The Kindergarten Essential Skills Assessment (KESA) is designed to measure the critical skills that predict end-of-year kindergarten success. KESA supports the early identification and intervention for children who are at-risk for kindergarten retention and Special Education referral. It can help providers determine the need for additional classroom supports and/or further evaluations. The KESA works well as a global screener that can provide the teacher with a snapshot of the range of skills and challenges in the class, or specifically for children who are at known risk or present with early struggles and may need special education referral.
Age: 4 to 5 Administration: Individual Administration Administration Time: 25–30 minutes Authors: Raymond E. Webster, PhD and Angela H. Matthews, MA, CAS
The KESA can be used in the last year of preschool and also at the start of kindergarten. It covers the major factors that have been identified as predictive of school success:
Motor skills
Ability to comprehend and follow oral directions
Visual memory and visual attention
Academic skills
Phonemic awareness
Vocabulary
Behavioral regulation
The KESA fulfills the following purposes:
Provides objective data on a child's kindergarten readiness and risk for poor kindergarten achievement
Assesses skills in all five student readiness domains identified by the National School Readiness Indicators Initiative
Complements curriculum-based and observational measures
Can be used as an RTI Tier 1 universal screener
Can assist schools in making kindergarten entry decisions for underage children
Data was collected from a nationally representative sample of 486 children ages 4-0 through 5-11 years. Results of reliability and validity studies are provided in the Manual, including predictive validity to end-of-school-year-outcomes.
Administration and Scoring The KESA takes 25–30 minutes to administer. Scoring can be completed in only 5–10 minutes. The raw score is quickly converted to one overall standard score and percentile rank.
