THE TIMING OF EARLY READING ASSESSMENT IN KINDERGARTEN.

Under the accountability provisions of the No Child Left Behind legislation, screening for reading risk has become routine in kindergarten. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of the timing of kindergarten assessment and the type of support provided to teachers to translate assessment results to instruction. Sixty-two schools with 201 kindergarten classrooms and 3,635 students in a southwestern state were randomly assigned to administer kindergarten assessment in the fall or in the winter, with teachers receiving onsite or web mentoring. A small, significant effect (d = 0.13) was found for outcomes on a standardized reading test administered at the end of kindergarten when teachers administered the screen in the fall and received web rather than onsite mentoring. A slight, nonsignificant, reduction in reading risk (i.e., reduction in false positives) was apparent. Given these small effects, there is little empirical support for initiating screening in the fall rather than in the winter of kindergarten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]