A Symphony Math assessment should not be the first time a student has used a computer before. Students must have some basic experience with the computer-mouse user interface. The challenge is that some students arrive in kindergarten competent in clicking and dragging and responding to the computer interface while other students have never used a computer. This must be a local determination.During the field-testing of the Symphony assessments we determined that PK and K students, on average, are capable of effectively interacting with the assessments. But there was considerable variability. If this is a concern we recommend skipping the fall assessment and making the winter assessment the first for K students.
Any computer-based assessment results must take into consideration if the student was comfortable with the interface just as we might investigate whether a young student was comfortable using a pencil or speaking with a diagnostician in other math assessment formats.