End of Year Testing ?

[channell07]

We have decided to test this year (long story) but i am trying to decide to go about ordering tests. If you test how do you do it? Do you:

A) test them on the level they work on at home? DS is barely 8 but works up to a 6th grade level on some subjects and works around a 3rd-4th grade level on most others

 

B) On the level they would be if you had entered them in PS at 5

 

C) On the level they would be if you had entered them at the compulsory age of 6 by Sept 30?

 

My kids have always been homeschooled and have mid-March and end of July bdays. So technically DD could either be kinder or 1st and DS could either be 1st or 2nd.  With DD having an end of July bday, I know people with same summer babies who are about evenly split between the 2 grades.  DS's peers are mostly in 2nd because of his March bday.

 

Also, test opinons between the Terranova2 and the ITBS for this age?

[Ellie]

We have decided to test this year (long story) but i am trying to decide to go about ordering tests. If you test how do you do it? Do you:

A) test them on the level they work on at home? DS is barely 8 but works up to a 6th grade level on some subjects and works around a 3rd-4th grade level on most others

 

B) On the level they would be if you had entered them in PS at 5

 

C) On the level they would be if you had entered them at the compulsory age of 6 by Sept 30?

 

My kids have always been homeschooled and have mid-March and end of July bdays. So technically DD could either be kinder or 1st and DS could either be 1st or 2nd.  With DD having an end of July bday, I know people with same summer babies who are about evenly split between the 2 grades.  DS's peers are mostly in 2nd because of his March bday.

 

Also, test opinons between the Terranova2 and the ITBS for this age?

 

You order the test for the grade level your dc would be in if they were in school. 

 

I'm pretty sure the cut-off date for entering kindergarten is the same as it is for first grade; that is, a child would need to be 5 by September 30 to enter kindergarten.

 

I have a summer birthday. I am so thankful no one thought of holding me back because of that.

 

I can't tell how old your dc are, but according to cut-off dates, they would not be one grade or the other; they would be *this* grade. Also, I would not be considering grade levels of age peers.

[aaplank]

I test for the purpose of fulfilling the legal requirement in my state for homeschooling, not necessarily to give me information on how my kids are doing. Therefore, I give them the test for the grade that they would be in if they went to the local public school. My district says you have to be 5 by Sept. 1.

 

I think the ITBS is more comprehensive and time consuming than Terranov, but it gives you specific information on your child's academic strengths and weaknesses.

 

Wish I could be more help and hopefully others chime in.

[Targhee]

We test on grade level they would be in public, even though we have kids accelerated in areas. We have used ITBS and SAT 10 online. ITBS was not very helpful on grade level. SAT 10 was more helpful on grade level. I wish we could continue to use the MAP test like they used with the umbrella school, because it is adaptive with a very high ceiling (at least after 2nd grade), but I think you can only use it with an institution.

[Squawky Acres]

I use the SAT 10 and test for the grade level they would be in at a public school, using the state-specified cut-off dates.  This does result in hitting the test's ceilings in many areas, so it is less helpful for me as a teacher; but I like to have the good test scores in their files for legal purposes -- to show that we are providing a high-quality education.

[G5052]

I've always tested on-grade versus where they were academically. I am required to do that or some other formal evaluation by law. Both have consistently worked ahead of grade level in some subjects, and my last one will graduate early next May. I still do the testing and homeschooling paperwork "as if" because you never know if you are going to need some margin in the end.

 

Frankly I've never seen anything in the results that I didn't already know. For me, it's a bit of a waste of time and money, but it's good to see things confirmed and of course be in line with the law. I even predicted my kids' SAT scores with some accuracy, so YMMV.

[channell07]

You order the test for the grade level your dc would be in if they were in school. 

 

I'm pretty sure the cut-off date for entering kindergarten is the same as it is for first grade; that is, a child would need to be 5 by September 30 to enter kindergarten.

 

I have a summer birthday. I am so thankful no one thought of holding me back because of that.

 

I can't tell how old your dc are, but according to cut-off dates, they would not be one grade or the other; they would be *this* grade. Also, I would not be considering grade levels of age peers.

 

My kids could each be in 2 different grades.  In Ohio, compulsory attendance begins the year the child is 6 by september 30 but they CAN start the year they are 5 by Sept 30.

Therefore, my dd with a July bday could have started kindergarten 1 month after she turned 5 or 1 month after she turned 6 depending on when we sent her.  I know many people (10+) With children her age born within 2 months and they are about evenly split between kinder and first in PS and private schools.

DS with a march bday could have started kinder 6 months after his 5th bday or 6 months after his 6th bday.  Both would be acceptable according to ohio law.  Likely, we would have started him at 5.5 because his birthday isn't as close to the cutoff as my daughter's, but we COULD have waited another year and still been within the law. 

 

And, in the spirit and recommendation of not giving the state more information than they need, this was only my first year notifying for my dd and second year notifying for my ds.

 

This is why I was not sure about where I should test them.  However, the more I have thought about it, I believe I am going to test DS in 2nd and DD in kinder.  He works well above, doesn't have trouble with stress when doing school work, and is pretty level headed.  DD works above grade level but gets stressed when she feels like she can't remember something and generally takes a little longer to grasp a concept.  I think a year of kinder testing would bolster her confidence

[Ellie]

My kids could each be in 2 different grades.  In Ohio, compulsory attendance begins the year the child is 6 by september 30 but they CAN start the year they are 5 by Sept 30.

Therefore, my dd with a July bday could have started kindergarten 1 month after she turned 5 or 1 month after she turned 6 depending on when we sent her.  I know many people (10+) With children her age born within 2 months and they are about evenly split between kinder and first in PS and private schools.

DS with a march bday could have started kinder 6 months after his 5th bday or 6 months after his 6th bday.  Both would be acceptable according to ohio law.  Likely, we would have started him at 5.5 because his birthday isn't as close to the cutoff as my daughter's, but we COULD have waited another year and still been within the law. 

 

And, in the spirit and recommendation of not giving the state more information than they need, this was only my first year notifying for my dd and second year notifying for my ds.

 

This is why I was not sure about where I should test them.  However, the more I have thought about it, I believe I am going to test DS in 2nd and DD in kinder.  He works well above, doesn't have trouble with stress when doing school work, and is pretty level headed.  DD works above grade level but gets stressed when she feels like she can't remember something and generally takes a little longer to grasp a concept.  I think a year of kinder testing would bolster her confidence

 

But the year that they are 6 by September 30, they would enter first grade, not kindergarten, so no, they couldn't be in two different grades. It would not occur to me to enroll a child who was 6 in March in kindergarten in the fall. o_0

[Targhee]

We have compulsory attendance at age 8 in our state, but they don't start in K - they start in the equivalent grade (usually part way through second).

[73349]

I would go by what grade you would've put them in if you had had to send them to public school. Sure, some families send their kids as soon as they can enroll and others wait a year, but what would you have actually done?

 

Even if your DC typically works "up" a grade from that, you might choose the at-grade-level test the first time, since a student's first standardized test is partly a test on understanding and cooperating with the format of testing.

 

We've done the ITBS for K, 1st and 2nd, and been mostly satisfied so far (although occasionally there's a question I think is kind of out there).

[channell07]

We have compulsory attendance at age 8 in our state, but they don't start in K - they start in the equivalent grade (usually part way through second).

Here whether you start them at 5 or 6 they go into kindergarten.

 

But the year that they are 6 by September 30, they would enter first grade, not kindergarten, so no, they couldn't be in two different grades. It would not occur to me to enroll a child who was 6 in March in kindergarten in the fall. o_0

I probably wouldn't have sent my 6 in march kid in kinder, but if I had waited he would not have gone into first.  They would have put him into kinder.  When I taught kinder I had kids that were 4 when school started because of the Sept 30 cut off and kids who were almost 7 when school started

[channell07]

I would go by what grade you would've put them in if you had had to send them to public school. Sure, some families send their kids as soon as they can enroll and others wait a year, but what would you have actually done?

 

Even if your DC typically works "up" a grade from that, you might choose the at-grade-level test the first time, since a student's first standardized test is partly a test on understanding and cooperating with the format of testing.

 

We've done the ITBS for K, 1st and 2nd, and been mostly satisfied so far (although occasionally there's a question I think is kind of out there).

 

Thank you! I think I am going to use ITBS with DS testing 2nd, which is likely where he would be, and DD testing K.  She would have been very up in the air about when we would have sent her because while she is very smart, she is also fairly nervous, so I don't know that I would have sent her at just barely 5

[boszorder]

I also test them according to their current grade level just to satisfy the school requirements. We use the California Achievement tests, which only tests math and English, only these are required in my state. I don't want to test them in Social Studies and Science, if I don't have to, because we are not following the schedule for regular schools.

[RootAnn]

Because I don't test my kids until around 4th grade and because the test results are only for us, I have them test on the grade level I consider them & not on the grade level that they are registered for the state (not usually the same). If I was testing for the state records, I'd probably use the grade level the state has recorded for them.

 

. . . My boys were both 6-before-Sept 30th-as-Kindergarteners.  :laugh: (Note that six states now have Aug 1-or-earlier cutoffs for K and over half require the child to be 5 before Sept 1.)

[ElizabethB]

If you are just doing it for your own purposes, I like the dora and adam k7 tests, they are online computer adaptive tests. The math goes up to grade 7, the dora, language arts, goes up to grade $12.

 

letsgolearn.com

Edited May 6, 2016 by ElizabethB

[Sahamamama]

If you are just doing it for your own purposes, I like the dora and adam k7 tests, they are online computer adaptive tests. The math goes up to grade 7, the dora, language arts, goes up to grade $12.

 

letsgolearn.com

 

Elizabeth, thanks for posting this. The assessments are $20 now, but less if purchasing multiple assessments.

 

http://www.letsgolearn.com/