Teaching Strategies GOLD (GOLD) is a research-based assessment system described by their website as follows: "The authentic, ongoing, observation-based assessment system that helps teachers and administrators like you focus on what matters most for children’s success.Grounded in our 38 research-based objectives for development and learning, GOLD® supports effective teaching and assessment, while providing you with more time to spend with the children in your program. Accessed through MyTeachingStrategies™, GOLD® automatically links teaching and assessment, making it easier to connect the dots across the most important aspects of high-quality early childhood education" (2018).
The image below from their website also describes its use:
Additional information about GOLD from Teaching Strategies website.
GOLD provides numerous rubrics to utilize when establishing the developmental level each student is on. Below is the Scoring Rubric for Objective 16 in GOLD and the research behind each level defined:
Research-based explanation of rubric for 16a and 16b from Teaching Strategies GOLD website:
16a. Identifies and names letters: "Children in the yellow (2–3), green (preschool 3), and blue (pre-K 4) bands recognize and name a few letters in own name. Early on, children begin attending to print that is important to them, such as the letters in their name (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998) and highly salient environmental print (Vukelich, & Christie, 2004). As the letter identification abilities of 2-year-olds begin to emerge (Strickland & Schickedanz, 2004), they are highly dependent upon their in- and out-of- home experiences that support literacy (Snow et al., 1998). Some children may recognize up to a third of the alphabet by the time they turn 3 (Vukelich & Christie, 2004), but this is not the case for most children of this age. Preschool children identify some alphabet letters (Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp, 2000), letters in their name (Strickland, & Schickedanz, 2004), letters in the names of people important to them (McGee & Morrow, 2005), or salient letters in the environment (McGee & Morrow, 2005; Vukelich & Christie, 2004). Children in the green (preschool 3), blue (pre-K 4), and purple (kindergarten) bands recognize as many as 10 letters, especially those in own name. Children’s letter recognition abilities continue to increase throughout the preschool and kindergarten years (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Strickland & Schickedanz, 2004). Preschool children can identify 10 alphabet letters (Snow et al., 1998; Strickland & Schickedanz, 2004), and kindergarten children can identify considerably more letters (Snow et al., 1998). Letters in children’s names, persons special to them, and salient environmental print continue to be the most important letters for children (McAfee & Leong, 2007; McGhee & Morrow, 2005).
Children in the purple (kindergarten) band identify and name 11–20 upper- and 11–20 lowercase letters when presented in random order. When preschool children attend a literacy-rich preschool program, they may enter kindergarten with the ability to name at least 18 or 19 uppercase letters and 16 or 17 lowercase letters (Piasta, Petscher, & Justice, 2012; Schickedanz & Collins, 2013). Kindergartners recognize most letters of the alphabet (Charlesworth, 2011), but at first their abilities may be somewhat inconsistent. They may still confuse some letters that are similar in appearance, such as b and d, m and n, or p and q (McAfee & Leong, 2007). During the year they gain accuracy and proficiency. Children in the purple (kindergarten) band identify and name all upper- and lowercase letters when presented in random order. The alphabet naming abilities of kindergarten children increase appreciably during the year (Strickland & Schickedanz, 2004). By the end of kindergarten, it is expected that children will recognize and name (McAfee & Leong, 2007) all upper- and lowercase letters with accuracy and quickness (McGee & Morrow, 2005), regardless of the order in which they are presented (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009).
16b. Uses letter–sound knowledge Children in the green (preschool 3), blue (pre-K 4), and purple (kindergarten) bands identify the sounds of a few letters. Preschool children begin to make some letter-sound matches (Neuman, Copple, & Bredekamp, 2000; Strickland, & Schickedanz, 2004). By the time they enter kindergarten, children are likely to be able to connect additional letters with their corresponding sounds (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009). Children in the blue (pre-K 4) and purple (kindergarten) bands produce the correct sounds for 10–20 letters. Older preschool and kindergarten children can provide the sound for some initial consonants (McAfee & Leong, 2007). Once children begin to match letters to their sounds, they begin to provide other symbol-to-sound correspondences. By the end of kindergarten, children are expected to recognize most letter-sound associations (Charlesworth, 2011; McAfee & Leong, 2007; McGee & Morrow, 2005).
Children in the blue (pre-K 4) and purple (kindergarten) bands show understanding that a sequence of letters represents a sequence of spoken sounds. Children gradually develop the awareness that letters represent the sounds that make up spoken words (Strickland, & Schickedanz, 2004). This understanding (i.e., the alphabetic principle) is fundamental to many other literacy abilities. For most children this appreciation begins during the latter part of the preschool period, and by the end of kindergarten, children comprehend the principle (McAfee & Leong, 2007; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998).
Children in the purple (kindergarten) band apply letter–sound correspondence when attempting to read and write. Kindergarten children use their letter-sound correspondence abilities in both self-selected and teacher-guided activities. During choice time/center activities, they may apply their knowledge as they use invented or creative spelling (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998) such as to write a sign for the block center (McGee & Morrow, 2005), or they may attempt to sound out an unfamiliar word in a storybook (McGee & Richgels, 2003). During teacher-guided activities kindergartners may demonstrate their abilities as they work with the teacher on spelling words that are important to them (Burns, Griffin, & Snow, 1999) or in activities geared at creating and reading rhyming words (McGee & Morrow, 2005)" (2018).
References
Teaching Strategies GOLD. (2018). GOLD. Retrieved from https://teachingstrategies.com/solutions/assess/gold/
Teacher explanation:
Based on the above research and rubric for 16a: identifies and names letters I expect that students will either come in at BOY slightly behind the Pre-K blue band of development or at the very beginning considering the overlap of the Pre-School band (Green) with a score of 2. By MOY I expect them to be in the middle of the Pre-K blue band with a score of 3 or 4 and by EOY I expect that students would have incrementally moved along the Pre-K Blue Band of Development and ideally reached the end of it. For 16b: uses letter-sound knowledge I expect students will either come in at BOY one level behind (score of 1) the Pre-K blue band of development or the first level of the blue band (score of 2). Approaching MOY I'd expect them to be in the middle of the Pre-K blue band (scores 3, 4, 5) and by EOY I expect that most students will approach the end of the Pre-K blue band (scores 5, 6).
To monitor progress throughout the year I collect anecdotal data in GOLD primarily during our choice time and journal time to capture what letters students know and what sounds they might be associating with them as seen in below photos. Although there is no set exemplar from GOLD they do explain on their website how to capture authentic assessment of letter identification and sound correspondence:
"Encourage sensory exploration of the alphabet. Children often understand concepts more easily when learning experiences involve multiple senses. By feeling as well as seeing letters, they learn more about their shapes and formation. Teachers offer children a variety of ways to explore the alphabet: by using sandpaper, salt trays, clay, magnetic letters, and felt letters, and by forming letters with their bodies" (2012). Therefore exemplars for GOLD anecdotal evidence for 16a and 16b that students engage with I use the following methods to gauge progress on the GOLD continuum and adjust instructional plans to advance their letter identification and sound correspondence:
A student writes, identifies and shares the sound letter M makes "mmm" at Writing Center using Handwriting Without Tears materials.
At journals a student writes and then identifies the uppercase letters I and U.
At Writing Center a student copies environmental print and identifies the uppercase letters "L, O, V, E, M" and identifies the sounds of the consonants L, V and M.
Using a sand table a student writes and identifies the uppercase letter "S" and shares the sound: "sssss".
During choice time students use Alphabet Cards to create a puzzle. Together they identify almost every uppercase letter.
Reference
Teaching Strategies GOLD. (2012). Letter knowledge. Retrieved from https://teachingstrategies.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/TS-CC-Letter-Knowledge-Report_11-2013.pdf
2. Alignment of Handwriting Without Tears
Since GOLD's Developmental Continuum and Rubric really works best as a broad tool to establish the developmental level of children, I have aligned the more specific Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) Language and Literacy Assessment to administer in my Pre-Kindergarten classroom to compare with GOLD's rubric. The HWT curriculum and assessments are what drives and illuminates how students progress along the GOLD Developmental Continuum and Rubric. It was developed by occupational therapists and includes a lot of play-based and developmentally appropriate practices to teach students letter identification and sound correspondence. Below are explanations of why the program works as well as examples of the Language and Literacy Assessments I use throughout the year and their corresponding assessment recording tool. I perform this assessment at least three times a year, one-on-one with each student. Considering the research behind both I feel very confident that it is an accurate assessment of student knowledge and growth related to Letter Identification and Sound Correspondence and is best suited in combination with GOLD's rubric system. The link to the website is: https://www.lwtears.com/hwt
Photo from Handwriting Without Tears website.
Example of the Language and Literacy Assessments used:
The assessments are used in combination with HWT's handwriting curriculum, journals and alliteration books to reinforce student's learning of letters. The use of the journals help move students along the GOLD continuum and provides next steps for students and weekly check-ins on the letters they can identify, the sounds they know and how well they can write the letters. It is an all-inclusive curriculum and guide that informs my instructional decisions. Each student has their own journal and after every mini-lesson on each letter I conference with students and they have to identify the letter, tell me the sound it makes and explain how to create the letter. Below is an example of the HWT journal an example from their website of a journal page:
Photos from https://shopping.lwtears.com/product/MFSB/handwriting
3. High Level Summary of Whole Class Data from Teaching Strategies GOLD
After performing the BOY Literacy Assessment with my class this year, the results were as follows:
16a: At BOY all 20 student in my class were either meeting (6) or exceeding (14) expectations for identification of letters. No child was below the Pre-K Blue Band of development. This was an unexpected surprise since typical classes usually have a few students below expectations for this standard. It informed my practice that working towards MOY we would work more on letter-sound correspondence in the HWT curriculum rather than identification since so many students were already proficient.
16b: At BOY 5 students were below Pre-K blue band expectations, 14 were meeting and 1 was exceeding them. This aligned more alongside my expectations for BOY and helped me to identify the 5 students who would need more interventions (small group and one-on-one instruction) to get on the Pre-K blue band of development by MOY.
Here is another view of where students performed on the Pre-K blue developmental band since there is a wide-spectrum of scores they might fall under and this shows specifically what score they received at BOY:
BOY: For identifying and naming letters 70% of students are above grade level, 30% are on grade level, 0% are below grade level. For identifying letter-sound correspondence, 5% of students are above grade level, 70% are on grade level and 25% are below grade level.
After performing MOY Literacy Assessments the results were as follows:
16a: At MOY 1 student fell below, 4 met and 15 exceeded the Pre-K Blue Band expectations. Compared to BOY, one student regressed but another student exceeded expectations. This is as expected since for early childhood students their progress is often non-linear mid-year though some will make some linear gains. This data gave me insight about who I need to focus my interventions on, specifically the student who regressed by doing more small group and one on one instruction. By EOY it's typical that all students usually move into the Pre-K blue band of expectations.
16b: At MOY 4 students were below and 16 met Pre-K Blue Band expectations. Compared to BOY, one student moved from below expectations to meeting them and one student went from exceeding to meeting expectations. Again, this is to be expected for mid-year assessments of early childhood students. The arch of their development and my investment in their letter identification and sound correspondence doesn't show significant growth until EOY assessments.
Below is another view of where students were at MOY on the Pre-Kindergarten Developmental Continuum:
MOY: 75% of students are above grade level for identifies and names letters, 20% are within grade level and 5% are below grade level. For identifies letter-sound correspondence 80% are on grade level, 20% are below grade level.
Summary Analysis of Whole Class Data:
The dramatic academic results from Fall to Winter appear to be slightly misleading however, due to young children's non-linear developmental progression it's not surprising that while some of their other knowledge in 7 different developmental areas improved their letter identification and letter-sound knowledge was less consistent. Young children's brains are still developing and often will show a mid-year regression before progress is made.
Looking carefully at where children are on the Pre-Kindergarten developmental spectrum though it's clear that the overwhelming majority of students are in fact making a linear progression and scoring on or above grade level.
(Italics: on grade level, Bold: above grade level) 16a. BOY Identifies and names letters: 10% scored a 2, 20% scored a 4, 5% scored 6, 60% scored 7, 5% scored an 8 16a. MOY Identifies and names letters: 5% scored a 1, 5% scored a 3, 15% scored a 5, 30% scored 6, 35% scored a 7, 10% scored an 8.
The identifies and names letters dramatic academic growth for students overall for above grade level went from 70% to 75%, an increase of 5%. Students on grade level stayed the same at 20%.
Ultimately, for 16a. 95% of students are on or above mastery by MOY.
16b. BOY Identifies letter-sound correspondences: 25% scored a 1, 5% scored a 2, 40% scored a 3, 15% scored a 4, 10% scored a 5,5% scored a 6. 16b. MOY Identifies letter-sound correspondences: 15% scored not yet, 5% scored a 1, 20% scored a 3, 45% scored a 4, 15% scored a 5.
The identifies letter-sound correspondence dramatic academic growth was a 30% increase in students going from a level 3 to level 4. Children below grade level went from 25% to 20%, a decrease in 5%.
Ultimately, for 16b. 80% of students are on or above mastery by MOY.
Based on my whole class mastery in BOY and MOY, I project that 100% of students will be on grade-level (in the Pre-K blue band of development) by end of year (mastery) for identifies and names letters since they are currently at 95% at MOY. Since the effectiveness of my interventions (small group and individual) have shown significant success as outlined I think increasing mastery by 5% is likely. Additionally, Since 80% (an increase of 5% by MOY) of students are on or above grade level for identifies letter-sound correspondence I project that 90% of students will be on grade level (mastery) and 100% will show growth. I believe this is an appropriate reach especially since most early childhood student's letter-identification and letter-sound correspondence dramatic growth occurs in the last months of school.
Below are examples of the BOY and MOY Literacy Assessment Checklist that I performed with individual students that I intentionally selected to highlight the diverse ranges of knowledge that Pre-K students come in with related to 16a: letter identification and 16b: letter-sound correspondence.
Student 1:
BOY
MOY
Analysis: This student initially came into the BOY only identifying 3 letters, with a GOLD rubric score of 2 (as seen below). By the MOY they had tripled their knowledge of identifying and naming letters with a total of 9 and moved to a score of 3 on the GOLD Rubric. Both their BOY and MOY scores were in the Pre-K Blue Band of development. They went from knowing 3 to 9 uppercase letters, approximately knowing 11% to 34% of their letters (a 23% increase).
Based on their BOY data I intentionally focused on their letter identification, after they move further into the Pre-K Blue Band then I will return to helping them identifying their letter-sound correspondence. As seen above at MOY there was progress along the Pre-K band continuum for 16a and some regression for 16b which will be addressed by EOY.
BOY, MOY and projected EOY GOLD Developmental Bands:
Based on their prior performance of 16a (BOY: score of 2, on grade level, MOY: score of 3, on grade level) I expect by EOY this student will move one additional level (score of 4, on grade level) which would approach the end of the Pre-K blue band. Based on prior performance of 16b (BOY: score of 1, below grade level, MOY: score of 1, below grade level) I would expect that this student would move one additional level (score of 2, on grade level), moving into the beginning of Pre-K developmental expectations. Interventions for this student will include small group and one-on-one instruction.
Student 2:
Beginning of Year
Middle of Year
Analysis: Student 2 came into the BOY identifying all 26 letters, which scored a 7 on the GOLD rubric, well above Pre-K expectations. They also knew 8 letter sounds, which scored a 3 on the GOLD Rubric. By MOY they retained identification of all 26 uppercase letters (score of 7 on GOLD rubric) and knew an additional 11 sounds for a total of 19 which put them at a level 4 on the GOLD Rubric. For identifies letter-sound knowledge this student doubled their knowledge of letters sounds by going from knowing 8 to knowing 19 letter sounds, a 30% to 73% of their sounds (a 43% increase) . For 16a they exceeded Pre-K Blue Band expectations for BOY and MOY and for 16b they stayed within the Pre-K Blue Band but progressed along it.
Based on their BOY data I intentionally focused on their letter-sound correspondence (16b) since they exceeded expectations for 16a (Level 7). Based on that focus by MOY in 16b they progressed along the continuum (Level 3 to 4) and maintained their level for 16a. For this student I will remain focused on developing their letter-sound correspondence until EOY through HWT curriculum guides.
BOY, MOY and projected EOY GOLD Developmental Bands:
Student 2 BOY and MOY HWT assessment results on GOLD rubric.
Based on their prior performance of 16a (BOY: score of 7, above grade level, MOY: score of 7, above grade level) I expect by EOY this student will move one additional level (score 8, above grade level) which would move to the end of the Kindergarten purple band (well above grade level expectations). Based on prior performance of 16b (BOY: score of 3, on grade level, MOY: score of 4, on grade level) I would expect that this student would move one level (score of 5, on grade level), moving into the end of the Pre-K developmental expectations which also overlap with Kindergarten purple band expectations. General education instruction will continue for them.
Student 3:
Beginning of Year
Middle of Year
Analysis: For identifies and names letters this student went from identifying 17 letters to 23, progressing from knowing 65% to 88% of their letters (a 13% increase) and moving from a score of 5 to 6. For identifies letter-sound correspondence they went from knowing 1 to knowing 7, progressing from knowing 3% of their letter sounds to 27% (an increase of 24%) and moving from a score of 1 to 3.
Based on their BOY data I intentionally focused on their letter identification first and then their letter-sound correspondence. With the use of HWT curriculum and journals this student progressed on 16a from meeting to exceeding Pre-K expectations (Level 5 to 6) and in 16b from below expectations to meeting (Level 1 to 3).
BOY, MOY and projected EOY GOLD Developmental Bands:
Student 3 BOY and MOY HWT assessment results on GOLD rubric.
Based on their prior performance of 16a (BOY: score of 5, on grade level, MOY: score of 6, above grade level) I expect by EOY this student will move one additional level (score 7, above grade level) which would move to the middle of the Kindergarten purple band (well above grade level expectations). Based on prior performance of 16b (BOY: score of 1, below grade level, MOY: score of 2, on grade level) I would expect that this student would move one more level (score of 3, on grade level), moving into the middle of the Pre-K developmental expectations which also overlap with Kindergarten purple band expectations. General education instruction will continue for them.
Student 4:
Beginning of Year
Middle of Year
Analysis: For identifies and names letters this student went from identifying 11 letters to 17, progressing from knowing 42% to 65% of their letters (a 23% increase) and moving from a score of 5 to 6. For identifies letter-sound correspondence they went from knowing 0 to knowing 4 letter sounds, progressing from knowing 0% of their letter sounds to 15% (an increase of 15%) and moving from a score of 1 to 3.
Based on BOY data I focused on helping this child begin to identify more letter-sound connections (16b) since they were below Pre-K expectations. Since they were on level for 16a we worked less on that with HWT journals. By MOY those interventions moved this student from a level 5 (meeting) to 6 (exceeding) for 16a and a level 1 (below) to a level 3 (meeting) for 16b.
BOY, MOY and projected EOY GOLD Developmental Bands:
Based on their prior performance of 16a (BOY: score of 5, on grade level, MOY: score of 6, above grade level) I expect by EOY this student will move one additional level (score 7, above grade level) which would move to the middle of the Kindergarten purple band (well above grade level expectations). Based on prior performance of 16b (BOY: score of 1, below grade level, MOY: score of 3, on grade level) I would expect that this student would move one more level (score of 4, on grade level), moving into the middle of the Pre-K developmental expectations which also overlap with Kindergarten purple band expectations. General education instruction will continue for them.
Student 5:
Beginning of Year
Middle of Year
Analysis: For identifies and names letters this student went from identifying 24 letters to 26, progressing from knowing 92% to 100% of their letters (an 8% increase) and remaining at an above grade level score of 7. For identifies letter-sound correspondence they went from knowing 8 to knowing 18, progressing from knowing 30% of their letter sounds to 69% (an increase of 39%) and moving from a score of 3 to 4.
Based on BOY data since this student was exceeding expectations for 16a, I mainly focused on their letter-sound correspondence mastery. Based on those HWT curriculum interventions by MOY this student moved from a Level 3 to a Level 4 for 16b. and maintained their Level 7 for 16a.
BOY, MOY and projected EOY GOLD Developmental Bands:
Based on their prior performance of 16a (BOY: score of 7, above grade level, MOY: score of 7, above grade level) I expect by EOY this student will move one additional level (score 8, above grade level) which would move to the end of the Kindergarten purple band (well above grade level expectations). Based on prior performance of 16b (BOY: score of 3, below grade level, MOY: score of 4, on grade level) I would expect that this student would move one more level (score of 5, on grade level), moving towards the end of the Pre-K developmental expectations which also overlap with Kindergarten purple band expectations. General education instruction will continue for them.
4. Conclusion
Based on both whole class mastery and growth as well as individual student's mastery and growth data, I project that 100% of students will be on grade-level by end of year (mastery) for 16a: identifies and names letters (current is 95% at MOY). Since the effectiveness of my general, small group, and one-on-one instruction have shown significant success as outlined I think increasing mastery by 5% is likely. Additionally, Since 80% (an increase of 5% by MOY) of students are on or above grade level currently for 16b: identifies letter-sound correspondence I project that 90% of students will be on grade level (mastery) and 100% will show growth. I believe this is an appropriate expectation and projection especially since most early childhood student's letter-identification and letter-sound correspondence dramatic growth occurs in the last months of school.