Last week our staff had a chance to attend a training by the
person from the UW who works with the data collectors about the Environment
Rating Scale.
As you saw in the last blog post, and as I have been
constantly telling my Early Achievers sites, the UW scores for the ERS have
been coming in much lower than expected.
This was a chance to hear about some of the common issues that are
causing the low scores.
I asked if it was OK to have some talking points ready for the interview so that programs can mention
items that might not be observed, and she said yes – so have them ready!
Speaking about what items they consider “accessible” to
children, she said they always think about the idea of “What floats through the pool”.
What materials actually come out and are used by the children, or are
clearly available for them to use.
A surprising item that is lowering scores is the use of keypads for entry to child care
centers. So many buildings that are
completely handicapped accessible have security keypads, and the UW has been
trained to count that as not accessible since it requires the use of fingers. I
would suggest to those programs that have this situation, that you create a
talking point for your interview about how you have a receptionist within view
of the door at all times that will buzz any person with limited use of fingers
in so they would not need to use the keypad.
Blocks must be at
least 2 inches on all sides to be counted as blocks. Tiny blocks would fit into fine motor instead. And as I have already told you all,
duplos/leggos are only counted in fine motor.
And an new update for the ITERS block section is you can take N/A if all
children are under 18 months.
Ample space –
they have been told to identify that as space so large there is actually unused
space.
Cubbies seem to
be a common problem. They will be
looking for each child to have a cubby that can fit all their personal items
with no cross contamination at all.
Nothing touching another child’s items.
In the ITERS helping
children use language, in the 5’s, they will be looking for nouns/verbs,
and in the 7’s. adjectives /adverbs. In
5.1 they will look to see that staff respond to the children at least 75% of
the time. In 5.3 on the same page, they
will be looking for so many interactions, they could not be counted.
A great update is that for ability diversity in books,
pictures and materials, even glasses will
count. Should be easy to find some books
with glasses, put glasses in dramatic play, and include pictures with people
wearing glasses.
Not as great news is that the Montessori works involving water are not counted as water play.
Those were the notes I took at the training. I’ll share more as I hear them. Remember that it is very important to always read the notes for clarification in
your ERS spirals, and to check their website form new notes for clarification
after the publication of the spirals http://www.ersi.info/index.html
