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Part of K to 12 provincial assessment

Early years assessments

Information about literacy and numeracy screening assessments for all students in kindergarten to Grade 3.

Overview

Students develop critical foundational knowledge in literacy and numeracy in the early years of their education. Assessing students in their early years provides essential information to teachers, schools, parents and Alberta Education about student learning needs and ensures that those requiring additional supports receive help when they need it.

Background

In 2022/23, literacy and numeracy screening assessments became mandatory for students in grades 1 to 3, ensuring that students are receiving essential foundational learning in the critical early years of their education. School authorities must use assessment tools provided or approved by Alberta Education. A complete list of approved screening assessments can be found on New.LearnAlberta.ca or in the General Information Bulletin - Literacy and Numeracy Screening Assessments.

Updates

Beginning in 2024/25, enhancements will be made to the early years assessment framework including:

  • Mandatory screening assessments in September and January for all students in grades 1 to 3, with a follow-up assessment in June for those students requiring additional supports after completing the January assessment.
  • Mandatory screening assessments in January for all students in kindergarten, beginning in January 2025.

Please check back for updates on the new mandatory kindergarten and Grade 1 screening assessments.

Schools and school authorities are required to share students’ literacy and numeracy results for kindergarten to grade 3 through their Annual Education Results Reporting and engage with stakeholders to set priorities and build their education plan. This approach helps the province, school authorities and schools track successes and continuously improve the quality of education for students. It also supports a transparent, accountable and responsive education system.

Assessments

Numeracy and literacy are 2 important skills that develop during early childhood. Screening assessments help teachers identify the students who are most in need of additional support and intervention during their critical early years of education and these assessments provide a means of monitoring growth over time.

School authorities may use:

  • literacy and numeracy screening assessments provided by Alberta Education, or
  • alternative screening assessments approved by Alberta Education

These resources can be accessed on the New.LearnAlberta.ca portal.

Early years assessments are formative assessments meant to complement, not replace, day-to-day teacher observations and classroom assessment. They are sources of information that must be interpreted, used and communicated within the context of regular and continuous assessment by classroom teachers.

  • Kindergarten Literacy and Numeracy (New)

    Starting in January 2025, screening will be required in literacy and numeracy for all kindergarten students in January of each year.

    All school authorities must use an Alberta Education provided or approved screening assessment in English or French to assess the literacy and numeracy skills of kindergarten students.

    The literacy tools will assess areas such as letter names and sounds, and phonemic awareness. The numeracy tools will assess foundational skills such as counting and number recognition.

    Please check back for updates on the new mandatory screening assessments.   
     

  • Grades 1 to 3 Literacy

    School authorities must use an Alberta Education provided or approved English or French literacy assessment. It is important to understand the focus of each assessment to ensure the appropriateness of the screening for students.

    The English Letter Name-Sound (LeNS) assessment is designed to ensure that a student has the foundational phonics skills to develop into an independent reader. LeNS assesses a student’s ability to sound out single letters and letter combinations (for example, n, d, e, ch, ay, oa, oy).

    The Test Nom et son des lettres (NSLe) is the French equivalent of the English LeNS Test. It assesses a student’s ability to sound out single letters and French letter combinations (for example, a, s, r, ou, ch, ain).

    The Castles and Coltheart 3 (CC3) assessment is an English word-reading test designed to identify the nature of a student’s reading difficulties. CC3 assesses a student’s ability to:

    • recall familiar and irregular words (for example, take, hand, island, cough), and
    • sound out non-words (for example, norf, framp, gurve) that were created specially for this assessment and have no meaning

    The Test Castle et Coltheart 3 (CC3) is the French equivalent of the English CC3 assessment.

  • Grades 1 to 3 Numeracy

    School authorities must use the Alberta Education provided or approved numeracy screening assessments, available in English and French. The numeracy screening assessments are a collection of tasks designed to help teachers understand their students’ underlying knowledge of the number system, basic number operations and proportional reasoning skills.

    These tasks identify and focus on core number knowledge:

    • counting
    • number identification
    • number patterns
    • the order of numbers and the ways numbers are related to each other.

Resources

Literacy assessment video series

The following literacy assessment videos feature Dr. George Georgiou and Dr. Rauno Parrila.

Contact

Connect with Student Learning Assessments and Provincial Achievement Testing:

Hours: 8:15 am to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays)

Email: [email protected]

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