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The Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment is a standardized, criterion-referenced assessment sensitive to student skill. Therefore, assessment tool vendors and their researchers and statisticians work hard to create bell curve models to help us understand where students may typically land within the scope of skills measured in the tool, aligning with growth over time.   It compares a student’s knowledge and skills against a predetermined cut score. The main goal is to drive instruction to build a strong foundation to prepare students for the next grade level.It’s important for all educators to keep in mind that assessment tools, such as

TX-KEA , do not explicitly test each of the Kindergarten TEKS. Valid and reliable assessment tools like TX-KEA are aligned to state and national standards; however, they will not explicitly measure every single standard; instead, we measure the skills demonstrated in relation to the standard. The reason for this is that standards change, therefore assessment tool vendors and their researchers and statisticians work hard to create bell curve models to help us understand where students may typically land within the scope of skills that are measured in the tool, which align to the standards. This reduces the desire to “teach to the test”, and instead gain an accurate, reliable snapshot of where a student is in their academic development based on data gathered through researchwas built to cover the range of ability levels (easier items to harder items).  Therefore, harder sounds are included, e.g., G that can make the /j/ sound. This allows a better coverage of the upper end of ability levels. 

In other words, kindergarteners walk into classrooms with a variety of skills - some more advanced than others. As assessment tool designers, we have the responsibility to design tools that capture a wide range of skills so that teachers have the information to drive instruction for each child.

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