Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program

Make a Game Plan for PALS Spring 2022!

– PALS Team

Child basketball team

It may be March Madness at this time of year, but these 3 tips from your PALS coaches will help you stay on top of your game!

1. Before: Go for the Set Play!

Get the details set.

1. Create a plan for when (date, time, location) you will give PALS-PreK or PALS-K. The Spring 2022 Assessment Period begins April 25th and ends June 3rd. Check with your PALS Division Representative for specific requirements for your division.

2. Determine what you need to give the assessment in-person or remotely.

3. Locate your PALS-PreK or PALS-K Form A (Green) binder.

4. Prior to entering scores, confirm a student’s administration type (i.e., Standard, Non-Standard, or Exempt) using the Modify Student Information You will notice that this page looks a bit different. You no longer will enter information about a student’s specific disability.

  • PALS-K only: print needed consumables. Download PDFs from within your PALS account (Resources tab, K-3 Fall & Spring Consumables page) or Remote Materials (Resources tab, Remote Materials page)

2. During: Go for the 3-pointer!

Maintain the lead.

Consider giving additional tasks once you have met the assessment requirements (assess all K students and check with Division Representative for specific PreK requirements)

  • PALS-PreK only: optionally, give Lower-Case Alphabet Recognition and Letter Sounds to students who have a less than 16 on Upper-Case Letter Recognition and/or less than 9 on Lower-Case Letter  Recognition
    • These tasks will give you and next year’s kindergarten teacher important information
  • PALS-K only: optionally, give Blending and Sound-to-Letter
    • These tasks give you important information about students’ phonemic awareness skills
 

3. After: Go for the Buzzer Beater!

Convert data into targeted instruction.

Think about how to use your new data. There is valuable instructional time still left in the year. You can consider using the fresh data to plan targeted instruction so your students start out next year as strong as possible. Consider some of the questions below as you are planning your instruction for the last few months of the school year.

PALS-PreK

  • Phonological Awareness: Can students identify beginning sounds?
  • Upper-Case Alphabet Recognition: Do students have all of their letter names for upper-case letters?
  • Lower-Case Alphabet Recognition: Do students have all of their letter names for lower-case letters?
  • Letter Sounds: Do students have all of their letter sounds?
  • Name Writing: Are students able to write their name?
  • Print and Word Awareness: Are students have print and word awareness skills?
    •  

PALS-K

  • Phonological Awareness: Can students identify beginning sounds? Can they segment words at the phoneme level? Can they blend words together? Can they identify phonemes by sound or letter and in which position in a CVC word?
  • Alphabet Recognition: Do students have all of their letter names?
  • Letter Sounds: Do students have all of their letter sounds?
  • Spelling: Are students able to segment individual sounds (phonemes) and spell CVC words correctly?
  •  

The PALS Resource Hub, located within your PALS account on the Resources tab, and the PALS Resource Library have resources to help with your instructional considerations.

Making a game plan now about when you will assess and how you will use the data to plan targeted instruction will help your students make an alley-oop!

If you have questions, give PALS a shout: by phone (888-882-7257), email (pals@virginia.edu), or chat. We are cheering for you!

More questions? VKRP provides support via the online chat feature when you are in the system, via email vkrp@virginia.edu, and via toll free 866-301-8278 ext. 1