FAQs for EYE-DA Coordinators & Evaluators

Please go to the EYE online data entry website and follow the ‘reset password’ instructions:

1. Go to: https://app.earlyyearsevaluation.com/ 
2. Click “Forgot Password?”.
3. Enter your full email address, and then click the "Submit" button.
4. Check your email account for the message “EYE: reset password request” and click the link enclosed.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to choose a new password, and then click "Submit".
6. You will see the message: “Your password has been successfully reset. Please click here to log in with the new password”. Click the hyperlink "here" and proceed to enter your username and new password.
7. This should take you to your landing page.
   
   

   If the reset password instructions do not work, it could be because the email provided to the EYE systems team for your account and the email you are using to reset the password do not match. Please contact eye-support@thelearningbar.com

While clients are free to choose the time of year they wish to assess their children, there are often three particular time periods that are most common for clients when choosing an assessment schedule. Keeping in mind your jurisdiction's particular purpose for the EYE-DA assessments will help to guide your decisions around the assessment schedule.

(a) Assessing the children eight to twelve months prior to starting kindergarten.
The purpose of assessment is to inform early educators and families of the child's developmental strengths and areas requiring further development. The EYE-DA is being used in some school jurisdictions to identify children that may require further assessment or are potential candidates for extra support as they transition to school. The data are also used by speech and language therapists and other consultants to offer strategies to early years educators, families, and teachers. These strategies go beyond emergent literacy skills; they include school and home strategies for Fine Motor, Gross Motor, Behavioural, and Communication.

(b) Assessing the children approximately four months prior to the start of kindergarten.
The purpose of this assessment schedule is to provide early educators and families with an opportunity to work with children before they start kindergarten (albeit less time than option a). EYE-DA results can also be used to provide kindergarten teachers and the multidisciplinary team with an accurate representation of the incoming cohort. This is valuable for many reasons, including program planning, providing equity in classroom composition, guiding teacher instruction, allocating resources, informing parents, and putting supports in place early so that the school is ready for the incoming cohort of children.

(c) Assessing children with a Pre-DA assessment (eight to twelve months prior to kindergarten) with a Post-DA follow-up assessment (three to four months prior to the start of kindergarten).
This type of Pre-Post assessment schedule provides the benefits of both option a) and b) but also has the added benefit of measuring the progress of children and the efficacy of programming.

Dr. Willms and his colleagues have amassed data from thousands of children on their ability to complete tasks related to skills that are important for children’s success at school. These skills were then normed according to age. This involved determining the developmental level of these skills for children from age three all the way up to six years of age. This age-norming process allows us to take into account the age of the child at the time of assessment. This, in turn, allows us to provide age-appropriate feedback about the child’s overall ability in each of the four domains assessed via the EYE-DA.

Yes, everyone who administers the EYE-DA must receive training. For the first year of implementation, The Learning Bar offers the option of either an in-person or online training session. We employ a ‘leave behind’ professional development model whereby once an EYE staff member has trained your staff, if appropriate, they can then go on to train others in your jurisdiction. We also provide helpful recorded audio PowerPoints and support materials that serve as a wonderful complement to the training of new staff each year. Please visit the materials section of our website and ensure you use the username and password that was provided to you by your Account Success Manager.

In order to get an accurate overview of a child’s developmental level, it is important that the child feels as comfortable as possible during the evaluation. With this in mind, it is essential to help the child feel at ease. The Building Rapport Video  is a wonderful resource that offers useful suggestions to help the child quickly feel more relaxed. This helps to create an environment of security and comfort for the child that allows the evaluator to obtain the most accurate data possible about the child’s current developmental skill level.

We advocate for all children to complete as much of the EYE-DA as they are able. If an evaluator is unable to complete a sufficient number of questions for a child in one of the domains, the result for that domain will appear on the report as Not Complete. In this sense, we are saying that we do not have sufficient data to evaluate and provide a result for this child in this domain. This will occur if an entire domain was omitted or if the evaluator was unable to complete the minimum number of questions needed to accurately reflect the child’s ability. In the case of a child with a severe disability – who has already been diagnosed and has supported in place - we rely on your professional judgment, the wishes of the parents/guardians, and your organization’s practices and policies when deciding if it would be in the child’s best interest to be assessed via the EYE-DA.

 

It is always preferable for the child to be assessed in his or her first (or dominant) language, however, if this is not possible, the evaluator must exercise their professional judgment to decide whether the child will be able to understand the requests associated with the assessment items. If the EYE-DA is administered to a child who does not have the language skills necessary to complete the domain, ensure that they are not given a score on the item but rather a ‘not complete’ on those particular items. The reason we would suggest a ‘not complete’ is that the results would be unclear - is the child’s lack of understanding due to a language barrier or lack of acquisition of the skill being evaluated? Please refer to the Administration and Scoring Guidelines (ASG) for more details.

 

No, we do not recommend the use of a translator for the EYE-DA. Quite often the person translating may do a ‘literal’ or word for word translation and not pick up the nuance, or idiomatic feeling to correctly instruct the child about what we are trying to evaluate. The EYE-DA has been validated in English, French and Spanish at this time (we are currently piloting a Mandarin and Inuktitut edition).

 

Yes, this is something we would highly recommend. Informing families about the EYE-DA is an important part of the evaluation process. However, when reports are given to families please ensure they understand what the report is telling them. The EYE-DA is not a test to be passed or failed, but instead is a snapshot of their child’s development. The EYE-DA serves as a means to initiate conversation between parents/guardians and the school. Keep in mind, there are a number of wonderful resources to share with families. For example, The Learning Bar has created a 2-page family-friendly document that provides ideas to easily integrate play-based or hands-on activities to their home Fun Ways to Play with Your Child and Encourage Learning (found on the Materials section of our website). The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education has also created many high-quality support materials including a document that provides educators with a helpful guide/dialogue - A Guide For Teachers to Engage Families - when sharing the results of the EYE-DA with parents. Several other support documents and videos can be found in the materials section of our website. Please ask your Account Success Manager about how you can access these high-quality support materials.

 

We would recommend that you keep the Scoring Protocol sheets in a secure location until your data session has been closed. Once the session has been closed, we would recommend the Scoring Protocol sheet be destroyed. However, keep in mind that policies and procedures vary widely amongst jurisdictions and it will be up to you and your supervisors to determine what the best course of action will be for your particular jurisdiction. 

There could be a couple of reasons for login issues:
1. Your pop-up blocker has not been disabled. Before you start, please make sure that you have enabled pop-ups (i.e. allow popups) in your web browser. There are instructions just below the login box that help you to disable the pop-up blocker.

• If you are using Internet Explorer, click on Tools > Internet Options > Privacy > click to clear Block Pop-up
• If you are using Firefox, click on Tools > Options, click the Content tab, and uncheck “Block pop-up windows.”
• If you are using Safari, click Safari (top left) > Preferences > Security> uncheck Block pop-up windows.
• If you are using Google Chrome, click on the Chrome menu> Select Settings > Click Show advanced settings > Under privacy, click Content settings button > Under “Pop-ups,” click Manage exceptions.

2. You may be logging into the wrong area of our site. We have two different areas where usernames and passwords are required. 

a) The data-entry site that you need to log in to when entering Early Years Evaluation – Direct Assessment (EYE-DA) data is:  https://app.earlyyearsevaluation.com. 

To access this site you will need to enter your unique username and password that has been email to you by our development team. 

b) Our materials site is where you can access power points, parent pamphlets, and resources. The link to access these materials is http://earlyyearsevaluation.com/EN/index.php/en/materials.html.  If the shared username and password were not yet provided to you, please contact your Accounts Success Manager.

3. The account is disabled. The administrators have purposely disabled the account – please contact your Account Success Manager for assistance.

4. The log-in and password the user entered do not match what we have in the database. The password is case-sensitive and must be entered using the correct format and precise spelling.

Yes. The username that the EYE team provides you is simply your email address. So, as long your email has not changed, you will be able to log in using this username. As you know, when the EYE team first sent you a password to access the website, you were asked to change it to your own unique password. You may continue to use this same password or, if you wish, change it again. The easiest way to tell if you can use the same password is to check the welcome message sent out when the session is started. If this message contains a six-digit password then you must create a new password upon your first login. If there is no password in the message you can log in using the same password as you used last year.

Please go to the EYE online data entry application and follow the ‘reset password’ instructions

1. Go to: https://app.earlyyearsevaluation.com 
2. Click “Forgot Password?”
3. Enter your full email address, and then click the "Submit" button.
4. Check your email account for the message “EYE: reset password request” and click the link enclosed.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to choose a new password, and then click "Submit."
6. You will see the message: “Your password has been successfully reset. Please click here to login with the new password.” Click the hyperlink "here" and proceed to enter your username and new password.
7. This should take you to your landing page.
   
   

   If the reset password instructions do not work, it could be because the email provided to the EYE systems team for your account and the email you are using to reset the password do not match. Please contact you EYE-coordinator or email us at eye-support@thelearningbar.com.

Before you administer the EYE-DA, become familiar with the instrument, the testing materials, and the scoring protocol. Try practicing administering the EYE-DA a few times with a friend so that when you do assess children, you will be prepared and well acquainted with the assessment process. It is also important to review the Administration and Scoring Guidelines (ASG) and scoring procedures thoroughly.

It is always preferable for the child to be assessed in his or her first (or dominant) language, however, if this is not possible, the evaluator must exercise their professional judgment to decide whether the child will be able to understand the requests associated with the assessment items. If the EYE-DA is administered to a child who does not have the language skills necessary to complete the domain, ensure that they are not given a score on the item but rather a ‘not complete’ on those particular items. The reason we would suggest a ‘not complete’ is that the results would be unclear - is the child’s lack of understanding due to a language barrier or lack of acquisition of the skill being evaluated? Please refer to the Administration and Scoring Guidelines (ASG) for more details.

A score of zero (0) is given when a child attempts an item but does not have the skill set to meet the scoring criteria of 1-3. However, no score is entered (i.e., ‘not complete’) when a child is non-compliant or exempt from completing the item (for example, a child who has a broken leg would be exempt from some of the gross motor items).

While it is recommended that families are not in the room during an assessment, this is not always possible. If a family member must stay in the room with the child, evaluators may suggest that the family member sit in a location where they are out of the child’s line of sight. It’s also essential that the evaluator remind the family member that they should not interact with their child during the evaluation. While it’s important that the child and the family feel comfortable with the evaluation process, it’s also vital that the most accurate data about the child’s current developmental skill level is obtained.

Yes, we encourage evaluators to use their professional judgment to determine if a child needs an opportunity for a movement break. Evaluators should ensure they pick up where they left off prior to the movement break. This is very important, as domain items must be assessed in order due to the progressive increase in the level of item difficulty. Keep in mind that most children will not have difficulty completing all of the items of the assessment. The order of domain presentation is deliberate with the intent to ensure children are engaged throughout the assessment. In fact, evaluators regularly comment, “Children love doing the EYE!” Typically less than half of one percent of the children assessed are unable to complete the assessment because of attention problems or an unwillingness to do the assessment.

During the EYE-DA training, we caution the person completing the data entry to review the scores thoroughly before generating the report. To preserve the integrity of our measure, it is very rare that we would change scores for a child once the data has been entered and the report had been generated. Altering the outcomes of the assessment if the color code did not come out as ‘expected’ would severely undermine the integrity of the EYE-DA tool. If a situation arises where a score has been entered incorrectly, please contact your EYE-DA coordinator and provide them with more information about the nature of the error so they can determine the best course of action.

We have a number of wonderful resources available to share with families. For example, we have created a support document Fun Ways to Play with Your Child and Encourage Learning (found in the Materials section of our website). The Saskatchewan Ministry of Education has also created a number of high-quality support materials. One, in particular, is especially helpful in providing a guide/dialogue when sharing the results of the EYE-DA with parents - A Guide for Teachers to Engage Families. However, every jurisdiction will have its own protocol regarding how, or whether, you share the EYE-DA results with parents. Thus we would encourage you to contact your EYE-DA coordinator for guidance and to obtain more information about these and other support resources available on our website.