Kindergarten
State Testing Timeline
The Washington Kindergarten Inventory of Developing Skills (WaKIDS) is a process for:
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Welcoming students and their families to kindergarten through the Family
Connection. Before school starts, or shortly thereafter, kindergarten teachers meet with
families to welcome them to school and talk about each child’s strengths and needs.
WaKIDS
Beginning Families and teachers
of the
meet for the family
school
connection.
year:
Learning about students’ strengths through a Whole-Child Assessment. By October 31,
teachers observe students during classroom activities and record each child’s developing skills
in six areas: social-emotional, physical, cognitive, language, literacy,
and mathematics.
By Oct 31: Teachers complete the
whole-child assessment
and use data to
individualize learning.
Discussing the characteristics of children’s development and
learning through Early Learning Collaboration. As the school
year continues, early learning professionals and kindergarten
teachers meet to share information that will enable students
to be successful in school.
Nov and
beyond:
Who participates?
State-funded full-day kindergartens are required to implement WaKIDS. While other public schools
may volunteer to participate in WaKIDS, not all schools are yet implementing WaKIDS. By 2017–18,
we anticipate all kindergartens will be state-funded full-day classrooms and participating in WaKIDS.
How does it help?
Each year, 80,000 children enter kindergarten with skills that vary widely. The purpose of
WaKIDS is to provide families, early learning professionals and kindergarten teachers a more
formal process for collecting and sharing information, so children receive the support they
need to be successful in school.
Kindergarten teachers use the information they gather to improve classroom teaching and
tailor their instruction to the individual needs of each child. WaKIDS also helps determine
effective ways to engage with families and early learning providers, and inform policy decisions
at the community, district, and state levels.
Is it aligned to state learning standards?
The Washington State Learning Standards represent the knowledge and skills all students
should know and be able to do by the end of each grade. Incoming kindergartners are not
expected to meet end-of-year standards as they enter school. WaKIDS is a process to help
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