Talking to My Kids About Standardized Tests

Last fall I found myself suddenly overwhelmed at the thought of homeschooling high school. My oldest son was at the start of his eighth grade homeschool academic year. I got the idea to just send him to private school.

I figured what private school had over public was that I could pick a school with an academic focus of our choosing which included more rigor than the public school (seems to imply they have, what they actually do in public school I have no idea because public school here is something that just happens to the students who enroll, it is not something the schools market and sell to the parents in the community such as with an open house). Secondarily I thought they may offer the sport my son was doing which our public school does not (crew). I wondered if the social atmosphere would be better at one of the private schools that some of the Boy Scouts we know attend. Both those boys and their parents love the private schools their sons attend.

What I was surprsied to find out was that the standardized test that is given to decide if my son could attend next year was seven days after the open house. Homeschool confession: I have not prepared either of my kids to take standardized tests and they've never taken one of the type that is commonly given to all kids in grade X at a school.

Standardized testing is not required of homeschoolers in my state (Connecticut). I have been disgusted with past test prep books that use real prior tests so have never followed through on having my kids actually take one. Second but more importatntly, after my then ten year old son (the older child) took a battery of tests to help a student teacher the light was shone on the erratic nature of the testing. The fact that such a wide variety of tests was used to screen for reading ability and reading comprhension (and also some math was given and a verbal IQ test), was scary. The results viewed as a summary report were all over the place rating my child anywhere from four grades behind (one writing composition test) to ten chronological years ahead (the IQ test). To be clear, within one category such as the general category "phonics" his test results as a student in grade five month two ranged from "knows so little phonics he will not be able to learn to read" to "decodes at an eighth grade level".

In the debriefing session with the student teacher we discussed the fact that different public schools choose to use different tests and how my son got ALL of them which is not typical. Those tests are usually given to help identify if the student is having a problem reading and if a certain score is earned the student qualifes for special education services and a label. Thus I consider those tests important and serious.

It seemed that the easiest, shortest and fastest tests yielded the most inaccurate result while the tests which required more work (and were more of a pain) to administer and score on the part of the teacher and that also took more time yielded the most accurate results. One easy example: one reading compehension test had a few sentences of text, one had a couple of paragraphs and one went to a page and a half. You can probably guess that the less that was read the higher the score and the more that was read the lower the score. In my son's case the teacher said he was skipping lines and losing his place on the line. The consult I got with the behavioral optometrist confirmed limited fields of vision and an eye tracking problem (convergence insufficiency) and a need for prescription eyeglasses. That explains that.

I was so disgusted with inaccurate testing that I figured it had no part in our homeschool and banned the idea of taking them until further notice.

But here I was in the fall of 2010 hoping that perhaps the next year my son would attend private high school yet I felt he was unprepared to take a standardized test in seven days. I say this because I know of test trickery and I'd done nothing to teach my kids those tactics. I'd not prepared them to take those ridiculous tests.

Although shortly after I decided that private high school was probably not in the plans for that son, and that we'd continue homeschooling for high school, I decided to get both of my kids ready for testing.

You never know what could happen. There's the slim chance I could drop dead tomorrow and they'd have to go to school. Maybe I'd get Cancer like some moms my age that I know and either suffer through chemo and radiation and be unable to homeschool them or I may pass away as two of my friends have, and again they'd wind up in school. What if for economic reasons I had to go back to work and homeschooling was not an option? Lastly what if for some other reason the kids wound up being enrolled in school? In all those cases they'd need to take standardized tests so they might as well get prepared.

In the fall I bought some test prep practice books and began having my sons do them.

Now that they are doing that and I'm grading their work, here I am yet again disgusted with the tests.

Test Trickery

The bottom line for the skill of taking these tests is first and foremost, read the directions. I am having the biggest struggle with my ten year old (grade five) son who feels directions are often stupid and obvious so he skips them. This causes a problem such as the other day when he asked me what the abbreviation NF was in multiple choice answer D. The directions stated it meant "not found" in the answers provided. I don't know why they no longer use the written out phrase on tests I myself took "none of the above" but that's neither here nor there.

Another trick of the tests is to be careful about the direction to pick the best answer. My kids both struggle with this and want to pick the first right answer on the list, not even bothering to read down through selection D. This is a choice the student takes when they choose to rush or to not read the directions. I think practice is important to force them to see the necessity of both reading the directions and taking the time to read all the answers and to think for at least two seconds about which of those is the BEST answer. Perhaps to get to the mindset to force oneself to do that they need to see the test writers are trying to screw with their minds and trick them into picking a wrong answer in order to punish them with a lower score. I am sure the intention of that method in testing is to try to somehow measure thinking ability and that the test taker has logical thinking but when a person who can think is forced to do such stupid acts like taking a test to be told that yes they can think the person often has little patience for such games.

In the test prep books, I continue to find evidence of silly test questions or subjective answers that I question. Both of my sons continue to provide more thorough, detailed answers for the open ended questions than the test book score sheet states. They would get those answers wrong as they take the thinking to a higher and deeper level than what the test wanted them to say. Any open ended question that is about what the student thinks will happen is risky as what the score sheet says is correct is, how do I say it, lower level thinking. The notion that my kids would get a question marked wrong when in fact is more accurate than the score sheet's answer is maddening.

How to Do Well on Standardized Tests

I want my kids to get used to taking these tests so if one test a year is what it takes, so be it. I need them to learn the simple directives of taking these tests:

1. Read the directions carefully.

2. Do what the directions say not what you think should take place.

3. Read every answer on a multiple choice question and ponder it for at least two seconds after reading all of them.

4. If it says to pick the best answer, pick the best answer not the first correct answer.

5. Fill in the bubble completely and neatly or it may score as an inaccurate answer.

6. Pace yourself by moving through the test at an even pace. Don't rush or skim.

7. Attend to the task and don't dawdle or daydream.

8. If you need to stretch your muscles, stretch in your seat. Just do it don't not do it and keep thinking "my arm is tight, my arm is tight".

9. If you need a mental break stop and clear your mind then get back to the test, instead of wearily plodding through and perhaps making silly mistakes along the way.

The Test Date is Set

I have scheduled a date in late spring for my kids to be tested by a certfied tester, a former teacher who is now a homeschool mom. Over three mornings they will both take the standardized test. We'll see how they do.

In the meantime my kids will spend about 20-30 minutes, three days a week doing practice testing to get used to the process. If I could have a way to have them build up to take longer and longer tests as the test date approaches, I would. I'd like them to just feel what it feels like to go through testing for a full three hours before they actually have to do it.

If this testing is so easy then my kids shouldn't have trouble preparing for it and scoring well on the test.