Lightbridge Academy Implements New Assessment to Prepare Students for Success

Lightbridge Academy, an early education and child care franchise that has over 100 locations either open, under construction or in development, is rapidly expanding throughout Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina and Florida. As the franchise continues to grow its Circle of Care, Lightbridge Academy is rolling out a new tool to help ensure their students are fully prepared to be successful in kindergarten and beyond.

This year, Lightbridge Academy implemented the Vine Assessment™. The system is a series of developmentally-appropriate early childhood assessments ranging from birth through Pre-Kindergarten. The assessments are both observational and formative enabling teachers to post observations with photos and videos as evidentiary links. The results can be used to prepare lesson plans specifically designed to work on areas necessary for each child to achieve the necessary developmental benchmarks before entering Kindergarten.

“As we enter new markets with centers located in multiple states, the Vines Assessment will ensure our curriculum and program is preparing each student to meet or exceed state recommendations,” said Jennifer Romanoff, Vice President of Education and Training for Lightbridge Academy.

By conducting classroom observations, Lightbridge Academy teachers use the assessment to evaluate students across seven domains, including physical development, health, and well-being, literacy, numeracy, aesthetic creativity, scientific conceptual understanding, self, family and community, and approaches to learning.

Assessment details

“One of the reasons we decided to utilize the Vine Assessment is because it allows teachers to observe children in their natural environment, to see how they behave when they are alone or when interacting with us and their peers,” Romanoff said. “Unlike a standardized test, it is not intrusive to children because it is based in observation.”

The Vine Assessment also supports Lightbridge Academy’s philosophy that the whole child needs to be considered in order to help them grow into happy, confident, independent and well-socialized individuals.

“Other curriculums might focus exclusively on certain aspects of cognitive development like math and reading,” said Jeniece Decker, Lightbridge Academy Training Associate. “Our approach at Lightbridge Academy is different because we take the whole child into account to ensure that they are developing physically and socially as well.”

Whole child development

Along with measuring literacy and numeracy, the Vine Assessment considers physical development, including hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills as well as an increasing awareness of healthy lifestyle practices. It also evaluates whether children work cooperatively with their peers and adults and develop trusting relationships with others.

“The Vine Assessment gives us the data necessary to support each child based on their areas of development and will help prepare our students for success in every aspect of their lives,” Decker said.

According to Jennifer Romanoff, the assessment was administered over a six-week period. Romanoff said. “The Vine Assessment System also provides us with the insights necessary to enhance areas of our curriculum or create additional training to support the delivery of educational programming in the classroom. This allows us to continuously learn and strengthen our curriculum which is necessary in order to meet the essential learning of the 21st century student.”