LANGUAGE ASSESSMENTS FOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN NULL : validity and reliability of two new instruments... administered by childcare educators

"This Element has two main purposes. Firstly, it discusses purposes, advantages, and disadvantages as well as the challenges of different formats of language assessment, concluding with a focus on educator-administered language assessment in early childhood and education programs. It addresses the selection of assessment domains, the trade-off between brevity and precision, the challenge of assessing bilinguals, and accommodating the requirements of funders (e.g., government agencies) and users (e.g., educators and schools). It draws on lessons learned from developing two instruments for a national Danish-language and preliteracy assessment program. Secondly, it introduces those two educator-administered instruments-Language Assessment 3-6 (LA 3-6) and Language Assessment 2-year-olds (LA 2)-with respect to content, norming, gender and socioeconomic influences as well as psychometric qualities. The intention is that this experience can help enable the extension of the educator-based approach to other languages and contexts, while simultaneously acknowledging that linguistic and cultural adaptations are crucial"-- Publisher's website Cover Title page Copyright page Language Assessments for Preschool Children: Validity and Reliability of Two New Instruments Administered by Childcare Educators Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 The Danish National Early Language Assessment Project 1.2 The Purpose of Language and Language Assessment 1.3 Typical and Atypical Development in the Preschool Years 1.4 Language Assessment in an Educational Context 1.5 Educator-Administered Language Assessment 1.6 Assessment of Children Learning Two or More Languages 2 Educational Language Assessment in the Context of a National Screening Program 3 A Language Assessment Instrument for 3–6-Year-Olds 3.1 Background 3.2 Selection of Subscales 3.3 Content 3.4 Administration 3.4.1 Assessment Form 3.4.2 Assessment of the Child on Each Subscale 3.5 Results of the Assessment 3.5.1 The Results Report 3.5.2 Interpretation of Results 3.5.3 Interpretation of Results for Bilingual and Multilingual Children 3.5.4 Supplementary Questions for Parents of Bilingual and Multilingual Children 3.6 Norming Study 3.6.1 Sample 3.6.2 Descriptive Statistics for All Subscales 3.6.3 Relation of Subscale Scores to Gender and Family Socioeconomic Status 3.7 Psychometric Qualities of the Instrument 3.7.1 Internal Consistency 3.7.2 Construct Validity 3.7.3 External Validity 3.7.4 Procedure for Establishing Percentile Scores 4 A Language Assessment Instrument for 2-Year-Olds 4.1 Background 4.2 Evidence behind the Subscales 4.3 Content 4.4 Development of the Four Subscales 4.4.1 Development of the Receptive Vocabulary Test 4.4.2 Productive Vocabulary and Language Use Subscales 4.4.3 Development of the Communication Subscale 4.5 Administration 4.5.1 Assessment Form 4.5.2 Assessment of the Child on Each Subscale 4.6 Results of the Assessment 4.6.1 The Results Report 4.6.2 Interpretation of Results 4.6.3 Interpretation of Results for Bilingual and Multilingual Children 4.7 Norming Study 4.7.1 Sample 4.8 Descriptive Statistics 4.8.1 Descriptive Statistics for All Subscales 4.8.2 Relation of Subscale Scores to Gender and Family SocioeconomicStatus 4.9 Psychometric Qualities of the Instrument 4.9.1 Internal Consistency 4.9.2 Internal Validity 4.9.3 External Validity 4.9.4 Test-Retest Reliability 4.9.5 Procedure for Establishing Percentile Scores 5 International Lessons to Be Learned from the Danish Assessment Program and Instrument Development Appendix: List of Studies Included in Meta-Analysis of Early Predictors of Later Outcomes References Acknowledgments