Pre and Post Unit Observation in Preschool: How to See Growth Without Giving a Test

In week one of a weather unit, a teacher lays out picture cards and asks a group of four-year-olds, “What can you see?” One child points at the rain card and says nothing. Another says “sun” and reaches for something else. The teacher makes a mental note and moves on.

Six weeks later, the unit is over. The children talk about wind, rain and umbrellas, and the teacher is sure they have grown. Then a curriculum lead asks, “How do you know?” The honest answer is a feeling.

That feeling is not worthless, but it is hard to share, hard to compare and easy to lose. Pre and post unit observation in preschool is one practical way to turn it into evidence, without asking young children to sit a test.

What pre and post unit observation actually means

Pre and post unit observation in preschool means watching how children handle the same kind of learning task at the start and at the end of a unit, then comparing what the teacher noticed. It is not a test. It uses play, talk, drawing or simple activities to show what has changed in a child’s understanding, language or strategy.

This is narrower than tracking a child across a whole year. It asks one focused question:

 

What can this child say, do or show now that was not visible before?

It works best as one part of a wider early years assessment framework, where unit-level comparisons sit beside daily observation, portfolios and feedback.

Why memory makes a weak baseline

Teachers see children every day, and that is exactly the problem. Small changes blend into the routine. By week six, the picture of a child is shaped by the last few days, or by the most talkative child in the group. A quiet child in week one may have understood plenty and simply said little. Without a written starting point, “progress” is a well-meant guess.

The more useful question may not be “Did the children enjoy the unit?” but “Compared with where they began, what changed, and how do we know?”

Keep the task the same and the mood light

A fair before-and-after comparison depends on a few choices made before the unit starts.

• Start from one learning objective. Choose two or three observable behaviours that show it. Observation without an objective is just a pile of notes, which is why it helps to align preschool assessment with learning objectives before the unit begins.
• Use the same kind of task twice. Keep the materials, prompts and group size similar. If the task changes, you are measuring the task, not the child.
• Use ordinary activity. A sorting game, a story retell, a block build or a drawing works well. If assessment changes the way children play, are we still observing authentic learning?
• Record it the same way both times. A short note, a photo or a tick against agreed descriptors is enough. What to notice in each moment is covered in observation-based assessment in preschool.

What the change can look like

These examples are illustrative.

Focus (age)	Before the unit	After the unit	What the change shows
Talking about weather (4–5)	Points to the rain card, says “sun” for another, links neither to anything	Names sun, rain and wind in their own words and says “take an umbrella”	Vocabulary and cause-and-effect language have grown
Counting objects (3–4)	Says numbers in order but touches objects unevenly and gives different totals	Touches each object once and answers “how many?” with the last number	Counting is moving from reciting to understanding quantity
Feelings (3–4)	Picks a happy or sad face, no words	Picks a face and shows or says what helps, such as “a hug”	The child links a feeling to a way of coping

In each row, the evidence is not “got it right.” It is a change in strategy, language or independence. A child who already showed the skill in week one is not a problem for the unit. That child is telling the teacher to plan differently.

Where it goes wrong

The most common failure is that the baseline quietly becomes a test. A child is sat at a table, asked direct questions and watched for answers. The child feels the pressure, and the result says more about comfort than understanding.

The second is inconsistency. Two teachers run the “same” observation with different prompts and record it in different words. Leaders then cannot tell whether a gap is real or just a difference in style. A four-point developmental scale can give teachers common language, as long as it describes what evidence looks like rather than ranking children.

The third is reading the gap as a score. The difference between before and after describes one child’s path through one unit. Children start from different places and grow at different speeds. Compare those gaps across children and a developmental picture turns into a league table.

The fourth is the quietest: a baseline nobody uses. If the pre-unit observation does not change what the teacher plans in week two, why was it collected? Its value comes when it shapes teaching, which is the focus of using assessment evidence to plan the next learning steps.

For curriculum teams, a final check applies. How much evidence does a teacher really need before a change counts as a pattern? And would a new teacher read the descriptors the same way as an experienced one?

Where KODEIT Pre-K fits

Pre and post unit observation needs a clear start point, an end point, shared language and a way to use what is seen. KODEIT Pre-K’s structure offers each of these:

• The start point. Lessons follow the PLAY framework. Its Prepare stage includes prior knowledge activation, a natural moment to notice what children bring to a unit.
• The end point. The Yield stage includes simple assessment such as drawing responses and exit questions. The curriculum’s spiral progression also revisits ideas from Level 1 to Level 3, so children meet familiar concepts again in more depth.
• The shared language. Teacher Books include an Assessment & Observation section with rubrics, checklists and reflection tools. The resource library lists a Unit Assessment Checklist and Observation Checklists, and the programme materials refer to 90+ rubrics for tracking developmental progress.

A closing thought

Children will keep growing whether we write it down or not. The real question is whether the record we leave is clear enough to help the next teacher who meets them.

FAQs

Is pre and post unit observation the same as a pre-test and post-test?
No. A test usually pulls a child out of play and looks for right answers. Observation uses ordinary activities and looks at strategy, language and independence.

How many children and how many indicators should a teacher observe?
There is no single right number. A practical starting point is one or two objectives per unit, a few indicators for each, and a few children observed per day across the first week rather than everyone at once.

What if a child shows no visible change by the end of the unit?
That is not automatically a failure of the child or the teacher. Check whether the task suited the child, whether the growth showed up in another form such as a drawing or gesture, and whether the child needs more time or different support.

Can this work for children who speak very little?
Yes. Evidence can come from pointing, picture choices, gestures, drawings and sorting. Keep the task the same in both moments and record how the child responds, not only what they say.