| School Entry Assessment (SEA) | |
|---|---|
| Assessment Area | Cross-curricular |
| Year level | 0-1 |
| NZ origin? | Yes |
| Standardised? | Yes , in 1997. |
| Administration to individual or group? | Individual |
| What does it assess? | - Concepts about Print – student’s awareness of print and books - Checkout – knowledge of basic numeracy 3. Tell Me – aspects of oral language |
| Purpose | Designed to assess emerging concepts about print and numeracy, and the oral use of language, presented in kit form. They are all performance-based and use close observation as a major strategy for the diagnosis of strengths and weaknesses. |
| Validity | Some evidence is given for validity. |
| Reliability | There is good evidence of test reliability, if administered correctly. |
| What measures does it give? | Scores for each of the tests. The SEA is not primarily a diagnostic assessment , but incorporates elements of achievement and readiness. |
| How long does it take to administer? | 5 – 15 minutes for each assessment |
| How much training is needed? | Regular use of the SEA would appear to be a prerequisite for efficient and reliable use of the materials. |
| Scoring and data analysis | Two of the tasks (Checkout and Tell Me) require complex scoring and fine judgements about the adequacy of students’ responses. The Ministry of Education originally provided support for data analysis, but this is no longer available. |
| Does it provide 'what next' strategies? | Yes , limited information on ‘next steps’ for teachers following formal assessments using the SEA tasks, is provided under a variety of headings in the Guide for Teachers. |
| Is it available in te reo Maori? | Yes |
| Cost? | N/A |
| Author, date of publication and publisher | NZ 1997, Ministry of Education |
| Availability | The resource is no longer available from the Ministry of Education Resource Catalogue, Down the Back of the Chair. This entry has been included because the resource is still in use in schools. |
| Further Information | There are three components to the SEA: Concepts About Print/Ngā Tikanga o te Tuhi Kōrero (parallel forms Sand and Stones), is a task developed by Marie Clay as part of a battery of assessment tasks first published in the 70s. It is a reliable guide to aspects of understanding about "book language" and demonstrates a student’s awareness of print and books (p9, Guide for Teachers). A number of items, not in strict order of difficulty, ranging from indicating the front of a book, through to knowing what specific punctuation marks signify, make up the task’s content. Sand/Stones are untimed, but take between 5 and 10 minutes to administer. Checkout/Rapua: A Shopping Game to Assess Numeracy comprises a series of questions and manipulations embedded in a "game", to reveal a student’s knowledge and understanding of forming sets, numeral recognition, pattern recognition, rote counting, number sequences, simple mental operations, and so on. Minimal language is used in the presentation of the numerous shopping tasks. Checkout may be used to assess an individual or a pair of students simultaneously. The game is untimed; about 10 minutes for one student is typical, 20-25 minutes for two. Tell Me/Körero Mai, provides the teacher with an opportunity to observe and describe language skills. The task enables the student to retell a story, selected from among five written in both English and Mäori, to an audience of peers. Assessment follows a period of familiarisation and is a 2-stage procedure: Collaborative Reading (with the teacher) and Retelling (to an audience). Together, the two steps provide subscores for Comprehension, Sentence Structure, Vocabulary, Organisation, Description/Expression, and Content. |