THE CREATORS OF ELQA
The Center for Early Childhood Professional Development (CECPD) and the Education Training, Assessment, and Measurement (E-TEAM) departments of the Public and Community Services Division of the University of Oklahoma Outreach developed the first iteration of the Early Literacy Quick Assessment (ELQA) in 2003 for teachers participating in our Early Reading First (ERF) grants. The original paper and pencil, “teacher-friendly” ELQA was implemented by over 100 teachers with phenomenal success. The teachers were excited to have a simple, easy-to-use formative assessment to help them monitor their children’s progress. As we progressed toward the end of our final ERF grant, we used the hardcopy tool as a starting point to build a software program to assist teachers in assessing and using the results from the assessments to differentiate their instruction. The ELQA software was developed during the 2009-2010 school year. The ELQA web application was launched in August 2014.
We gratefully acknowledge the team of contributors to the Early Literacy Quick Assessment (ELQA). Belinda Biscoe, PhD, Interim Senior Associate Vice President, University Outreach, developed the early literacy grants that provided the genesis of the ELQA and has provided leadership and guidance for this work throughout the last decade.