Supporting Kindergarten Readiness Using the

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Meet Your Presenter

Barbara L. Ekelman, Ph.D., CCC-SLP is a speech-language pathologist and learning specialist in private practice, adjunct associate professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences and clinical associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University Barbara Ekelman, (CWRU). Ph.D., CCC-SLP

Today’s Discussion

1. Why screen?
2. Importance of screening during COVID-19
3. Impact of COVID-19 on education
4. The Well Screening can help…
   • Identify individual learning profiles
   • Monitor and track progress
   • Next step planning
5. Guiding Tour of the Website
6. Educational and Clinical Relevance

Why Screen?

• The United States Census Bureau (2020) reported that approximately four million children enter kindergarten in the United States each year.
• Many children are not ready for kindergarten across the socioeconomic spectrum.
• 1 out of 4 children from moderate- or high-income families and 1 out of 2 children from lower-income families are not ready for kindergarten (Williams, 2019).

Why Screen? (cont.)

• Children are exposed to different levels of literacy and come from diverse socio-economic, cultural, and educational backgrounds.

• Children who do enter kindergarten are heterogeneous in their skill set and exposure to preliteracy and language skills (Ekelman & Lewis, 2019).

• 8% of entering kindergartners have significant speech and language disorders that negatively impact academic growth (Norbury et al., 2016; Tomblin et al., 1997).

• Others have estimated that up to 16% of school aged children will have difficulty learning to read (Moats, 2020; Shaywitz, 2003).

• Children who get off to a poor start in learning rarely catch up (Adlof, 2020; Torgesen & Burgess, 1998).

• Children who succeed early-on receive the most positive reinforcement leading to a positive self-image, motivation to work hard, and success in school (Ramey & Ramey, 2006; Ramey et al., 2007).

• The old “wait and see” recommendation when a child is lagging behind is no longer popular.

Importance of Screening During COVID-19: Impact on Kindergarteners

• Many children have been home and not in preschool
• Limited group exposure (turn taking, attention, cooperative play, listening/responding in group activities, body awareness)
• Limited peer exposure (social communication, sharing, reciprocating, reading facial/body cues)
• Limited teacher exposure (speaking to adult, following class routines, class rules, reading facial cues, taking direction)
• Limited direct teaching exposure (early literacy, language, speech, math)
• Exposed to what is available in the home (access to adult support, internet, workspace, language enrich environment)

Importance of Screening During COVID-19: Impact on Entering 1st Graders

• Many children have been home learning remotely
• Some have had hybrid teaching
• Limited group exposure
• Limited peer exposure
• Limited teacher exposure
• Limited direct teaching exposure
• Parents/Guardians are responsible for follow through

Impact of COVID-19 on Education

Remote Learning interferes with:

• Delivering information using a multimodality approach (visual, tactile, motor, auditory, etc.)
• Introducing new material in a context-rich, associative environment
• Providing cues, prompts, or hints to help direct/focus students.
• Limited use of manipulatives
• Limited motor movements

Impact of COVID-19 on Education

Remote Learning interferes with:

• Allowing thinking time
• Monitoring and modeling listening and speaking development
• Refreshing stimuli with repetition, rephrasing, and expansion clarifications
• Assessing and scaffolding on a group and individual level
• Seeing what each student is doing in real time to differentiate instruction

The Well Screening Can Help

Gives in-depth personalized results that pinpoint the child’s strengths and weaknesses in areas critical for learning. Guides instruction for targeted areas that need strengthening. Engages the child in a light-hearted and fun manner. Delivers the screening the same way to every child, allowing for consistency and uniformity. Includes a website that directs users to language and learning information, links, activities, and educational games based on need.

How the Well Screening can help

The Well Screening can be used to:

• Establish a baseline measure for each child looking at many developmental areas important for school success.
• Help teachers and in-house specialists differentiate their teaching to meet the needs of each learner
• Monitor progress throughout the school year (Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer)
• Develop next step planning based on the student’s performance
• Screen remotely if necessary

Identify Individual Profiles

• Receptive Language: Understanding and processing language when listening and reading
• Expressive Language: Retrieving and formulating language when speaking and writing
• Social Communication: Using verbal and nonverbal communication in various social contexts
• Early Literacy: Learning letter names and corresponding sounds, rhyming, and sound play
• Reading: Blending sounds into words (decoding) with fluency and comprehension

Identify Individual Profiles (cont.)

• Attention: Maintaining focus and regulating behavior to learn and store information
• Math Calculation: Counting, grouping objects, and calculating simple math facts and operations
• Speech Sound Production: Producing speech sounds appropriate for age and dialect
• Motor Skills: Performing gross, fine, and visual motor movements appropriate for age

Monitor and Track Progress

Norms available for:

• Kindergarten (Fall, Winter, Spring)
• Entering First Grade Students (K-Spring Norms)
• Pre-Kindergarten (Spring)

Next Step Planning

Next Steps

• Information
• Activities
• Games
• Professionals for follow-up
• Results
• Next Steps

After scores are submitted

• Results
• Information

Educational and Clinical Relevance

• Because kindergarten students are “moving targets,” a screener should be administered throughout the school year (fall, winter, and spring).
• This is especially true for at-risk children who are identified at the beginning of the school year.
• Some of the at-risk children make significant gains with more exposure and become typical learners.
• Other children are found to be atypical learners because of language-learning deficits.

Educational and Clinical Relevance (cont.)

• On occasion, a child who presents as a typical learner at the beginning of the school year may not progress accordingly.
• These children often memorize the names of letters and sight words prior to entering kindergarten, but they have deficits in phonological awareness and/or retrieval skills, so reading and writing development stalls as the school year progresses.
• The Well Screening helps to differentiate the underlying predictors of early literacy acquisition.

Educational and Clinical Relevance (cont.)

• Students who pass the screening in the fall are considered Tier 1 and receive classroom instruction emphasizing early literacy and language skills (continue monitoring and differentiated instruction).
• Students who do not pass the screening should be discussed by the team.
  • Some of the students will be identified as Tier 2, needing targeted and focused small group instruction because of lack of exposure.
  • Other students will be referred for full evaluations and identified as Tier 3 needing intensive and individualized instruction because of a diagnosed language-learning disorder.

Start Screening

The Well Screening® Starter Kit has everything you need to start screening!

• Examiner’s Manual ebook
• 25 Screening Codes (+1 practice code)

More Information on Well Screening

References

• Adlof, S.M. (2020). Promoting reading achievement in children with developmental language disorders: What can we learn from research on specific language impairment and dyslexia? Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, 3277-3292.
• Ekelman, B.L. & Lewis, B.A. (2019). Speech and Language Disorders. In M.L. Batshaw, N.J. Roizen, L. Pellegrino (Eds.), Children with Disabilities 8 Edition. Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
• Moats, L. C. (2020). Speech to print: Language essentials for teachers (3rd ed.). Paul H. Brookes Publishing.
• Norbury, C. F., Gooch, D., Wray, C., Baird, G., Charman, T., & Simonoff, E. (2016). The impact of nonverbal ability on prevalence and clinical presentation of language disorder: Evidence from a population study. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57, 1247–1257.
• Ramey, S. L., & Ramey, C. T. (2006). Early educational interventions: Principles of effective and sustained benefits from targeted early education programs. In D. K. Dickinson & S. B. Neuman (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (Vol. 2). Guilford Press.
• Ramey, S. L., Ramey, C. T., & Lanzi, R. G. (2007). Early intervention. In J. W. Jacobson, J. A. Mulick, & J. Rojahn (Eds.), Handbook of intellectual and developmental disabilities. Springer.
• Shaywitz, S. (2003). Overcoming Dyslexia. Alfred A. Knopf.
• Tomblin, J. B., Records, N., Buckwalter, P., Zhang, X., Smith, E., & O'Brien, M. (1997). Prevalence of specific language impairment in kindergarten children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 40, 1245-1260.
• Torgesen, J.K. & Burgess, S.R. (1998). Consistency of reading-related phonological processes throughout early childhood: Evidence from longitudinal-correlational and instructional studies. In J.L. Metsala & L.C. Ehri (Eds.), Word Recognition in Beginning Literacy. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum Associates.
• United States Census Bureau (2020), Census Document
• Williams, P.G., executive committee member, AAP Council on Early Childhood and professor of pediatrics, University of Louisville, Ky.; Herman, E., M.A., clinical psychologist, department of psychiatry and psychology, Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Detroit; Pediatrics, online (2019).