Standardized testing performance and anxiety

[CadenceSophia]

My 3rd grader will be taking our state assessment this year. This will be his first time. DH and I both believe that testing is a life skill and that starting young is a good way to get comfortable with it. I don't really care how my son scores but he is terribly nervous. The last time he took a similar test (might have been the DORA?), he realized that if he just hit SKIP that he could finish sooner, so he spent about 15 minutes on it and skipped anything that looked even a bit intimidating. Needless to say his score didn't actually reflect his ability.

 

This time, I want to balance the idea that testing is practice and we don't really care how he scores, BUT we'd really like him to try each question thoughtfully, without hyperventilating or shutting down before he even tries. I don't think he has serious anxiety issues, but he is definitely prone to "Nope. Too Hard. Won't Do It" (at least with me, highly doubt he would or will perform the same way for anyone else). When he LOOKS at questions and actually gives it a minute to sink in he is very bright. 

 

Adding to my nerves for him, I just went through the sample assessment and the questions don't look very much like questions that we do. There wasn't anything he hadn't learned, but I am afraid the different style and computer based nature of it will make it complicated and stressful. I could barely answer one of the clock questions myself because it was just so difficult to place the clock hands with the computer interface.  We do have some time to practice but...

 

Any words of wisdom? 

[Arcadia]

Is it the Smarter balanced or PARCC tests? Are the scores going to affect anything?

 

The reason I ask is because my oldest was in public school from K-4th. Teachers let him do his own thing because he was at the 99th percentile for state testing. So in a sense, the scores was a bargaining chip for the school to not bug him.

 

My younger did the Stanford 10 online tests a semester before he was supposed to do state testing. It was a good prep because Stanford 10 is untimed and I could see which sections he hit the ceiling. In the end they cancelled state testing for 2nd grade so he was spared that year.

[CadenceSophia]

I think they are calling it PEAKS. I didn't find much online except for what they specifically sent us so I am thinking it is only for our state. Last year's testing was cancelled state wide and I think this is a new test but I am not really sure since I didn't have a child old enough.

 

The scores don't affect anything unless he scores really really badly, and then we just lose the incentive and might as well not have taken it. There is no consequence or benefit to a super high score. If he puts in an average amount of effort there is no reason he won't score well.

 

The Stanford 10 might be a good practice run. That's a really good idea.

[EndOfOrdinary]

My son had terrible test anxiety (nose bleeds, throwing up, tried to run away from home). We would have completely removed tests, but he wants to go Ivy League. High stakes testing is in his future and a lot of it. So we canceled the chater school that made him test and we started doing five test questions a day, every day. Then we would sit diwn and talk through them. It took MONTHS. Now he not thrilled about tests, but does not have complete meltdowns.

 

If your child does not HAVE to test, I would not have him do it. It is very much a skill, but your child is also in third grade. There are many ways to prepare him for testing that do not require him to feel overwhelming anxiety or develop bad habits.

[CadenceSophia]

My son had terrible test anxiety (nose bleeds, throwing up, tried to run away from home). We would have completely removed tests, but he wants to go Ivy League. High stakes testing is in his future and a lot of it. So we canceled the chater school that made him test and we started doing five test questions a day, every day. Then we would sit diwn and talk through them. It took MONTHS. Now he not thrilled about tests, but does not have complete meltdowns.

 

If your child does not HAVE to test, I would not have him do it. It is very much a skill, but your child is also in third grade. There are many ways to prepare him for testing that do not require him to feel overwhelming anxiety or develop bad habits.

Oh my goodness. That sounds awful.

 

My son is no where near that level of anxiety. If it were, I'd do almost anything to get him out of taking it at this age. His personality is such that waiting a year or two or three probably isn't going to help. I have about 6 weeks to do whatever I can to make it more comfortable.

 

My state is awesome for homeschooling. We don't need to register, test or keep records of any kind, But the charter school we choose to register with requires the testing for extra circular funding so the carrot attached to this test is $600-$1200. There are possibly some ways around it (and it may not actually be enforced, idk) but I am certain we will need to cross this bridge at some point and now seems like as good a time as any.

[EndOfOrdinary]

Khan Academy helped. If boy child did not pay attention, he would make a small error and then have to go around again. It made him focus for just a little bit longer each time. That did a lot. It also created perseverance.

 

 

I don't know if the test is timed. If it is, we would start at 5 minutes a question and then slowly eeked that time down to about a minute a question. It gave him confidence to overcome.

 

Test anxiety runs in our family. Both my brother and my father have it just as badly as Ds did. We started early so that he could mitigate as much as possible. Scores are still not really a match for his ability, but they are SO much closer. He was in Special Ed range before.

[ondreeuh]

I think they are calling it PEAKS. I didn't find much online except for what they specifically sent us so I am thinking it is only for our state. Last year's testing was cancelled state wide and I think this is a new test but I am not really sure since I didn't have a child old enough.

 

The scores don't affect anything unless he scores really really badly, and then we just lose the incentive and might as well not have taken it. There is no consequence or benefit to a super high score. If he puts in an average amount of effort there is no reason he won't score well.

 

The Stanford 10 might be a good practice run. That's a really good idea.

 

PEAKS is just for AK and it is brand new. Last year testing was cancelled because of a network outage in another state (ND?). That was the AMP test, and it was only the second year. Before that, I think everyone got the Terra Nova.

 

The PEAKS is designed to assess whether your kid is meeting expectations. The first couple of years are probably going to be meaningless, as they will be collecting data and coming up with accurate norms. A couple of years ago when my kid took the AMP, our school said he wouldn't be "judged" on his performance since it was a brand new test without enough data. And the teachers said they looked it over and it was really hard - they predicted kids would do pretty badly on it. So he took the test and MONTHS later we got a report in the mail. The school never referenced those scores; they used scores from the previous year. And of course since last year was cancelled, they used those old scores again. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

I tell my kids - do your best so we get accurate information about what you know and don't know. But if you don't know it, don't stress about it - that just means we haven't gotten to it yet, and it doesn't mean you're doing badly. If you go too fast, don't check your work, or wildly guess, then your results won't really be helpful.

 

I got a letter about taking PEAKS but didn't see anything about practice. Thanks for the reminder to look that up.

 

[CadenceSophia]

PEAKS is just for AK and it is brand new. Last year testing was cancelled because of a network outage in another state (ND?). That was the AMP test, and it was only the second year. Before that, I think everyone got the Terra Nova.

 

The PEAKS is designed to assess whether your kid is meeting expectations. The first couple of years are probably going to be meaningless, as they will be collecting data and coming up with accurate norms. A couple of years ago when my kid took the AMP, our school said he wouldn't be "judged" on his performance since it was a brand new test without enough data. And the teachers said they looked it over and it was really hard - they predicted kids would do pretty badly on it. So he took the test and MONTHS later we got a report in the mail. The school never referenced those scores; they used scores from the previous year. And of course since last year was cancelled, they used those old scores again. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

I tell my kids - do your best so we get accurate information about what you know and don't know. But if you don't know it, don't stress about it - that just means we haven't gotten to it yet, and it doesn't mean you're doing badly. If you go too fast, don't check your work, or wildly guess, then your results won't really be helpful.

 

I got a letter about taking PEAKS but didn't see anything about practice. Thanks for the reminder to look that up.

 

That's a great way to explain it to the kids. Also good to know that they most likely won't have normative data so he probably can't be scored not proficient even if he does panic and hit skip on every question lol.

 

We are with Raven so our contact teacher sent out the practice with the time slot selection. If you have any trouble finding it on the website I can send it to you. The interface is really odd, imo, and worth spending a little time to practice on.