There are two main parts to the Best Start Kindergarten Assessment: maths and literacy. These subjects are then broken down further into focus areas. Let’s explore these focus areas and look at some Best Start Kindergarten Assessment examples. 

Literacy focus areas include:

Oral language:

• Can a child speak, listen, and respond in appropriate ways? 

Vocabulary and comprehension: 

• Can a child describe an image using adjectives? E.g., The dog is brown and fluffy.

Concepts about print: 

• Can a child point to different parts of a book? e.g., front cover, back cover.
• Do they know how to turn a page? 
• Do they view words or pictures from left to right?

Phonological awareness:

•  Can a child identify the sound at the start of a word? e.g., Cat.
•  Can they recognise rhyming words? e.g., Cat, mat, and hat. 

Letter recognition and early writing skills: 

• Can a child identify a variety of letters? Can they recognise some high-frequency words, such as “and”?

Numeracy focus areas include:

Counting and number recognition:

• Can a child count objects or count by rote,  1,2,3,4, etc? 
• Can a child recognise numerals?
• Can they count objects in sequence? e.g, “Please can you count these teddy bears?”

Comparing quantities:

•  Can a child recognise quantities? e.g, “Which jar has more jelly beans, which has fewer jelly beans?”. 

Understanding patterns:

• Can a child identify simple patterns?  
• Can a child predict what will come next in a pattern?