Results from Maryland’s Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (KRA) reveals that 45% of Talbot County’s incoming students in the fall of 2017 were fully prepared for learning. This was shared with the Talbot County Board of Education at their March meeting.
The data offers a new baseline for assessing kindergarten readiness to help elevate preparation for all Talbot County school children and close achievement gaps.
The report, Readiness Matters, Equity Matters!, found that 45 percent of incoming kindergartners were fully ready to begin learning, compared to 38 percent in 2016-17. Another 39 percent were “approaching” readiness, while 17 percent were “emerging.” The report provides insights into readiness and children’s experiences with various forms of pre-K programs.
In addition to the improvements in the overall level of readiness, 43% of children entering Kindergarten in the fall of 2017 also demonstrated readiness in language and literacy (up from 32% last year), 62% demonstrated readiness in social foundations (up from 59% last year), and 50% demonstrated readiness in physical well-being and motor development (up from 47% last year.)
MSDE has worked with local educators to develop the KRA, and has since engaged educators, including kindergarten teachers, to strengthen the assessment process.
According to the Maryland Department of Education, “The KRA measures the skills and behaviors that children should learn prior to entering kindergarten. The KRA is an age-appropriate, assessment tool that relies on standardized performance tasks, along with focused observations of children’s work and play, to best understand what each entering kindergartner knows and is able to do in four key areas: social foundations; physical well-being and motor development; language and literacy; and mathematics.”
This assessment is part of Ready for Kindergarten (R4K), Maryland’s comprehensive early childhood assessment system. The KRA sets a baseline for tracking student progress in future years, aligned to Maryland’s rigorous PreK through 12th grade college and career-ready standards.
The new KRA data can be found here:
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