Are you gearing up for testing? We all know that once January hits most districts start planning for testing. It is a time to pull standards, and data, and organize for small groups. I disagree with bombarding kids with passage after passage to prep them. I think creating daily activities, stations, and small groups is a great way to engage students; and prepare them for testing.
Here are some more great ways to think about using for test prep:
1. Do daily practice: You can grab short mini-passages with 1 to 3 questions that allow students to practice and exposure to the new test item types daily.
Make sure to only take 5 to 7 minutes
2. You can pull question stems from old STAAR passages to help kids analyze the vocabulary used, and to determine the skill being assessed.
Create word walls with question stems, reading skills, and common vocabulary used throughout old tests. Vocabulary such as convey, contribute, develop, portray, indicate, and highlight.
3. allow students to rewrite the question in their own words to demonstrate an understanding of what the question is asking.
This will show you who is and isn't understanding the question.
4. Pull old test questions and practice analyzing answer choices, and model how to determine the differences in answer choices, which one focuses on what the question is asking. This will show you if kids can identify the skill being asked.
3. Pull only the questions that represent the skills that students struggle with during the school year. Analyze them and dissect how to answer the questions.
11. Have you ever considered board games. A great way to engage kids in friendly competition, while they are still learning. There are reading that you can purchase. I have games over; Main idea, supporting details, context clues, summary, compare and contrast, author's point of view, and inferences. I pick 1 day a week and pull out 2 to 4 games and students will rotate through them at 15-minute intervals.
12. Have them use a large piece of chart paper, or even draw a chart on the desktop with reading skills as the categories and add an I don't know category. Make a set of sorting cards with these skills on them for each student. Have the students sort them based on their understanding of each one.
----- main idea, details, Authors point of view, inference, vocabulary, author's purpose, text features, text structure, summary, character development, compare/contrast, cause/effect, theme, figurative language, author's craft, prediction, plot development, drawing conclusions, context clues--------
13. I love using poetry to teach reading skills. The students love it as well. Poetry is great to teach figurative language, tone, and mood.
5. Students can sort questions by determining where the answer would be found
In the text (stated) or in their head( need to infer). Using QAR strategy.
3. Pull only the questions that represent the skills that students struggle with during the school year. Analyze them and dissect how to answer the questions.
For example, Summarizing questions show students how to determine if each sentence is part of the story and where they fit in the story.
For fiction text have them label where each sentence is found BME,
For nonfiction, look for main ideas and supporting details.
4. Now it is possible for students to have to choose from summaries written in one sentence, or determine what sentences to add to an incomplete summary and even remove sentences from the summary that doesn't support the summary.
You can provide them practice in writing one-sentence summaries, use old tests, pull the summary questions, and practice rewriting them as one sentence
You could take summaries and remove sentences and add three other choices and see if students can pick the sentence that belongs.
You can add sentences to summaries that don't belong and see if students know which ones to remove.
5. Use a previous test made by the teacher, the district made, and/or staff to create daily short passages,
5. Use a previous test made by the teacher, the district made, and/or staff to create daily short passages,
Take an excerpt, and write the questions in the form of the new question types and do them as daily work.
6. Have kids practice reading different genre passages and analyzing them for the characteristics of the genre, which could be possibly asked about on the test.
7. Search Pinterest, you may find activities or test practice passages that can be used in small groups, whole groups, or even as rotation stations.
8. Introduce and discuss each new test type: Mult-select, grid, Multi-part, Inline questions, SCR, Match Table Grid, and Hot text.
Start planning these types of questions into your daily lessons as do nows and exit tickets, and even when questioning during read-aloud.
9. Create a question bank jar. Pull a question daily for kids to answer or apply independently to the text they read.
10. All of the above will allow you to be able to form small groups or tutoring groups for those struggling or needing extra support.
11. Have you ever considered board games. A great way to engage kids in friendly competition, while they are still learning. There are reading that you can purchase. I have games over; Main idea, supporting details, context clues, summary, compare and contrast, author's point of view, and inferences. I pick 1 day a week and pull out 2 to 4 games and students will rotate through them at 15-minute intervals.
12. Have them use a large piece of chart paper, or even draw a chart on the desktop with reading skills as the categories and add an I don't know category. Make a set of sorting cards with these skills on them for each student. Have the students sort them based on their understanding of each one.
----- main idea, details, Authors point of view, inference, vocabulary, author's purpose, text features, text structure, summary, character development, compare/contrast, cause/effect, theme, figurative language, author's craft, prediction, plot development, drawing conclusions, context clues--------
13. I love using poetry to teach reading skills. The students love it as well. Poetry is great to teach figurative language, tone, and mood.
14. There are now two types of written responses for the STAAR test we take in Texas.
The short-constructed response (SCR) and the Extended Constructed response ( ECR)
Students are expected to write a response to a prompt related to one of the passages, which can now be subject-related passages.
So get the other subjects involved and have them start having students write claims and give evidence to support a prompt about a concept being taught.
15. The new test is also now combined with writing. There is no longer a writing Staar and a reading Staar. They are together, so plan with your writing teams if you teach separately, and hold kids accountable for grammar and conventions when writing responses in reading.
16. To avoid drill and kill, I always do 4 corners with reading passages and questions allowing for group discussions and teacher feedback.
17. You can create Jeopardy games over genres, skills, vocabulary, question stems, etch.
18. How about spending a week on each genre:
Most important for me is to make sure I am giving feedback daily, progress monitoring daily, allowing for daily practice, and pulling students who need additional support and guidance.
18. How about spending a week on each genre:
- talk about genre characteristics
- give activities related to the genre characteristics
- use the test question stems and vocabulary
- provide kids the opportunity to read in class.
- provide opportunities for kids to write responses to questions from various genres
19. Have students work on passages in pairs, allow them to read, discuss and answer questions together and support one another.
20. Be intentional by having days where kids are just reading the entire class to help build stamina, you can pull small groups or hold conferences during this time.
Standardize testing doesn't have to be drill and kill, there are ways to make it interesting,
