This online toolkit is a “one stop shop” to locate a variety of materials and resources, each tailored to support the understanding and implementation of TX-KEA. This section offers content related to exploring the purpose, design, and research behind TX-KEA.
TX-KEA provides teachers and specialists with a comprehensive understanding of students’ learning, enabling them to design differentiated instruction to better meet students’ unique needs and share information with families.
TX-KEA provides multiple implementation options to school districts and charter schools in English and Spanish. The TX-KEA User Guide provides information for these implementation options:
View our videos to learn even more about what this toolkit offers!
The Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment System (TX-KEA) is the result of a collaborative effort between the US Department of Education, the Texas Education Agency, and the Children’s Learning Institute (CLI) at UTHealth Houston to develop and validate a kindergarten entry assessment that can be reliably administered by kindergarten teachers in Texas at the beginning of the school year. It covers multiple child development domains to provide a holistic understanding of each student and better informs kindergarten teachers about the children in their classes, helping them to design differentiated instruction to meet students’ needs and share information with families. Learn more about the research project to develop TX-KEA on CLI’s website. TX-KEA launched on CLI Engage in August 2017.
The following table shows the measures/subtests available at each wave (BOY, MOY, and EOY) in English and Spanish. Refer to the TX-KEA User Guide for additional information about the subtests.
*The subtests that make up the BOY Kindergarten Literacy Screener Score, BOY Statewide Kindergarten Readiness score, and EOY Dyslexia Screener are highlighted in grey.
Your first step is to register your account on CLI Engage:
The TX-KEA User Guide is a comprehensive guide that includes “need to know” information about the administration of TX-KEA in kindergarten classrooms.
Download the TX-KEA User Guide
La Guía del usuario de TX-KEA es una guía completa que incluye información “necesaria” sobre la administración de TX-KEA en salones de clases de kindergarten.
The Kindergarten Classroom resources page provides extensive information about how to use the tools and resources on CLI Engage in public school kindergarten classrooms.
Beyond the standard “best assessment practices,” this section offers evidence-based implementation strategies to support educators’ understanding and implementation of TX-KEA. The content in this section offers resources for perspective and practice while growing awareness of classroom-level strategies. These practices are focused on making the most of TX-KEA as an assessment tool, family engagement resource, and professional learning hub. Additional resources are offered for differentiated implementation practices, such as offline and remote assessment modes.
Comprehensive training for TX-KEA is available in the Online Courses section of CLI Engage. Users can earn certificates for the completion of each course.
When logged in, access the courses directly here: TX-KEA Self-Instructional Courses
The TX-KEA Literacy Screener is comprised of the Vocabulary, Letter Names, and Spelling subtests. Students will score within the “on track” (green), “monitor” (yellow) or “support” (red) benchmarks ranges for each subtest. These scores assist districts in informing student instruction. The composite score produced can be used to identify students who meet the “support” benchmark because they are in the bottom 25th percentile.
The TX-KEA Literacy Screener (administered at wave 1/BOY) assesses:
The Statewide Kindergarten Readiness score is comprised of Vocabulary, Letter Names, and Spelling subtests. Students must meet the “on track” (green) benchmark for all three subtests to meet the kindergarten readiness criteria determined by TEA. Districts can use the additional subtest data to make individual determinations regarding students who may require additional support.
CLI Engage offers two tools to support dyslexia screening for kindergarten students in English and Spanish. These tools can be used together to identify students who may be at risk for dyslexia.
The kindergarten dyslexia screener on CLI Engage (administered at wave 3/EOY) uses the following measures to assess skills identified in TEA’s Dyslexia Handbook (2021). Teachers can use the Dyslexia Referral Checklist as a supplement to support screening.
English
Spanish
Review additional information on the dyslexia screening tools on CLI Engage: Dyslexia Screening
Below are the TX-KEA guidelines to receive additional guidance on scoring the TX-KEA subtests. Documents are available for all three waves (BOY, MOY, and EOY), if applicable.
Scoring Guidelines in Spanish and English include:
Utilize CLI’s resources for alternative remote administration functionality and protocols for TX-KEA. Visit our detailed webpage to access teacher’s guides, webinars, and visual schedules to support teachers as they administer assessments remotely: Remote Assessment Administration
The offline assessment feature can be used to assess students when an internet connection is not available at the time of administration. The offline feature for TX-KEA can be accessed from the assessment practice area (for practicing the offline feature) or directly from the class view in TX-KEA (when conducting the assessments): TX-KEA Offline Assessment
The TX-KEA training facilitation guides have specific training facilitation information for school staff who will be facilitating training on TX-KEA with their teachers:
Download Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment Training Facilitation Guides
Interested in becoming a TX-KEA Facilitator? Receive access to facilitate online courses and award certificates directly on CLI Engage: Facilitator Application Form
Teachers can collect valuable information on their student’s development by sharing these forms with families and asking them to give feedback about their child. Each form is aligned to the TX-KEA assessment domains to support the integration of family information into instructional planning.
Parent/Family Feedback Forms in Spanish and English include:
TX-KEA Family Observation Forms
View how-to guides for printing parent reports and viewing results online:
Our resource library is curated to help meet the demand from the classroom to the district level. Browse our content to find courses, webinars, and guides to further support your understanding of implementing TX-KEA and analyzing data.
Learn about the various reports available on CLI Engage and find how-to guides along with support resources for districts. Many of the following reports can be generated at the individual student, class, school, and community/district levels.
Learn more about all the levels of CLI Engage Reports.
The CIRCLE Activity Collection: Pre-K to Grade 2 Collection includes the following in each lesson:
Teachers can access many activities just for kindergarten by utilizing these search options:
The CIRCLE STEM Lab Collection is a virtual laboratory that hosts video segments from PBS Learning Media with hands-on STEM activities which can be completed independently by students at home. These interactive activities integrate video segments with hands-on activities and can also be used independently by students at school or as a teacher directed activity.
Benchmarks are the minimum performance levels students are expected to reach by certain points of the year to indicate skill understanding. The TX-KEA Benchmark table displays the cut scores for benchmarks and is helpful in analyzing your data.
Each TX-KEA subtest is directly aligned to Kindergarten TEKS in the TX-KEA-Kindergarten TEKS Alignment.
ECDS is part of the Texas Student Data System (TSDS). Click on the link below for more information about kindergarten ECDS requirements and uploads:
Teachers using TX-KEA can share individual student reports with families by printing reports or by providing a personalized identification number (PIN) for families to view results online. Teachers can also send families activities that are designed to support skill development at home.
Refer to Understanding Your Child’s Assessment Results to assist families in becoming more knowledgeable about progress monitoring and supporting learning at home.
When sharing assessment results with parents, refer to our Family-Friendly Description of Assessment Measures.
CLI Engage provides a CIRCLE Activity Collection specifically designed to support children’s skill development at home with their parents and families. The CIRCLE Activity Collection: Family can be accessed on mobile devices and does not require a login. This collection provides a variety of hands-on activities that families can do at home. This collection is organized around seven learning domains: Language & Communication, Reading & Writing, Math, Science, Social & Emotional, Physical Development, and Art & Sensory.
CLI’s family engagement resources make the most of procedures you already have in place, such as progress monitoring, homework, parent-teacher conferences, and open houses.
The Education Advisement Team is eager to answer all your TX-KEA related questions and understands that many programs may have common concerns. In this section, we’ve compiled some of the top questions we’ve received throughout the years. We hope this FAQ will help you find your answers quickly and easily. Do you have extra questions not listed on this FAQ? Contact us!
It is a district decision which assessment domains are measured. It is intentionally designed as a comprehensive multidimensional assessment. While many districts and Kindergarten teachers utilize the entire suite of TX-KEA subtests, there is a state-mandated TX-KEA Kindergarten Literacy Screener at BOY. TX-KEA Literacy Screener includes three separate TX-KEA subtests and can be completed by teachers in 5-7 minutes. CLI Engage also provides a Dyslexia Screener at the end of the school year.
The color coding represents benchmarks which are important because they provide the classroom teacher with a way to effectively communicate with other educators and parents (e.g., your child appears to be “on track” within the letter naming domain as indicated by the green color). TX-KEA uses three color-coded benchmark categories that can be interpreted as follows:
The Texas Kindergarten Entry Assessment is designed to cover a range of skills. Some measures include items that may be a little more difficult as we want to know what they know beyond the Kindergarten TEKS. A range of sensitive items that have been validated allow us to learn about students’ different abilities and make informed decisions on instruction that meet the varying ranges of developmental understandings of the students and provide data for differentiation for both downward and upward scaffolding.