3rd Grade Testing Question

[riverloke]

In the state of Georgia, homeschoolers are required to administer achievement tests every 3 years, starting in 3rd grade.

My child is in public school 3rd grade this year, but we're 99% sure we're withdrawing him to homeschool the rest of the year and beyond. Long story short, he needs to restart 3rd grade now, with some remedial 2nd grade skills first, and I hope to get him to the "end" of 3rd grade by the end of this fall. This will extend his 3rd grade year because his official start date was the public school's August 2015 start date. Do I need to test him at the end of the public school's school year, or can I wait until he might actually pass it? Will it depend on the public school's recommendations for him, maybe if they recommend that he repeat 3rd grade? Should I go ahead and do the test this May, knowing that we'll repeat it when we're ready to? I don't have to submit any tests or scores, only keep them in my records, but I don't want to break any important rules.

Thanks for your help.

 

[zarabellesmom]

I'm in Georgia too.  :) 

 

If it were me, I would go ahead and test him in May because age wise he's a third grader and he's been to third grade. I would test him again when you feel he has completed the third grade material. Then you'll get to see the improvement and you will have both for your records. I can imagine very few situations where you will be asked to show your testing results, but if it were me, I would want anyone who inquired to see that I was doing things by the book and for me, unless you are planning to hold him back and call him a third grader all next school year, then he's in third now until May. 

 

 

[My3girls]

I'm in GA, too. I pulled Dd2 at the end of 2nd grade and repeated it. I still tested her as a 3rd grader at the end of what should've been her 3rd grade year. Even though she had not covered 3rd grade material, her test results were passing so I just let it go. I'd test him in May to check the box. No one looks at the result but you so if you feel a need to retest him later do it, but legally there is no need.

[riverloke]

Thanks for the help.
I got a flurry of response on another online group tonight, and it looks like the PASS test is just the flexible thing we need. He can take a placement pretest that will sort him into the right subject levels for the test itself. I'm mostly concerned about his frustration levels, but if I bring him home now and he takes a leveled test at the end of the required time frame, before August, that's a good 6 months of school detox, and he'll most likely place in all 3rd grade levels by then, and we'll be just fine, legally, academically, emotionally.

[Ellie]

In the state of Georgia, homeschoolers are required to administer achievement tests every 3 years, starting in 3rd grade.

My child is in public school 3rd grade this year, but we're 99% sure we're withdrawing him to homeschool the rest of the year and beyond. Long story short, he needs to restart 3rd grade now, with some remedial 2nd grade skills first, and I hope to get him to the "end" of 3rd grade by the end of this fall. This will extend his 3rd grade year because his official start date was the public school's August 2015 start date. Do I need to test him at the end of the public school's school year, or can I wait until he might actually pass it? Will it depend on the public school's recommendations for him, maybe if they recommend that he repeat 3rd grade? Should I go ahead and do the test this May, knowing that we'll repeat it when we're ready to? I don't have to submit any tests or scores, only keep them in my records, but I don't want to break any important rules.

Thanks for your help.

 

Your key phrase is "I don't have to submit tests or scores." :-)

 

Since he has already been in school, he has an official grade level. I would test him towards the end of the year, just like every other third-grader. And I would order the third-grade test. The point is not for him to "pass" it; the point is for him to take a test which will compare him with other third graders. If he doesn't do well, that isn't your fault, is it? It's the school's fault.

 

At the end of sixth grade, you'll probably see a big improvement. :-)

[Ellie]

In the state of Georgia, homeschoolers are required to administer achievement tests every 3 years, starting in 3rd grade.

My child is in public school 3rd grade this year, but we're 99% sure we're withdrawing him to homeschool the rest of the year and beyond. Long story short, he needs to restart 3rd grade now, with some remedial 2nd grade skills first, and I hope to get him to the "end" of 3rd grade by the end of this fall. This will extend his 3rd grade year because his official start date was the public school's August 2015 start date. Do I need to test him at the end of the public school's school year, or can I wait until he might actually pass it? Will it depend on the public school's recommendations for him, maybe if they recommend that he repeat 3rd grade? Should I go ahead and do the test this May, knowing that we'll repeat it when we're ready to? I don't have to submit any tests or scores, only keep them in my records, but I don't want to break any important rules.

Thanks for your help.

 

Oh, and FTR, once you withdraw your son, the public school doesn't get to make recommendations about anything, ever.

[riverloke]

Yes, I was hoping that a recommendation to repeat 3rd grade might buy us another official school year to delay the test. 
But I'm happy with what I've found out about a placement test at the end of this summer.
Thanks for all the help.

Edited February 1, 2016 by riverloke

[SevenDaisies]

My son would have been in 4th grade this year in GA, but he was a late reader and so is completing 3rd grade work this year. I delayed my testing until the end of this year - his 3rd grade year. I do not believe the law specifies an age, only a grade.

[Ellie]

Yes, I was hoping that a recommendation to repeat 3rd grade might buy us another official school year to delay the test. 

But I'm happy with what I've found out about a placement test at the end of this summer.

Thanks for all the help.

 

But it really doesn't matter. No one sees the scores except you. What difference does it make how he does on the test?

[ElizabethB]

If you need remedial reading ideas, let me know! For remedial math, I don't have as many ideas but you could start a post about what he needs to work on for ideas---different programs are better for bringing an older child up to grade level than what people generally use and like at grade level, some programs lend themselves to acceleration better than others.

[riverloke]

We were homeschooling before this year, so I plan to fold him back into my original curriculum plans. 
I prefer classical and Charlotte Mason.

My early elementary plans for my kids, in the 3R's, are lots of Abeka for 1st and 2nd grade, to transition to MCP and R&S in 3rd grade. 

 

He's on the last chart of the Abeka Handbook of Reading, so I'll take him through that with the last section of Letters and Sounds 2. He needs remedial spelling, so we'll breeze through the entire Abeka 2nd grade spelling, before switching over to Spelling Workout C, maybe with Plaid Phonics C. For other language arts, I plan to finish the MFW LLfT3, maybe along with Abeka Language 2, before we get into R&S Beginning Wisely and LLfT4. He reads chapter books on his own, but I'm not sure about reading aloud with me. We have several readers, and I thought I'd get him into SOTW because he enjoyed that last year. 

 

We were doing Horizons Math before this year, but Saxon is calling my name, mainly because it's what I grew up with and I did very very well in math because of it. I'm going to start him at the beginning of Saxon 3.

 

We'll take the first few weeks to de-school with a box of Snap Circuits, an new art kit, and some xtramath.

Edited February 1, 2016 by riverloke