The Challenge of Assessing Young Learners

The Challenge of Assessing Young Learners

Apparently, most schools and institutions think of young learners as an easy issue to deal with. In terms of knowledge, it is thought that due to the fact that the topics taught during the first six or seven ages do not require much knowledge, but is it true? Talking about assessment happen the same situation: people think that evaluating young students performance is an easy task. Well, I have to say that teaching and assessing young learners require a lot of capacities and strategies as teachers in order to achieve the development of three important educational aspects in children: social and emotional, cognitive and physical growth. 

The first aspect is social and emotional, which students are just learning. Socially, the first encounter students have is school and this experience will influence their idea of society and people outside their homes. Sometimes, school is called a second home, what is true in some way. Teachers can be taken as second moms or dads and even other students second brothers and sisters, in this way it is important the students understand their role at school. Through the first classes, teachers build the emotional respond that students will have against the class, consequently to your class, students will feel excited and happy in your classes or reluctant to come back next class, so it is important to be sensitive in the way we provide feedback.

The second aspect is related to cognitive development, which is a serious task. The first years of instruction are the bases for oncoming knowledge. The topics, instruction and assessment should be planned carefully because if one them fails, this gap will be reflected in the future. None of the steps to develop a class is important, specially assessment. In a second language subject, some teacher do not pay attention to students skills performance and it is essential to be aware of the progress that students are following. According to the age, receptive or productive skills are evaluated and if it is not followed such process, it will have a noticeable effect in students.

The last aspect refers to physical growth. In this stage, students are developing their gross and fine motor skills. The activities planned should include this aspect, developing handcrafts students will practice their ability for cutting and pasting. The importance of this assessment lie in detecting possibly motor-skill problems. 

Finally, even though people think of teaching young students as a task that everybody can do, they are wrong because all the responsibility of future educational problem will fall back into these first ages and the not well-oriented classes.