The physical literacy movement is a collaborative one. Thank goodness! The time for less ego and more collaboration toward a common goal has been a long time coming. Physical education teachers, parents, early childhood educators, sport coaches, recreation leaders, and community directors all, along with others, have an important role to play in supporting individuals’ physical literacy development. When I was on the Board of Directors for PHE Canada, a very mindful group from Brock University (Mandigo, Francis, Lodewyk, and Lopez) presented a definition of physical literacy that the organization adopted. At the same time, a group of professionals from Canada Sport for Life had begun working on sport’s role in supporting physical literacy. I recently was enlightened about another group’s work, the 60 Minute Kids’ Club. Their tool is called the FMS (Fundamental Movement Skills) Assessment Tool. Each of these groups have been working toward assessing physical literacy, or an important component(s) of physical literacy.

While there are differences, the intent is the same - to support individuals’ physical literacy development. I encourage you to explore both websites and keep in mind that one is intended to address physical literacy more from a school perspective, while the other is intended to address physical literacy from a sport perspective.

Assessment

There are books written on assessment, but for the purpose of this post, assessments are the means for collecting measures or scores on participant (student/athlete/child/youth) learning. Ideally, assessments are used by teachers, parents, coaches (and others) for two primary purposes. First, assessments are used to inform the participant on what she/he is doing well and what she/he could improve upon. Second, assessments are used to guide instruction by the teacher/coach/parent so that he/she can do a better job in meeting the needs of the participant.

PHE Canada and Canada Sport for Life have not only invested on refining the term physical literacy for education and sport - they have invested in developing assessments so that facilitators/teachers/coaches can optimally support participants. It should be noted that some of the same professionals were involved in both projects.

PHE Canada’s (@PHECanada) Passport for Life has been piloted throughout Canada to over 1000 students. It is a free online set of assessment tools and supports for grades 3-12. Currently, information is online for Grades 3-9 and the pilot for grades 10-12 assessment tools will be conducted in the winter of 2015. In 2015, an adapted physical activity advisory group is working with the 3-6 tools to ensure their inclusivity for students who live with disabilities. A collaborated effort, these assessments were developed by professors, researchers, PE teachers, principals, physical literacy experts, and students. The assessments were developed in four key areas: active participation, living skills, fitness skills, and movement skills. As you can see, the assessments consider the whole child - as the definition illustrates, this is indeed best practice.

Obviously, Passport for Life aimed (and succeeded) in meeting needs of provincial curriculum from across the country. This is also exciting for teachers in the US because of the new NASPE standards which have, as you know, been modified to include the term physical literacy.

A few quotes from teachers upon conclusion of the pilot phases the assessments include:

“I liked the success criteria - the ‘look-for’s’ in terms of the ‘what and how’ students should perform the movements. It was very explicit and I knew exactly what to look for when assessing my students. There is nothing like this for physical educators. I love that there is direct feedback for students as a visual via the Passport. The information is informing my practise as I input and recognize areas that I can have my students work on to improve.”

“It’s nice to have a support system and assessment that the students can take responsibility, ownership for.”

“The understanding for students where their physical literacy is and the words used in the rubrics were great. Was nice that it wasn’t considered a pass/fail but a starting point for them.”

“The format was clear and concise which made student learning more effective. The connections with goal setting, fitness and movement skills and ultimately, physical literacy were strong and something I haven’t seen in other support materials. It is interesting to see how novel the concept of physical literacy remains in the general parent/student population even though is second nature to HPE teachers. Students seem more aware of what their limitations and strengths are because of what they were exposed to as young children but, they have a better understanding of how to independently take the next steps to be healthy active citizens.”

Canada Sport for Life’s PLAY Tools

Physical Literacy Assessment for Youth

I have said it before and I’ll say it again. It’s so exciting that people are at the same table with a common goal. While sport and physical education have clearly different objectives, both can play a key role in supporting individuals’ physical literacy development. These tools were developed by Dr. Dean Kriellaars (@DeanKriellaars), who designed them for “research, program evaluation, surveillance, assessment of learning, assessment for learning.”  Yet the tools can serve other capacities such as awareness and engagement - among others.

Currently, the PLAY tools - which are developed for children and youth ages seven and up - consist of:

PLAYfun, the objective assessment tool, which evaluates movement vocabulary (18 land based movement tasks), motor competence, confidence, and comprehension of movement terminology (for age 5 and up)

PLAYbasic, a short form of PLAY FUN using four tasks (locomotor, upper body, lower body, body control)

PLAYself – a tool to assess the individuals perception of their own physical literacy (ages seven and up)

PLAYinventory – a self-report tool which assesses the inventory of activities that a person performs (for any age)

PLAYparent – a tool for the parent(s) or caregiver to assess the physical literacy of their child (for children to emerging adults)

PLAYcoach – a tool for a movement specialist like a coach, physical educator, physiotherapist, or an exercise professional to perform a recall based assessment of a child’s physical literacy (for any age)

These tools are available on the website, or you can order a hard copy of the assessments. Canada for Sport for Life offers a workshop called PL201. This workshop is 3.5 hours and provides a hands on experience with the administration of the suite of tools. The developer recommends that individuals practice with the tools before administering them so that they indeed measure what it is they are intended to measure. The developer also recommends consistency in that if a team will be administering the tools a group of individuals, they are all in sync with who they utilize the scoring schema.

60 Minute Kids’ Club Fundamental Movement Skills Assessment Tool

The 60 Minute Kids’ Club folks developed a Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) library for generalist (classroom) teachers or parent(s)/guardian(s) to assess children and youth in grades K through 6 on some FMSs. They have developed two sets of assessment videos and these are presented at Active For Life. The first set of videos is referred to as “Assess Me” and is a 4-way split screen with the four point scoring rubric (emerging, developing, acquired, accomplished). These are align with PHE Canada’s Passport for Life because it is directed for Canadian school children who are taught by PE teachers who utilize PHE Canada’s content. Individuals who would like to access the tool are asked what they do (parent, teach, coach, etc.) so that they can track who is using the tool. The second set of videos are descriptive and instructional. They are referred to as the “Show Me” videos. All videos are intended for children and youth ages 5 through 12.

These tools were developed for individuals - who may have no prior knowledge of FMS - to assess specific FMSs. There are also links to learning phases and teaching cues for the different FMSs, as well as activities that children and youth can participate in as they move toward mastery of these skills (they are called lesson plans on their web page). These tools were developed by culminating existing resources from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Northern Ireland, and Singapore. Kinesiologists, exercise physiologists, health and fitness professionals, and world renown physical literacy experts were involved in the development of these tools.

Resources for Intervention

So what happens if you determine that your participants are far from competent in important fundamental movements? Knowing what we know about how these skills should be taught at particular ages, it’s imperative we make adjustments when assessments are not up to par. Better yet, it’s important that we are using sound, evidence based resources in order to best prepare our participants in the first place.

Although these particular tools are different assessment tools, developed for different groups - some resources can serve to support physical literacy development in all areas (home, school, sport, recreation). I just wanted to highlight on intervention resource edited by Ted Temertzoglou (@LifeIsAthletic) at Thompson Educational Publishing. The reason why I endorse these particular fitness charts for movement, strength, balance and coordination development is because they are evidence based. They have been approved by leaders in spine research. In other words, when used in best pedagogical practice, they keep our children and youth safe while supporting their physical literacy journey. Watch this 3-minute video of these resources.

(Note: I do NOT get paid any $ to recommend these charts. I do, however, suggest that if your school or youth sports club purchases them that you also try and have Ted come to in-service your teachers and coaches. He’s magical and will model best practice and how to use the resource in a way that supports inclusion and is REALLY fun!)

Note: Special thank you to Dr. Chris Jones (Executive Director) and Stephanie Talsma (Program Manager) at PHE Canada, Dr. Dean Kriellaars from the University of Manitoba, and Chris Tremblay from the 60 Minutes Kids’ Club who provided points or resources in order to ensure accuracy of this post.

I recently reviewed an article for a peer-reviewed journal that took another look at assessment in physical literacy and I think it was really well done. Hopefully it will be published and I will add it to the blog. I think it’s important that we continue to check our egos and work together in a collaborative spirit so that this wonderful movement is one that will indeed help all to grow up and not only live healthy and active lives, but work toward building healthier and more active communities. The folks in the Great White North have been working hard to develop sound tools used to assess physical literacy, or components of it. If we are able to assess for learning (in all domains!), we have a better shot at adjusting our learning environments (school, home, sport, rec) so that youth develop physical competence, confidence in their abilities, and a deep understanding of how all of this impacts health in a positive way. Only then, might we see a cultural shift at the population level of how society views physical activity and how it can improve one’s life, others, and the community. Remember, just as literacy is much more than reading and writing, physical literacy is much more than physical competence in the fundamental movement skills. We need children and youth to grow up to help build more active-friendly communities through sound infrastructure, policy, and education. Sound assessments can help to make sure they are properly prepared to do so.

So, check these resources out, share the information, and see what might work best for your team, school district, or family!

Thanks for reading!

Note: Just learning more about The Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy (CAPL). I will update the site when I learn more about it.

I wonder…
What other assessments are out there with the intent to better support physical literacy development?

Have you used any of these tools? What did you like about them? What might you change?

What questions do you have on assessment and physical literacy?