Behind in math and mandatory testing?

[Gwenny]

What do you do when you need to do yearly testing, but you have a child that hasn't finished this year's math text? My daughter isn't terribly far behind in her math book (strayer-upton practical arithmetics), but she is far enough behind that she won't get to all of the work with fractions, perimeter and area. There are other bits that I had planned on teaching her after working on this book, but we won't even finish this one in time. I absolutely love Strayer-Upton, but it doesn't teach graphing, number lines, coordinates, or basic geometry. I was planning on going through Math Mammoth and doing any lessons that her book doesn't cover to make sure she had everything covered. What I didn't bargain for was how long it would take to grasp long division. I purchased to Spectrum Test Prep book to work through to ease her extreme test anxiety, but there is quite a bit she's never seen before. On the other hand, if this test prep book is similar to the CAT, she is well ahead in computation. Strayer-Upton teaches division with 3 digit divisors, and the test prep book doesn't even divide by 2 digit divisors. I don't want to push her ahead before she has mastered the basics, but I also don't want the consequences of her failing the test. Now that I've typed all this, maybe I just need to order the CAT and teach just enough of what she needs to pass it. I'm always reading that you should teach to the child's level, but no one ever mentions what they do when testing comes around. How do others handle it when the scope and sequence of what they use to teach doesn't match the scope and sequence of the tests.

[Ellie]

You do the testing and let the chips fall where they will. And you don't teach to the test.

[kirstenhill]

Are there any negative consequences in your state to poor testing? In my state the only "consequence" to a low score is that the parent is required to seek additional evaluation or testing of the parents' choice to make sure the student doesn't have any learning disabilities. And it's only required if the overall score is below the 30th percentile. So even a low score in one area might not bring the student below 30th overall.

 

So if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't sweat it. I would just tell her that she will see some things she hasn't learned yet on the test, and not to worry about it because different students study different things. I would maybe discuss some test taking strategies so that she might have a better chance at guessing on problems she hasn't learned how to do yet.

 

But I guess if there are some strong negative consequences in your area to a poor test score (like not being allowed to homeschool in the future or something like that), then I might spend a few days at least introducing some of the concepts that would be on the test.