Though colloquially known as the ERB Kindergarten Test, the actual name of the test given to children in grades pre-K through one is the Early Childhood Admissions Assessment, or ECAA. The assessment is designed to be engaging and developmentally appropriate for young children, and ERB professional evaluators administer the test individually in a school or office setting. The ECAA is forty to fifty minutes in length and measures verbal and nonverbal skills in eight separate sub-tests.
The verbal section of the ECAA is made up of four individual sub-tests- vocabulary, similarities, information and comprehension. In these sections, evaluators ask children to answer a mixture of questions testing their auditory perception and comprehension, word knowledge, verbal expression, factual knowledge, long-term memory and degree of language development. While some of the questions may include picture support, many rely on the child's ability to understand and interpret the evaluator's questions using his own listening skills and practical knowledge. Questions don't always have a specific right or wrong answer as the evaluator is also testing a child's abstract thinking, scope of knowledge and verbal concept formation.
The non-verbal section of the ECAA also has four separate sub-tests- picture concepts, bug search, block design and matrix reasoning. Each of these tests presents the child with a picture question that prompts the child to organize their thinking, match identical pictures, construct images using a model or identify a missing image. The goal of the non-verbal portion of the test is to measure the child's non-verbal reasoning, perceptual speed, short-term memory, concentration, spatial visualization, pattern recognition, visual processing and fine motor development, among other skills. Many of the areas tested in the verbal sub-tests are also evaluated in this section. Questions in the non-verbal sub-tests do have correct and incorrect answers, and evaluators note the speed with which the child answers.
Many parents wonder if it is worth "prepping" their children for the ECAA. Workbooks and test prep programs do exist for this pre-K through one test, though they often cost as much, if not more, than the test itself. ERB evaluators have learned to spot children who have been heavily coached, and they can invalidate a test score if they suspect this.The ERB cautions against extensive preparations for the test, as the benefits of such intensive preparatory work often do not last. Instead, the company suggests engaging children in ongoing word games, initiating word play and providing them with opportunities to engage with, explore and explain the world around them.