DESIGNING “SMART” STUDENT ASSESSMENT: LESSONS LEARNED FROM AN ARTS-INTEGRATED EARLY LITERACY MODEL

Developing early literacy skills is vital to the academic success of young children. Research has shown that patterns of learning in the early years are closely linked to later achievement, particularly in the area of literacy. It is estimated that more than a third of all American fourth grade students, and an even higher percentage of at-risk students, read below grade level. Providing young children with critical precursory skills, however, has consistently proven to improve later achievement (National Institute for Literacy, 2009). Finding ways to help students successfully development emergent and beginning reading skills must be a priority.

The “smART stART” program, an offering of the Woodruff Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia responds to this need by providing an arts-integrated approach for building reading comprehension skills. The program is grounded in the premise that arts integration in early literacy education can provide lasting benefits, a position confirmed by a recent report of the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities, “Reinvesting in Arts Education,” (Young Audiences, 2011). “smART stART’s” program framework is designed to address Common Core Georgia Performance Standards in reading and literacy for kindergarten and first grade students.

In Fall 2012, researchers, program designers and teachers launched a collaborative effort to design classroom measures for determining the learning gains of first grade students enrolled in “smART stART.” The collaborators hoped to design an instrument that specifically assessed target reading skills, engaged student interests, and provided a developmentally appropriate, time-efficient format for teachers to administer. An initial assessment tool was created to address these aims and introduced in two classrooms during Spring 2013. Based on this sampling of student data, as well as feedback offered by teachers, the assessment tool and implementation process were refined. During 2013-2014, multiple teachers in several elementary schools administered the assessment in their first grade classrooms. Data extrapolated from surveys, focus groups and student assessments offer valuable insights for evaluating the effectiveness of the ”smART stART” program in achieving its aims, which may be informative to others who are engaged in program evaluation which includes a student assessment component.