Test Taking--Noise and Anxiety

[Garga]

PA requires testing in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade. My kids are taking the tests right now (3rd and 5th.) We are doing this online in the dining room. They're so "loud."

 

It's a matter of fidgeting in their chairs causing front or back legs of the chairs to go up and then plop back on the floor, leaning this way and that causing the chairs to creak, and sighing--oh, the sighing! DS9 is sighing non-stop. DS11 is breathing funnily--lots of loud exhaling. Scritch-scratch of pencils on scrap paper. Hands flopping onto the table top.

 

They're totally oblivious to what they're doing. They're so focused on their tests and don't even seem to notice all the noise they're making.

 

My 9 year old is getting increasingly anxious about the test. I think he's going to bomb it. :( Unfortunately, this little guy is bad at intuiting things. If I haven't explicitly taught him something, he can't figure it out. Plus, he's a daydreamer so even when I explicitly teach it he often tunes me out.

 

For example on the test he can't figure out that "If chapter 3 starts on page 29 and chapter 4 starts on page 56, in which chapter is page 33?" He just doesn't know and is getting teary eyed. Since it's a test, I can't help him at all, even though I grabbed a book and showed him a real example. He still couldn't figure out which chapter the page was in. :( I probably shouldn't have gotten the book (since it's a test), but even then he just can't intuit it. Sigh. The longer this goes on, the more anxious he's getting.

[happypamama]

Hugs -- if it's any consolation, my 9yo was totally freaked out about the test too. He would come to me after each section and say stuff like, "I had X number left; I don't think I did very well." I kept assuring him that being on the lower end of the age range for the test, he wasn't expected to know all of the stuff, and in fact, he might not even have seen some of it, so he should just do his best and guess if he totally had no idea. And he's at least as much of a daydreamer as your little guy, if not more. In the end, he did better than he expected, and I was completely pleased with his results, so I'm betting the same will be true for your guys. Remind your guys that they know so much more stuff than what is on the test. (And if they really bomb it, there's nothing to say that you can't have them take it again, considering the first time to be a practice round.)

 

DD wanted, both times, to do the test in one "bang it out" shot. DS1 wanted to do his over a couple of days, with large breaks in between sections. I found that amusing.