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Child Development & Early Education vocabulary · Observation and Assessment

Formative assessment

Meaning in child development & early education, with examples

nounCommon term

In child development & early education, formative assessment means: Ongoing assessment that happens during everyday activities and is used to understand what a child knows and can do and to plan the next steps in their learning.

In Turkish: biçimlendirici değerlendirme, süreç değerlendirmesi

How it is used

Contrasted with summative assessment, which sums up progress at a point in time, such as an end-of-year report. In the early years most assessment is formative and based on observation rather than tests.

Example sentences

  1. Formative assessment happens every day as we watch and talk with the children.

  2. The EYFS profile is a summative assessment, but most of our assessment is formative.

Common collocations

  • summative assessment
  • ongoing assessment
  • assessment for learning
  • observation-based assessment
  • observationWatching and listening to a child carefully, often during play, and writing down what they do and say in order to understand their development and plan for them.
  • next stepsThe learning goals and activities planned for a child after an observation, based on their interests and what they seem ready to learn next.
  • learning journalA record of a child's time in a setting, with observations, photos, drawings and notes, showing their interests and progress; it is often kept online and shared with parents.
  • anecdotal recordA short written account of a single event or behaviour that an adult observed, describing exactly what happened, when and where, without opinions.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Observation and Assessment

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