Early Development Instrument
 The Early Years Institute will introduce a school readiness tool, the Early Development Instrument (EDI), to the Long Island region in 2010. Westbury will be one of 17 sites across the nation to pilot this innovative new tool that is used throughout Canada and Australia. It is a unique assessment tool where kindergarten teachers complete an on-line questionnaire about each of their students, but the data are reported back by neighborhood – not by classroom or school. This allows all segments of the community to come together to understand whether children may need more support in the areas of health, mental health, emotional or intellectual development and work together to reduce them.
The Early Years Institute is working to make sure all children are ready for school. Research shows that children who start school behind their peers have a hard time catching up. The degree to which a child is prepared for kindergarten can predict how well they will do in the future. Investments in the early years will save money in later years.
Learn More
Researchers from the Offord Centre for Child Studies at McMaster University, along with kindergarten teachers and principals, developed the Early Development Instrument (EDI). It is a school readiness assessment approach now used throughout Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Holland and Jamaica. The EDI is a two-part, school readiness assessment approach that combines a 120-item questionnaire measuring kindergarten students in five areas of development:
- physical health and well-being
- social knowledge and competence
- emotional health and maturity
- language and cognitive development
- general knowledge and communications skills
In addition, some general demographic information on children is collected from the district. No individual child will be identified on the EDI forms or shared with researchers. The assessment is conducted by kindergarten teachers in the second semester of the school year. The results are geo-mapped and then compared to demographic data about the community.
We will work collaboratively with the Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) for technical assistance and United Way of America which is organizing the effort to bring this measure to the United States. |
