Results of the Feasibility and Utility of an Early Literacy Assessment

• In Event: Use, Analysis, and Development of Classroom Assessments with a focus on Culturally Responsive Educational Practices

Abstract

Early literacy skills are crucial for later academic success. Children’s performance during preschool is associated with later reading success for monolingual English-speaking children, multilingual learners, such as Spanish-English bilingual children, and for children with disabilities (NASEM, 2017; National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2017). Therefore, creating assessments that reliably capture the performance and progress of young children is important, especially for children who are developing language in bilingual environments. With reliable assessments, we can appropriately monitor how Spanish-speaking children are progressing on a path toward later reading success. Although there are bilingual progress monitoring assessments for children who are typically developing, there are no measures that accurately capture the abilities of bilingual children who have been identified with language delays or impairments.
To appropriately develop such measures, it is important to design assessments that attend to children’s cultural context and create item content that is culturally responsive, linguistically accurate, and developmentally appropriate. One aspect of gathering a deep understanding of a children’s cultural and linguistic context is to collaborate with interested families and communities during the design process.

The Computer Adaptive Storybook Assessment (CASA) is a developmentally tailored, engaging, and focused assessment experience for 3–5-year-old Spanish-speaking children identified with language delays. CASA was designed to capture children’s emerging language and early literacy skill growth through a psychometrically rigorous digital storybook experience, where children interact with the story through a computer adaptive engine that selects and presents items at each child’s unique ability level in English and Spanish. To ensure CASA content is culturally relevant, we asked the question: What are educators’ perceptions about the content and potential utility of CASA for use with preschoolers? To what degree is CASA culturally and developmentally appropriate?

We conducted two focus groups in MN and CA, with a total of 13 early-childhood educators during June and August of 2022. Participants included 6 bilingual early childhood special educators, and 7 bilingual early childhood educators working in inclusive settings. Participants viewed mock-ups of CASA storybook pages (scenes) and were asked to discuss the appropriateness (developmental accessibility and level of engagement) and potential utility of story items, graphic depictions, cultural relevance of scene selections and storyline flow, including words, topics, and narrative elements. All feedback was recorded and analyzed thematically.

This presentation will detail how educators responded in the focus groups and how resulting information guided content revisions to directly align CASA scenes to increase cultural responsiveness. Results were categorized into revisions based on items and scenes. Regarding scenes, storylines were well received, familiar and engaging. Participants suggested including characters with a wide range of individual characteristics (e.g., children with disabilities, different skin tones and hair textures). Regarding items, participants suggested expansion of item responses for some target words, and new items that expand sampling across dialects. These findings highlight the importance of including interested parties as collaborators at the beginning of the design process, to ensure end-user perspective is held alongside measurement requirements as critical for a measure’s successful design (and eventual use).

Authors

• Alejandra Miranda, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author

• Carlos Chavez, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

• Alisha K. Wackerle-Hollman, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Karen Zyskind, University of Oregon

• Yessy Medina, University of Oregon

• Lillian Karen Duran, University of Oregon