FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
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    STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION
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    Jeanine Blomberg
    Commissioner of Education
    T. WILLARD FAIR,
    Chairman
    Members
    DONNA G. CALLAWAY
    DR. AKSHAY DESAI
    ROBERTO MARTÍNEZ
    PHOEBE RAULERSON
    KATHLEEN SHANAHAN
    LINDA K. TAYLOR
    September 5, 2007
    MEMORANDUM #07-28
    TO:
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    Elementary School Principals
    District
    School
    Superintendents
    FROM:
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    Jeanine Blomberg, Commissioner of Education
    SUBJECT:
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    2007-08 Administration of the Florida Kindergarten Readiness Screener
    and the Letter Naming Fluency Measure of the Indicadores Dinámicos del
    Exito en la Lectura (IDEL)
    During the first 30 days of this school year, your district and school personnel will be
    administering the kindergarten screening to our public school children and private
    school children who participated in the Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) Education
    Program last year. As in 2006-07, the kindergarten screening is made up of a subset of
    the
    Early Childhood Observation System (ECHOS)
    , an observational instrument that is
    used to monitor the skills, knowledge, and behaviors a student demonstrates or needs
    to develop; and two probes of the
    Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
    (DIBELS)
    , Letter Naming Fluency and Initial Sound Fluency. The results from the
    kindergarten screening have three specific purposes:
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    providing information to families about their child’s performance in skills associated
    with readiness for kindergarten;
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    providing information for teachers to change their instructional strategies, as
    appropriate, to address individual children’s needs; and
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    calculating the VPK Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rate.
    Florida law (Section 1002.69, Florida Statutes) requires the Department of Education to
    adopt a statewide kindergarten screener that assesses the readiness of each student
    for kindergarten based upon the adopted Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) Education
    Performance Standards. The screening results of VPK graduates are aggregated to the
    325 W. GAINES STREET • TALLAHASSEE, FL 32399-0400 • (850) 245-0505 • www.fldoe.org
    Elementary School Principals
    District School Superintendents
    September 5, 2007
    Page Two
    VPK provider-level and to calculate the Kindergarten Readiness Rate which is the
    accountability measure for the VPK program. Information on the 2005-06 VPK Provider
    Kindergarten Readiness Rates is available at https://vpk.fldoe.org/.
    In addition, the law requires the Department incorporate mechanisms in the screener for
    recognizing potential variations in kindergarten readiness rates for students with
    disabilities. The State Board of Education expanded this requirement to include a
    mechanism for measuring the performance of Spanish-speaking students who may be
    identified as English Language Learners after having answered “yes” to at least two of
    the three Home Language Survey questions. In order to capture the performance of
    Spanish-speaking English Language Learners, the Letter Naming Fluency measure of
    the Indicadores Dinámicos del Exito en la Lectura (IDEL) is administered by trained staff
    fluent in Spanish to eligible kindergarten students as part of the kindergarten screening
    program. The IDEL Letter Naming Fluency measure was developed to evaluate
    kindergarten students’ performance in beginning reading skills in Spanish.
    If you have questions or need additional information, please contact the Office of Early
    Learning at (850) 245-0445 or access their web site at http://www.fldoe.org/earlylearning/.
    JB/sgg
    c:
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    District Assessment Coordinators
    District ESOL Coordinators
    Early Learning Coalition Executive Directors

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