Early Childhood Education Assessment Updates and Training Opportunities

Texas Education Agency sent this bulletin at 03/18/2024 08:23 AM CDT

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Texas Education Agency

Early Childhood Education Division
Three young students on the floor, sharing a book called Ovals, from Donna ISD

ECE Assessment Updates and Training Opportunities

Updates to Commissioner-Approved Instruments for the 2024-2025 School Year

Prekindergarten

Districts and open-enrollment charter schools are required to administer a commissioner-approved prekindergarten student progress monitoring instrument. The Texas Education Agency has published a new list for districts and open-enrollment charter schools to choose from. The new 2024-2025 through 2026-2027 Commissioner's List of Approved Prekindergarten Progress Monitoring Instruments will go into effect starting with the 2024-2025 school year.

The following progress monitoring instruments are on the current Commissioner’s List of Approved Prekindergarten Progress Monitoring Instruments but are not included on the new list and are no longer options for use starting in the 2024-2025 school year:

  • BASC-3 BESS by Pearson
  • DIAL-4 by Pearson
  • ISIP Early Reading by Istation
  • LAP-3 by Kaplan Early Learning

The following progress monitoring instruments have been added on the new Commissioner’s List of Approved Prekindergarten Progress Monitoring Instruments and are an option to use starting in the 2024-2025 school year:

  • CPALLS+STEM by Children’s Learning Institute administered through TANGO Software (formerly on the list as CIRCLE Assessment by Liberty Source)
  • COR Advantage by Highscope Educational Research Foundation
  • LION for Prekindergarten by Liberty Source

School districts and open-enrollment charter schools interested in a new prekindergarten tool are strongly encouraged to begin instrument selection and preparations now.

Reminder: Districts and open-enrollment charter schools must administer student progress monitoring in all five required domains at both beginning-of-year and end-of-year. The five required domains are:

  • Emergent Literacy Reading
  • Emergent Literacy Writing
  • Language and Communication
  • Mathematics
  • Health and Wellness

Kindergarten

To meet statutory requirements under Texas Education Code (TEC) §28.006, school districts and open-enrollment charter schools must use either the Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment (TX-KEA) by the Children's Learning Institute or mCLASS Texas by Amplify as the required beginning-of-year reading instrument for kindergarten students. Districts and open enrollment charter schools can use either of these instruments to conduct the required beginning-of-year reading instrument administration for the 2024-2025 school year.

Please Note: The authorization period for mCLASS Texas as a free, Commissioner-selected reading instrument for kindergarten has been extended through August 2025.

Grades 1 and 2

There are two free approved reading instruments for grades 1 and 2. To meet statutory requirements under Texas Education Code (TEC) §28.006, districts and open enrollment charter schools can use any of the following instruments to conduct the required beginning-of-year reading instrument administration for the 2024-2025 school year:

  • TPRI/Tejas Lee (Children's Learning Institute) (All versions are considered approved by the Commissioner)
  • mCLASS Texas (Amplify)
  • Districts may also use a reading instrument approved by a district-level committee, as outlined in TEC §28.006.

Please Note: The authorization period for mCLASS Texas as a free, Commissioner-selected reading instrument for grades 1 and 2 has been extended through August 2025.

Training Opportunities

ECAS Initiative Training Opportunities – Ending April of 2024!

The Early Childhood Assessment Support (ECAS) Initiative is excited to share *NEW* training opportunities that have not yet been offered through the grant. Please see below for the following grant-funded trainings available through March and/or April 2024. Take advantage of this last set of free-of-charge, grant-funded trainings, in collaboration with Amplify and the Children’s Learning Institute (CLI), before the grant’s end date in April 2024.

Educators sitting at a table having a discussion

Strengthen: mCLASS Texas (DIBELS 8) Training - Modeling Data Reviews, Training of Trainers (TOT) Session by Amplify [Virtual, Synchronous]

Dates available into April 2024!

Link to find all available training dates: https://www.escweb.net/tx_esc_04/catalog/event.aspx?event_id=1815661

Description: This one-hour Strengthen session uses mCLASS Texas reports to review benchmark data at a school level and participants will leave with a plan to facilitate a data review with teachers.

Please note: This special opportunity is designed as a Training of Trainers (TOT) session and will allow participants to use the Data Review Model and Amplify resources to turnkey the information and lead data reviews with instructional teams. This session is recommended for those who lead PLCs and/or data review meetings using Amplify's mCLASS data.

Children at a table writing with markers

Strengthen: mCLASS Texas Training - Progress Monitoring to Drive Student Outcomes for Teachers by Amplify [Virtual, Synchronous]

Dates available into March 2024!

Link to find all available training dates: https://www.escweb.net/tx_esc_04/catalog/event.aspx?event_id=1815662

Description: This one-hour Strengthen session implements mCLASS Texas progress monitoring and MTSS best practices to track student progress and accelerate growth.

Please note: This session is offered for both mCLASS DIBELS 8 (English) and mCLASS Lectura (Spanish). Please refer to the session subtitle and session information to choose the session focusing on the preferred tool.

Teacher helping a student at a desk

Connecting TX-KEA & Phonics: A Spelling Routine with CLI [Virtual, Synchronous]

Dates available into March 2024!

Link to find all available training dates: https://www.escweb.net/tx_esc_04/catalog/event.aspx?event_id=1810765

Description: Participants will learn how the spelling routine supports reading and which TX-KEA measures benefit from the targeted instruction. This training focuses on a 4-step routine for providing explicit and systematic phonics instruction regardless of the phonics program implemented in the kindergarten classroom. Clear and consistent language is used for all parts of the routine and teachers are supported with a user-friendly lesson planning template, a spelling resource book for teachers (English only), and wall cards (English or Spanish). This foundational literacy component requires approximately 15 minutes of instruction per day.

Please note: This session will be facilitated in English with a focus on English phonics instruction. However, the routine applies to both English and Spanish instruction. Adjustments for language-specific reading pedagogy and considerations for cross-linguistic transfer in emergent bilinguals will be included as time permits. Additionally, these resources are supplemental and not intended to replace any district required phonics program resources required by TAC §74.2001.

Early Childhood Assessment Support

For additional assessment questions, please submit an Early Childhood Education Support Portal ticket.