Picture-Based Assessment for Pre-Readers: How to Assess Learning Without Depending on Text

A teacher puts four picture cards on the carpet: a sun, an umbrella, a coat and a sandwich. “Which one do we need when it rains?” One child points to the umbrella straight away. Another reaches for the coat, watches a friend, then swaps to the umbrella. A third child lines up all four cards and says, “Rain, rain, rain.”

Three children gave three different pieces of evidence, and nobody had to read a word. The harder question comes after the lesson. Where does that evidence go? In a well-built early years assessment framework, it goes somewhere useful. Picture-based assessment can let that framework hear from children who cannot yet read or write, but only if the pictures do real work.

Why text gets in the way of evidence

Ask a pre-reader to tick a box beside a printed word and the task measures reading before it measures the idea. A wrong answer only tells you the child cannot decode. It says nothing about weather, feelings or counting. Picture tasks remove that barrier. Reviews of picture-based self-report tools in children’s health research make a similar point: pictures can include children who find reading text difficult and may help hold young children’s attention. (springer)

The teacher records what the child did and said, then reads it against a learning objective. Children do not need to read or write, but the teacher’s careful listening still matters.

Five picture tasks and what each can show

Picture task	What the child does	What it may show	Watch for
Matching	Links a picture to another picture or category	Recognition, early vocabulary	Lucky guesses
Sorting	Groups cards by colour, shape, use or season	Classifying, reasoning	A different but valid rule, so ask why
Sequencing	Puts story or process pictures in order	Cause and effect, story sense	More than one valid order
Find-and-place	Puts stickers in a scene	Applying a concept in context	Fine motor effort hiding understanding
Face or colour choice	Picks a face or colour for a feeling or preference	Emotional vocabulary, self-awareness	Mood on the day, faces that hint at the “right” answer

The pointing problem

A correct answer is not always understanding. The child who chose the umbrella may know exactly why. She may also have copied her neighbour, or liked the colour. One picture response is a clue, not a conclusion.

Research from outside early education shows why this matters. In paediatric pain studies with children aged 5 to 12, scales that used a smiling face as the starting point gave higher ratings than scales that used a neutral face. A face can carry mood as well as the thing being rated. A small validation study of a smiley-face measure with young Japanese children also found lower test-retest reliability for the children’s own reports than for their parents’ reports (bslnih). Both are health studies with specialised samples, so treat them as a design caution, not a classroom rule.

The same applies when children make the picture instead of choosing it. Researchers using a “drawing-telling” approach ask children to explain their drawings with a spoken account. One 2021 study concluded that some preschool drawings cannot be understood without talking to the child. That is where low-pressure assessment picks up the story.

So the more useful question may be this:

if a child picks the right picture but cannot say why, what have we actually recorded? And are our pictures measuring the concept, or the child’s familiarity with our illustration style?

Designing picture tasks that teachers read the same way

For curriculum teams, the real test is consistency. If ten teachers run the same picture task, will they read the same response in the same way? A few habits help:

• Link each task to one learning objective and one idea.
• Use clear, uncluttered images that children in your setting will recognise.
• Keep face or colour choices neutral, so no option looks like the “right” one.
• Add a follow-up such as “Tell me about this one,” and note what the child says.
• Record how much support was given: a teacher point, a friend’s hint, or none.
• Repeat the idea in a second context before calling it a pattern. Professional guidance asks for multiple sources of evidence gathered over time, in realistic settings. naeyc

Setting matters as much as design. assessment should not mean long breaks from interacting with children or heavy paperwork (torbay). A sorting basket in the science corner passes that test. A row of children silently circling answers does not. Picture tasks that grow out of play give the same kind of evidence of learning through play that teachers already notice, with a shared way to record it. When the picture also helps a child look back, by choosing a face or an example of their work, child self-reflection becomes the natural next step.

Where KODEIT Pre-K fits

KODEIT Pre-K treats pictures as part of everyday lessons, not as a separate test. Here is how its published materials answer four design questions:

Design question	What KODEIT Pre-K describes
Where do picture tasks sit?	The lesson flow includes review and wrap-up through picture-based quizzes or short visual assessments, plus independent sticker and puzzle tasks.
How do children respond without writing?	Matching, sorting, cut-and-paste or sticker elements, colour-based choices (such as colouring happy and sad faces) and simple “circle the answer” tasks.
How do teachers check and record?	Teacher Books include rubrics, checklists and reflection tools. The final PLAY stage suggests thumbs up/down, drawing responses and exit questions.
How does evidence build over time?	The programme describes formative and summative evaluations, including observations, portfolio tasks and milestone tracking, with home connection ideas.

For any school, the useful check is not whether picture activities exist. It is whether a teacher can record what a child did and said, and connect it to an objective.

Start with the picture, finish with the conversation

A picture response is where evidence starts, not where it ends. It becomes valuable when it moves through the wider assessment cycle [Blog 18 | Building an Early Years Assessment Cycle: Observation, Evidence, Reflection and Next Steps | Linked text: “assessment cycle”], from observation to evidence, reflection and next steps. For a child who cannot yet read, is our system built to notice everything they can already show us?

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FAQs

Can picture-based assessment replace observation for pre-readers?
No. Pictures give children a way to show what they know, but a single response can be a guess or a copy. Observation, conversation and work samples add context. Good practice asks for several sources of evidence over time.

Does “pre-reader” mean a particular age?
Not exactly. It describes where a child is with print, not a birthday. KODEIT Pre-K’s materials describe Level 1 for ages 3–4, Level 2 for 4–5 and Level 3 for 5–6. Picture-based options help whenever text would get in the way.

How do we stop picture tasks from feeling like a test?
Put them inside play: a sorting basket in the science corner, a sequencing game on the carpet, a sticker scene as a choice activity. Sit beside the child, ask a friendly follow-up, and keep notes short.

What should teachers write down?
Three things: what the child did, what the child said, and how much help they had. Tie the note to the learning objective so it can feed a rubric or checklist later.