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Early Learning Assessment FAQs - For Teachers

Contact Information

ELA Help Desk

844-K12-OHIO
(844-512-6446)
http://www.ohio-k12.help/
ELAHelp@education.ohio.gov

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Early Learning Assessment FAQs - For Teachers

General Questions

What is the Early Learning Assessment?

The Early Learning Assessment an observational assessment consisting of skill progressions aligned to Ohio’s Early Learning and Development Standards. The Early Learning Assessment covers seven domains of school readiness: Social Foundations, Language and Literacy, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Physical Well-Being and Motor Development, and Fine Arts. The Learning Progressions define the pathway of skills, knowledge, and behaviors that children develop between the ages of 36 months and 72 months, including children who may be at earlier developmental levels than their typically developing peers.

What is a Learning Progression?

A Learning Progression defines a series of skills, knowledge or behaviors for children 36 months to 72 months. This series of skills, knowledge or behaviors includes levels for children who may be at earlier stages of development than their same age peers. There are 32 Learning Progressions in the Early Learning Assessment.

What are some benefits of the Early Learning Assessment?

The Early Learning Assessment is a free tool that can be used by any licensed early childhood program in Ohio.
The assessment materials, data system, training, and technical assistance are all provided at no cost to Ohio programs.
The Early Learning Assessment provides a common measure of children’s learning aligned to Ohio’s Early Learning and Development Standards.

What programs are required to use the Early Learning Assessment?

Only programs serving children funded by ECE or PSE are required to use the ELA. For the 2023-2024 school year, there are two options to meet the requirement for ECE and PSE programs:

Option 1: Assess children funded by Early Childhood Education (ECE) or Preschool Special Education (PSE) in the set of Ten Required Progressions (including 24 skills, or SKBs) in the fall and spring and report ratings in the Ready for Kindergarten Online (KReady) system. This is the same set of SKBs that ECE and PSE programs have been using for many years.

Option 2: Participate in an optional Early Learning Assessment Pilot. Assess children funded with a set of 25 SKBs in the fall and spring and enter ratings in the Ready for Kindergarten Online (KReady) system. This is a different set of SKBs derived from the comprehensive ELA and includes a new Oral Motor progression.

See this 2023 ELA Pilot Overview document for a list of SKBs included in the pilot.

Administering the Early Learning Assessment

How is the ELA implemented?
The assessment of young children is ongoing. The purpose of the ELA is to determine the current developmental level of children. As such, results are required to be reported at a minimum of twice per year during the assessment windows.

Assessment Windows	Time Frame	Assessment Requirements
Fall	Aug. 15 – Nov. 14	Required for reporting
Winter	Nov. 15 – Feb. 14	Ongoing for best practice
Spring	Feb. 15 – May 14	Required for reporting
Summer	May 15 – Aug.14	Ongoing for best practice

What are the Ten Required Learning Progressions?

The Ten Required Learning Progressions are: Awareness and Expression of Emotion, Cooperation with Peers, Relationships with Adults, Communication, Phonological Awareness, Vocabulary, Number Sense, Coordination-Small Motor, Personal Care Tasks and Safety and Injury Prevention.

For each of the required progressions, the users must gather a minimum of one piece of evidence for each observational rubric and assign a score for each observational rubric.

System and Technology

What is the Ready for Kindergarten Online system?
The Ready for Kindergarten Online system (also called KReady) is a comprehensive assessment system that contains the Early Learning Assessment (ELA) and the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment Revised (KRA-R). KReady stores student demographic and assessment information as well as professional development resources on the ELA. The data collection side allows programs to assign ratings to students, collect and analyze data and create various reports. The professional development side includes training modules, the two assessments need for reliability, technology guides, and instructional resources.

A data manager is the individual who has access to teacher and student information in KReady. It is this person’s responsibility for adding teachers, students, and enrollment data. The data manager is the person that will create a teacher’s account needed for the Early Learning Assessment (ELA) Initial Training.

What is the role of the Data Manager (DM)?

A data manager is the individual who has access to teacher and student demographic information. It is this person’s responsibility to add teachers, students, and enrollment data to the Ready for Kindergarten Online system. You have to be registered in the Ready for Kindergarten system as a data manager in order to enter or access any data.

ODE Programs: Each participating program must assign the role “Assessment Data Manager-Preschool and Kindergarten” in the Ohio Educational Directory System (OEDS) to gain access. It is up to the local organization to determine who will fulfill this role at the local level.

ODJFS Programs: If the program has an open ODE issued IRN, they should assign the role “Assessment Data Manager-Preschool and Kindergarten” in the Ohio Educational Directory System (OEDS) to gain access. It is up to the local organization to determine who will fulfill this role at the local level. If the program does not have and open ODE issued IRN, the program administrator should contact the ELA Help Desk at 844-K12-OHIO (844-512-6446) or visit http://www.ohio-k12.help/, to get started.

Professional Development, Training and Qualifications

Who in my program should attend the ELA training?

Only teachers who will be making scoring decisions are required to complete training. Other educators are welcome to attend training including all of the following:

Lead Teachers
Assistant Teachers
Classroom Aides
Intervention Specialists
Related Service Providers
Administrators

What training opportunities are available for teachers?

There are several professional development opportunities for early care and education professionals to learn about the Early Learning Assessment. Educators should choose the training that best fits their needs and use of the ELA. Please visit the Early Learning Assessment for Teachers for more information on registration.

The Early Learning Assessment for Support Professionals is specifically designed for assistant teachers, paraprofessionals and educational aides that support a fully ELA-trained professionals. The training provides and overview of the Early Learning Assessment and assessment concepts such as how to document observational evidence.
The Early Learning Assessment (ELA) Essentials Training is for new users who have not previously completed an ELA training. It is designed for early childhood professionals that will be observing, assessing, and scoring the ELA.

Last Modified: 7/28/2023 10:21:04 AM