How to Easily Assess Your Kindergarten Students Using ESGI!

Assessing students in kindergarten can feel well… chaotic. And stressful. We’ve all been there, attempting to figure out if a student can recognize all their letters while they simultaneously try and tell you a story about their pet fish that died two years ago, while another student pokes your shoulder over and over again saying, “teacher” and trying to get your attention. How in the world are you supposed to keep track of it all while doing all the other tasks a kindergarten teacher must do in a day? 

ESGI. That’s how. 

Right now, you are probably questioning whether or not to continue reading. But trust me—I’ll make it short and sweet and worth your while! 

In (very) short, ESGI is an online assessment tool that makes giving assessments, recording them, and sharing them super easy. 

How it works? 

Let’s pretend that it’s the beginning of the year and you want a baseline of your student’s knowledge on letter sounds. Here’s what you are going to do: 

1. Log into ESGI 
2. Choose your assessment. You can find premade tests, tests shared with you by someone on your team or in your district, or create your own! 
3. Grab your iPad, phone, or computer and pull up the assessment. Make sure you also click on a student in your roster so that it records there for you! 
4. Easily assess the student as each question pops up on the screen. All you need to do is ask them the question like, “What sound does this letter make”? Then you’ll click ‘yes’ if they were correct and ‘no’ if they were incorrect. 
5. It will automatically record all this data for you and show you the student’s score at the end of the assessment. 
6. Then you are done and ready to move on to the next kid! 

That’s great but I still don’t see why it is SO much better. 

I mean don’t get me wrong, being able to assess ANYWHERE at anytime, using just your ipad? That is pretty awesome and will make your life way easier. But if you still need a little convincing I understand so let me tell you about the other very cool things ESGI can do. 

Here are a few ways ESGI makes things as easy and efficient as possible:

1. You can complete assessments anywhere as long as you have your device and the student! 
2. You can very easily create assessments based on your school’s curriculum. It is easy to add your own specific questions and format them in a way that your students will understand. You can share these assessments with anyone on your team or in your distinct, or vice versa! 
3. ESGI gives you a score immediately following the assessment with a document showing exactly which questions your student missed! It takes the guess work out so you know exactly where you need to go with that student's instruction! 

Parent Letters AND Flash Cards!!! 

One of my very favorite parts of ESGI is the parent letter tool! After you take assessments using ESGI, you can print and send home pre-made parent letters specific to every student in your class! These parent letters will show the name of the assessment, the questions they were able to answer correctly, and the questions they still need to work on. 

You can consolidate these to show parents all the tests you have taken up to a certain point in the year. For example, I always send ESGI reports home at parent-teacher conferences and with report cards! Or you can send one home after each assessment. 

It’s simple and easy to use, so take advantage and make it work for your classroom! 

When you go to print off these parent letters you will also find an option to create flash cards! This is another excellent tool to use in the classroom or send home. ESGI will automatically create flashcards for any questions the student missed. All you need to do is print and cut! 

We LOVE easy, simple parent communication! 

I’m Sold! How do I get started? 

Use this link to sign up for a free trial using my code THATKINDERMAMA. You’ll save $$$$ and see just how valuable this tool is! 

If you are already loving ESGI and looking for some resources to boost your students knowledge and understanding, head over to my TpT store and look around. I have tons and tons of resources perfect to help review key reading and writing concepts!