
and development of students. It is the
process of defining, selecting, designing,
collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and
using information to increase students’
learning and development. (Assessing
Student Learning and Development: A Guide
to the Principles, Goals, and Methods of
Determining College Outcomes by Erwin
1991)
WHAT IS ASSESSMENT?
 Assessment is the systematic collection,
review, and use of information about
education programs undertaken for the
purpose of improving student learning
and development. (Assessment Essentials:
planning, implementing, and improving
assessment in higher education by Palomba
and Banta 1999)
 On a first look, these definitions of assessment
seem to have a lot of differences than
similarities but if we examine their corpus, we
will get the following key concepts.
 What How Why
Use of empirical data on To refine programs and
student learning improve student learning
from multiple and diverse In order to develop a deep
sources understand of what
students know,
Process of understand, and can do
gathering and with their knowledge as a
discussing result of their educational
information experiences
Systematic basis For making inferences
about the learning and
development of students
Defining, selecting, To increase students’
designing, collecting, learning and development
Process of
analyzing, interpreting,
and using information
Collecting, review, and use The for the purpose of
of information about improving student
Systematic
educational programs learning and development
undertaken
 From these corpora, we can now define
assessment as a systematic process of
strategically selecting appropriate
assessment toll for each learning situation
to evaluate learning outcomes against pre-
identified standards and learning
competencies in order to:
 Develop a better understanding of what
students know, understand and can do with
their knowledge as a result of their
education experiences
 Improve students’ learning and development

 Evaluate programs and make decision on

how to improve student learning.
 We must collect rich data, or evidence of
learning, that will give us a better view of:

 What our student already know before a

learning episode(assessment for learning)

 Where our students are in terms of level of

processing during the learning episode
(assessment as learning)

 What our students have learned after the

learning episode (assessment of learning)
WHAT ARE THE GOALS AND PURPOSES OF
ASSESSMENT?

 The goals and purposes of assessment can be

categorized into two groups: broad and
specific. Broad assessment goals and
purposes are those that aim to gauge the
curricular and co-curricular activities
whether they meet the institutional mission,
vision, and goals. The following are the
examples of assessment tools that have broad
goals and purposes.
 Tool Description Goal and Purposes
• The Checklist is divided into 7 • Descriptively assess
domains: Gross Motor, Fine the progress and
Motor, Self-Help, Receptive development of 5-
Language, Expressive year Filipino
Language, Cognitive and children across 7
Social-Emotional domains.
•The Checklist should be • Assess whether all
administered to the child at six 5-year Filipino
intervals, particularly at ages: 4 children have had
Revised
months, 8 months, 12 months, scaffolding to meet
ECCD
18 months, 2 years, and 3 the 5 developmental
years. Instructions are provided domains and have
in filling out each table. met the goals of the
•Each form of the revised ECCD Kindergarten
Checklist should not be take curriculum regardless
more than 45 minutes to of the Mother
administer. Tongues and cultural
backgrounds of these
learners.
 Phil • Also known as Philippines • Measures the
IRI Informal Reading Inventory comprehension levels of
young Filipino
Learners.
• Also known as Early Grade • Measure the most
Reading Assessment basic foundation skills
• The Early Grade Reading for literacy acquisition
Assessment (EGRA) is an in the early grades:
oral student assessment recognizing letters of
designed to measure the most alphabet, reading
basic foundation skills or simple words,
EGRA
literacy acquisition in the understanding
early grades: recognizing sentences and
letters of the alphabet, paragraphs, and
reading simple words, listening with
understanding sentences and comprehension.
paragraphs, and listening
with comprehension.
Tool Description Goal and Purpose
• Also known as National • The NAT was
Achievement Test. developed to measure
what pupils/students in
•The National Achievement Grade Three, Grade
Test (NAT) is a Philippine- Six and Fourth Year
made standardized test know and can do in five
designed to determine subject areas: Science,
NAT
pupils/students’ achievement Mathematics, English,
level, strengths and Filipino, and HeKaSi
weaknesses in five key (Heographiya
curricular subject areas at Kasaysayan at Sibika)
the end of the school year. in elementary and
Araling Panlipunan in
secondary level.
 Specific assessment goals and purposes are also
known as classroom assessment which tries to assess
progress of learners in real classroom situation. These
types of assessment goals and purpose are more
concrete and realistic because they are able to capture
the real progress of learning through teachers designed
instructional plans. Quizzes, classroom simulations,
graded recitations, projects, and all other classroom
activities are assessment tools that aim to evaluate
learners’ attainment of specific goals and purposes.
While this type of assessment goals and purposes aim
to capture real-time and concrete evidence of individual
and even collaborative learning outcomes, there is a
possibility that these forms of assessment may not be
aligned to the broad assessment goals and purposes.
Schools, therefore, must strike a balance between
specific and broad assessment goals and purposes to
ensure that the learners are acquiring universal
language skills but are applied in various local,
national, and international contexts especially in MTB
– MLE curriculum. Teachers and learners must be
able to localize and contextualize these standards to
the various language contexts of young Filipino
learners.
 To do this, schools can create standards-based
assessment tools (based on broad assessment goals and
purposes) in order to evaluate whether each grade level
learners meet the schools vision, mission, goals (VMG)
via the curriculum. To achieve this, schools can create
departmentalized quarter assessments (QA) in order
gauge whether all students are able to meet the
standards set by Department of Education vis-à-vis the
schools VMG. To achieve standards-based departmental
quarter assessments, schools must observe the steps of
creating the test.
1. Create the table of specification (TOS). This will
serve as the blueprint for the test construction and
for the test of validity.

2. Construct the test based on the approved TOS.

The number of items, the type of questions, and the
level of processing for each question will be clearly
specified in the TOS. Therefore, test constructors
must carefully formulate their test items that will
represent the approves TOS.

3. Validate the constructed test against the

approves TOS to ensure content validity. The
constructed test will undergo test of content validity
using the approved TOS.
 Content validity is a non-statistical type of validity
that involves the degree to which the content of the
test matches the intended learning outcomes and the
content that ought to be assessed.

4. Testing the validated test for reliability. The test

must be administered in small scale population using
various types of test of reliability to evaluate the
degree to which the assessment tool produces stable
and consistent results. The following are types of
reliability test.
a. Test-retest reliability is a measure of
reliability by administering the same
constructed test twice over a period of time
with an identified interval to the same group
of individual. The scores from Time 1 and
Time 2 will be correlated in order to evaluate
the test for stability over time.

b. Parallel forms reliability is a measure

of reliability is done by administering different
versions of an assessment tool created using
only one TOS to the same group of individuals.
The scores from the two versions will then be
correlated in order to evaluate the consistency
of results across alternate versions.
c. Inter-rater reliability is a measure of
reliability used to assess the degree to which
different judges or raters agree in their
assessment decisions. Inter-rater reliability is
useful. The results of the individual raters will
then be correlated to measure the degree to which
their decisions vary because human observers will
not necessarily interpret answers the same way;
raters may be disagree as to how well certain
responses or material demonstrate knowledge of
the construct or skill being assessed.
d. Internal consistency reliability is a measure
of reliability used to evaluate the degree to which
different test items that measure the same TOS will
yield the same results.
1) Average inter-item correction is a measure
by taking all of the items on a test that examines
the same TOS, determining the correlation
coefficient for each pair of items, and finally taking
the average of all these correlation coefficients.
2) Spilt-half reliability is a subtype of internal
consistency reliability which is done by splitting the
constructed test into halves where the items on each
half examine the same TOS. The entire test is
administered to a group of individuals, the total score of
each “set” is computed, and finally split-half reliability
to obtained by determining the correlation between the
two total “set” score.