Controlled Drawing Observation for Assessing a Child’s Readiness for School and Predicting Academic Achievement at the End of the First Grade

Abstract

Controlled Drawing Observation (CDO) was developed by Tove Krogh and it has been used in Denmark, Finland and Estonia for assessing a child’s readiness for school. CDO is a group test, it gives information about a child’s functioning in an educational setting and it serves as a starting point for later individual assessment. The goal of the study was to examine the suitability of CDO for assessing a child’s readiness for school and predicting school achievement during the transition period from kindergarten to school in Estonia. A total of 112 children were studied longitudinally at two points in time. Forward‐stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that results of CDO predict a child’s success in mathematics and the Estonian language at the end of the first grade better than teacher reports and the results of individual tests.

Keywords:

• child’s readiness for school
• academic achievement
• Controlled Drawing Observation (CDO)