Kindergarten Readiness53

Language Domain

VOCABULARY is a foundational language skill that supports learning in all content domains. Knowing a student’s vocabulary abilities helps teachers adjust their own vocabulary usage during instruction to levels that are most beneficial for individual children.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION, a foundational language skill that supports learning in all areas, assesses students’ ability to understand verbal information and follow directions. Knowing students’ receptive language abilities allows teachers to adjust the complexity of their own language during instruction.

Literacy Domain

The LETTER NAMES subtest assesses children’s knowledge of the names associated with various letters of the alphabet. Letter names is one component of letter knowledge which can predict reading achievement

The LETTER SOUNDS subtest assesses children’s knowledge of letter sounds. Letter knowledge at kindergarten entry is a strong predictor of literacy achievement

The BLENDING SOUNDS subtest assesses children’ phonological awareness, or sensitivity to the sound structure of oral language. Phonological awareness is necessary for learning to read and write and is predictive of literacy achievement.

The SPELLING subtest assesses children’s early spelling abilities, which is the ability to use sound-symbol relationships to write words. TX-KEA assesses spelling because it is highly related to later literacy achievement. Attempting to spell words requires children to apply multiple literacy skills simultaneously, such as alphabet knowledge and phonological awareness.

Executive Functioning

The Executive Functioning domain addresses the cognitive skills used by children to plan, problem solve, and follow classroom rules.

INHIBITION. Students are asked to respond accurately to a specific stimulus (e.g., butterfly), and withhold, or inhibit, a response to a different stimulus (e.g., bee). Scores reflect the student’s ability to respond accurately while inhibiting a response

WORKING MEMORY. Students are assessed on their ability to hold in memory 1 – 3 pieces of information in an increasingly complex setting. In this subtest, children recall where cars are parked in a garage. The number of cars and the number of parking spaces increases as the student progresses.

ATTENTION. Students are assessed on their ability to focus their attention, stay on task, as well as quickly and accurately focus on relevant features of the task. They are provided 2 minutes to make as many correct matches as possible between the target object, a flower, and five answer choices, other flowers.

Social Emotional Competence And Emotion Managment

The SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE subtest focuses on children’s social and emotional skills within a classroom setting. The subtest evaluates children’s pro-social skills, approaches to learning, and emotion understanding.

The EMOTION MANAGEMENT subtest focuses on children’s ability to manage their emotions and respond appropriately to an emotional experience. They are evaluated on whether they can adapt to the demands of a classroom and school environment.

53 A variety of sources provided the information included in these descriptions. 1Brief_PhonologicalAwareness.pdf (d1yqpar94jqbqm.cloudfront.net) Phonological Awareness | LEARN - Children’s Literacy Initiative (cli.org), Kindergarten_TEKS_0820 (texas.gov), Phonics | LEARN - Children’s Literacy Initiative (cli.org), Reading Curriculum Ladders (fortheteachers.org)

54 Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment (TX-KEA).https://www.texaskea.org/.