4K and 4K Community Approach (4KCA)
In Wisconsin, 4K programs may operate within public school buildings or through community partner sites, such as childcare centers, Head Start Programs, and private schools (4K Community Approach-4KCA). If 4K is provided through a community approach, the corresponding program rules, regulations and performance standards must be followed.
This page outlines key information about the 2023 Wisconsin Act 20 (Act 20) as relates to children attending 4K and 4KCA. It includes an overview of what is not and is required for 4K/4KCA, and key information and resources about screening, and early language and literacy instruction. This information does not apply to children attending private schools, including parental school choice schools.
Use the links below to navigate to sections of this page:
Act 20 Elements: 4K / 4KCA Requirements
Key Information and Resources: 4K and 4KCA
Act 20: 4K/4KCA Requirements
The following are required:
- administration of the statewide 4K early literacy screener
- communication of screening results with parents/caregivers
- reporting screening results with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
The following are not required:
- diagnostic reading assessments
- personalized reading plans
- specific curriculums or elements of a curriculum
Key Information and Resources: 4K and 4KCA Early Literacy Screening
Under Act 20, what assessments are required for students in 4K?
What screener has Wisconsin chosen to meet the requirements of Act 20?
When does aimswebPlus need to be administered to 4K students?
How long do the required subtests take to administer?
What happens during the screening?
Who manages rostering, training, and administration? Who reports screening results to the DPI?
Under Act 20, what assessments are required for 4K students?
Per Wis. Stat. §118.016(2), all children in 4K at a school district or independent charter school are required to participate in a statewide fundamental skills screening that measures their skills in phonemic awareness and letter sound knowledge. aimswebPlus is the assessment used for statewide screening. Within this screener, the “Initial Sounds” subtest evaluates phonemic awareness, and the “Letter Word Sounds Fluency” subtest evaluates letter-sound knowledge.
There is no option for families to opt their child out of this requirement.
What screener has Wisconsin chosen to meet the requirements of Act 20?
aimswebPlus by Pearson was chosen for early literacy screening in 4K through grade 3. Visit the Wisconsin-specific aimswebPlus page for all resources, including training and customer service contact information, related to administering early literacy screening.
Pearson won a public bid process that followed Wisconsin Department of Administration procedures.
When does aimswebPlus need to be administered to 4K students?
Pearson provides fall and spring windows for aimswebPlus administration. They can be found here. Districts and independent charter schools will establish their own assessment windows based on their locally established school year calendars. The local screening window must fall within the windows provided by Pearson. More information is available at Act 20: Early Literacy Assessment.
In addition to being within the windows provided by Pearson, the local screening windows must meet the requirements of Wis. Stat. §118.016(2)
- In fall, the screener must be administered to 4K students once on or before the 45th day of the start of programming.
- In spring, the screener must be administered on or before the 45th day prior to the last day of programming.
For the 2024-2025 school year only, an amendment delayed the requirements for administering screener until spring of 2025. For 2025-2026 and thereafter, the screener must be administered once in the fall and once in the spring each year. Find information to guide local decisions about assessment windows here.
How long do the required subtests screening take to administer?
The phonemic awareness subest is estimated to take two-three minutes, and letter sound knowledge subtest will take one minute.
What happens during the screening?
The screening is administered to students in one-to-one test sessions. Students will view printed/digital materials and provide an answer. The examiners will mark students’ responses on the digital record form (DRF) in their aimswebPlus account.
Screening may happen within a 4K environment with other children present. It is recommended that, as much as possible, environmental distractions are minimized, for example, a quiet corner in the room.
Who manages rostering, training, and administration? Who reports screening results to the DPI?
District assessment coordinators (DAC) play a key role with the implementation of early literacy screening requirements by acting as a liaison between the DPI and districts and independent charter schools. They provide account information for aimswebPlus, provide screening materials, train individuals to administer the required subtests, and support rostering and data management. This includes communicating with 4K and 4KCA programs about screening requirements and ensuring that 4K students and teachers are rostered appropriately. It also involves ensuring that those administering the assessments are trained and that a system is in place for reporting scores. To support them in completing their responsiblities, DACs receive a weekly email update from DPI, the DAC Digest.
Ultimately, the DAC will be responsible for working with Community Approach programs to develop a plan for test administration, training, rostering, and reporting screening results to families.
DPI can access information about student performance through a data sharing agreement with Pearson, the publisher of aimswebPlus. Therefore, the district or independent charter school does not need to submit scores to DPI.
Processes for communication with parents/caregivers about screening results families are determined at the district or independent charter school-level. Visit 4K and 4KCA: Communicate with Parents/Families for more information.
What does a school/district need to report related to 4K?
By July 15, 2025, districts and independent charter schools must report to the DPI the number of pupils in 4K who were identified as at-risk (scoring below the 25th percentile) on both required spring subtests (i.e., Initial Sounds and Letter Word Sounds Fluency) in the spring of the prior school year. For example, districts will report the results from the spring 2024 assessments by the July 2025 deadline.
DPI can access information about student performance through a data sharing agreement with Pearson, the publisher of aimswebPlus. Therefore, the district or independent charter school does not need to submit scores to DPI.
Does the early literacy screening requirement apply to students who are English learners (EL) and/or multilingual learners?
Yes.
All students in 4K must participate in early literacy screening, including those who are multilingual and may be identified as English learners in 5K. For more information about identifying students as English learners see the EL Policy Handbook.
Although 4K students cannot be officially identified as English learners, the resources available on the Act 20: English Learners webpage may be helpful when supporting 4K students whose Home Language Survey indicates they may speak a language other than English at home. Please note, the exemption for newcomer EL students outlined on the Act 20 EL webpage does not apply to 4K students who have not yet been identified.
Can students who speak Spanish be screened in Spanish?
Yes.
The WI Spanish Matrix outlines what assessments are required for 4K students being screened in Spanish. See the Guidance for Administering the Early Literacy Screener in Spanish for information on screening students in Spanish, including deciding when it might be appropriate to administer the Spanish screener.
Does the early literacy screening requirements apply to students who have Individualized Education Programs (IEPs)?
Yes, all students - including students with IEPs - who are enrolled in 4K must participate in early literacy screening.
Students who are not enrolled in 4K do not need to participate in early literacy screening. There are some four year old students with IEPs who receive special education services but are not enrolled in 4K. These students do not need to complete the screener, as they are not considered 4K students.
Resources to support students who have IEPs can be found on the Act 20: Students with IEPs webpage.
What must be communicated to parents/caregivers?
Districts are required to notify parents/caregivers about results of the reading readiness screener no later than 15 days after the assessment is scored. The result of each subtest must be shared.
Are there resources available to support communicating with parents/caregivers about early literacy screening results?
The Wisconsin DPI Act 20 Resources page includes family letter templates developed by DPI for schools and districts to use when communicating about the 4K early reading screener. These letters include an introduction to the screening process and a letter to accompany the screening results. The templates are available in multiple languages. Please access the resources through the DPI website to ensure you are viewing the most current versions.
How do I explain the meanings of “phonemic awareness” and “letter sound knowledge” to families?
Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. This includes blending sounds into words, segmenting words into sounds, and deleting and playing with the sounds in spoken words. Examples include the following:
- recognizing which words in a set of words begin with the same sound. ...
- isolating and saying the first or last sound in a word. ...
- combining, or blending the separate sounds in a word to say the word. ...
- breaking, or segmenting a word into its separate sounds.
Letter sound knowledge is knowledge of the letters or groups of letters which represent the individual speech sounds in language. Examples include the following:
- knowing that the letter "b" makes a "b" sound, "m" makes an "m" sound, or "a" makes an "ah" sound
- the sounds /m/ /a/ /t/ made by the letters “m,” “a,” and “t” are blended together seamlessly to make the word “mat.
Both phonemic awareness and letter sound knowledge are reflected in the Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards (WMELS) and Modelo de Normas de Aprendizaje Temprano del Estado de Wisconsin in the domain of "Language Development and Communication" or "Comunicación y desarrollo lingüístico".
- See subdomain of "C. Early Literacy"
- C.EL.1 Develops Ability to Detect, manipulate, or analyze auditory parts of spoken language (This includes the ability to segment oral language into words, syllables, or phonemes independent of meaning.)
- C. EL.2 Understands Concept that the Alphabet Represents the Sounds of Spoken Language
- See subdomain of "C. Alfabetización temprana"
- C. EL. 1 Demostrarán aprecio hacia los libros y comprenderán la utilidad de las ilustraciones.
- C. EL. 2 Desarrollarán conocimientos alfabéticos.
The Developmental Continuums on pages 55-59 of the WMELS (English or Spanish), provide additional information for these performance domains, including sample behaviors of children and sample strategies for adults.
Key Information and Resources: 4K/4KCA Approaches to Instruction
Yes, developmentally appropriate practices to support language and early literacy development are advocated by WI state agencies to support optimal development and learning across all domains and content areas. Research has reported the significance engaging young children by utilizing appropriate literacy practices that are culturally and linguistically sustaining, humanizing, joyful, play-based, inclusive, and integrated across content areas (Cavanaugh et al., 2017; Maureen et al., 2020; Nash et al., 2020).
Act 20, the Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards (WMELS) and Modelo de Normas de Aprendizaje Temprano del Estado de Wisconsin, and the Head Start Early Learning Outcome framework share a common goal: fostering strong early literacy skills in young children. All emphasize foundational skills like phonological awareness and phonics, advocate for high-quality instruction, authentic assessment, and prioritize the needs of diverse learners. This alignment ensures a cohesive approach to early childhood education across various settings.
Information related to these connections can be found in the following collaboratively developed documents.
- Wisconsin Early Childhood Collaborating Partners (WECCP) Fostering Young Readers Through Language and Literacy Guide (full publication)
The Wisconsin Model Early Learning Standards (WMELS) and Modelo de Normas de Aprendizaje Temprano del Estado de Wisconsin set appropriate expectations for young children in five domains (Health and Physical Development, Social and Emotional Development, Language and Communication - which includes Early Literacy, Approaches to Learning, and Cognition and General Knowledge). They set the stage for the development of appropriate curriculum and the use of assessment practices that support and promote children’s learning and development. Appropriate assessment practices for young children take into account the following considerations:
- Young children learn in ways and at rates different from older children.
- Young children come to know things through doing as well as through listening and often represent their knowledge better by showing than by telling.
- Young children’s development and learning is rapid, uneven, and episodic, so that point-in-time assessments do not give a complete picture of their learning.
- Young children’s achievements are the result of a complex mix of their ability to learn and their past learning opportunities. (WMELS, 2017 p. 5).
Act 20 screening information provides a snapshot of children’s early literacy development. It is a point in time and represents how children perform on a specific screening tool. The WMELS assessment practices provide considerations for reviewing, analyzing and utilizing assessment information. When used together, they allow for instructional planning and learning opportunities that build upon children’s unique strengths, backgrounds and interests. If used separately, they may miss vital opportunities to solidify a foundation of early literacy to support future learning.
Yes, the DPI is collaborating with representatives from the Department of Children and Families, Head Start Collaboration Office, Wisconsin Early Childhood Collaborating Partners (WECCP) Outreach Specialist and the Wisconsin Head Start Association (WHSA) to develop resources, tools, and cross-system information to be shared statewide. Current resources include the following:
- Ongoing collaboration and updating of information on this specific webpage.
- Wisconsin Early Childhood Collaborating Partners (WECCP) Fostering Young Readers Through Language and Literacy Guide (full publication)
Is there a required curriculum for 4K and 4KCA programs?
Act 20 does not require a specific curriculum or elements of a curriculum to be used within 4K or 4KCA programs. That said, the utilization of DAP and elements of explicit and systematic science-based early literacy instruction may enhance early literacy learning for young children.
Beginning in grades 5K, Act 20 mandates science-based early literacy instruction. This refers to systematic and explicit instruction in at least the following areas: oral language, phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, reading fluency, comprehension, background knowledge, and writing without the use of three-cueing.
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