Standardized testing--how do you use the results?

[egao_gakari]

My kids are taking the Stanford 10 this week and I'm wracked with anxiety even though it's not required and I'm literally just doing it to assess my own teaching. I've peeked over their shoulders at  times and happened to observe BOTH kids mark blatantly wrong answers on topics we've COVERED in class. I'm not worried when there's stuff on the tests that we haven't gotten to yet, but when there's a question about a jar with water, sand, gravel, and sticks, and the 5th grader very confidently answers that the sticks will fall to the bottom, below the gravel and sand... I mean, a) we've covered density, volume, displacement, etc., and b) isn't the answer just common sense?! It's not like she's never seen a lake before... we have one behind our house! I wish we still had emojis because I'm currently tied between the one that scurries around frantically and the one that bangs its head against a brick wall.

SO I guess this post is mostly just asking, if these kids get really bad results on the test, on stuff that I know I've taught... how should I go about altering my teaching, or judging on a more frequent basis whether they're actually retaining what I'm teaching? I know the 5th grader needs extra science help, so I'm splitting them up next year to give her extra attention. But I have to admit, I thought they would breeze through this test, and now I'm worried that nothing I'm teaching is sticking!

[Momto6inIN]

I read the title and my first thought was "to beat myself up with, mostly" lol

Seriously, though, I have conflicted feelings about standardized tests. They are not required in my state for hs'ers, and for a long time after coming home from ps I steered clear of them because my kids had been tested plenty in ps. But I knew they'd need to take some for college and whatnot, and I didn't want the younger ones to be totally unfamiliar with them. So I decided to do ITBS with my 3rd grader. It was sooooo frustrating because I KNEW she knew some of the stuff they were asking, but it was in an unfamiliar format or worded differently than she was used to. And some of the stuff they tested was stuff that I personally think is stupid and purposely don't teach. So it was frustrating that I felt the test was testing all the wrong stuff. And yet I chose to administer the test, so what did I expect?!? I was very worried that she'd do poorly on the results, but her scores were solidly a little bit above average. Which opened up a whole other can of worms as far as second guessing myself goes. My older kids (who had been to ps for several years) all consistently topped out the charts in the 90th percentile ranges. And I personally feel she's just as bright and intelligent as they are (if not more so possibly) an she "only" scored a little above average. So of course my hs mom brain started flipping out that I'm ruining her, etc. etc. When all it really means is that I am purposefully giving her a different type of education than the others received in their early years and the test does not accurately reflect all that she knows and all of her strengths.

Standardized test will mess with your head, man.

[egao_gakari]

34 minutes ago, Momto5inIN said:

I read the title and my first thought was "to beat myself up with, mostly" lol

Seriously, though, I have conflicted feelings about standardized tests. They are not required in my state for hs'ers, and for a long time after coming home from ps I steered clear of them because my kids had been tested plenty in ps. But I knew they'd need to take some for college and whatnot, and I didn't want the younger ones to be totally unfamiliar with them. So I decided to do ITBS with my 3rd grader. It was sooooo frustrating because I KNEW she knew some of the stuff they were asking, but it was in an unfamiliar format or worded differently than she was used to. And some of the stuff they tested was stuff that I personally think is stupid and purposely don't teach. So it was frustrating that I felt the test was testing all the wrong stuff. And yet I chose to administer the test, so what did I expect?!? I was very worried that she'd do poorly on the results, but her scores were solidly a little bit above average. Which opened up a whole other can of worms as far as second guessing myself goes. My older kids (who had been to ps for several years) all consistently topped out the charts in the 90th percentile ranges. And I personally feel she's just as bright and intelligent as they are (if not more so possibly) an she "only" scored a little above average. So of course my hs mom brain started flipping out that I'm ruining her, etc. etc. When all it really means is that I am purposefully giving her a different type of education than the others received in their early years and the test does not accurately reflect all that she knows and all of her strengths.

Standardized test will mess with your head, man.

 

That's really encouraging to hear, in a weird way ? part of the issue of course is that it's difficult to get a good sense of the range of questions, but some of it is also that I'm worried about their ability to apply their baseline knowledge to questions that are being asked in an unfamiliar way. I have no idea how to teach that skill!

[8filltheheart]

I have only ever given my kids standardized tests in states I have had to in order to fulfill the state's requirements. I don't give them bc they have never revealed anything I didn't already know.

• His spelling is below avg. Really? I didn't know that when seeing with spelled withe or whith or whithe. ?Or he is very advanced in math. Yeah, the alg at 10 didn't give me a hint about that either.

Fwiw, I would not pay any attention to any standardized results for subjects other than LA and math.  What we do at home does not even remotely resemble a ps sequence, so there would be zero correlation between the test and their knowledge.

in terms of the question you posted, **after** the testing is over, I would ask your child to look at the lake and ask which would be on the bottom: rocks, dirt, or wood and see what her response is.  Sometimes, the answer is as simple as they didn't pay attention to what the question asked (maybe she read it as which wouldn't be on the bottom.) Sometimes they read too much into questions ("I thought that answer was so obvious that that couldn't be what they were asking, so I thought they must have meant for the wood to stay on the bottom it would have to be under the rocks and sand.") 

Take the tests for what they are worth (an indicator of how they were stressed or not, paying attention or not, caring or not). I personally don't think they reveal much. I know exactly how my kids are performing and the only thing that matters to me is how they perform compared to their abilities, not compared to standards based on a bubble test.

[cintinative]

I'm agreeing with Momto5inIN regarding the messing with your head part. 

In our state you can do either portfolio reviews or testing. I did both for a couple of years because I found the portfolio review more helpful when they were younger and I was really only testing to give them the experience of testing.  Or, that is what I told myself. Last year my oldest had a big dip in his reading score (from the 90s to the upper 60s) and it freaked me out. I wondered if I was missing something about his reading comprehension. We don't do book reports, workbooks about books, etc. here, only verbal discussion. Yet, there was literally nothing I felt I could have done differently.  I had covered everything to the best of my ability. I had given him good quality books to read. I had no indication there was an "issue."  Fast forward to this year, I did nothing differently and he scored in the upper 90s percentile wise for reading.  Honestly, I think last year was a fluke. He said the questions were confusing last year. Maybe it was just a bad testing day. I don't know.  

I guess my point is that we need to keep in mind with testing that it is a snapshot of one day and not necessarily a good one.  It was only natural for me to worry about the drop in score, but I should have placed more faith in my own assessment of his skills than I did.  Sometimes the questions they present in the tests are worded in crazy ways on purpose.  

This year we had a discussion pre-testing about the fact we don't do "social studies" here like they do in schools (we cover history) and that there were likely to be things they didn't know. Also with the science, maps, etc. there may be things we just didn't cover, and it's okay.  We don't teach to the test here, and the schools do. We are on a science rotation and it's been three years since we covered "Chemistry."  I am not worried. We will cover all that is truly needful.  

 

[sweet2ndchance]

Talk to any public school teacher and they will tell you the same thing. They have the same frustration of watching their students mark wrong answers on standardized test for material they have covered all year ad nauseum. The only difference being that their jobs might be at stake.

Testing doesn't test knowledge per se. Testing tests how well one can take a test. You can find literally thousands of articles and studies that say over and over again that standardized testing does not give an accurate measure of student knowledge or teacher competance. It is just the most convenient way to test massive numbers of students and obtain tons of data but it says nothing about the usefulness of the data collected. Not all data is useful data. Testing shows how well a child did on one given day. They could have been distracted (thinking about something other than the test would be enough without external distractions like noise), they could have been nervous (could she sense you were looking over her shoulder or watching her?), could she just be getting burned out and need a brain break before continuing to test?

I remember thirty or so years ago going outside for fifteen minutes between tests during standardized testing to get up and move around for a while so we were less likely to burn out. So does that mean that our test scores might be higher than a school who cannot or does not do that? Is it fair to compare the scores of students in these situations? The rules regarding how the tests are administered attempt to ensure that every testing environment is more or less the same but you cannot always plan for every factor that might increase or decrease a child's test score.

[Kuovonne]

As soon as I get my test results, I overanalyze them to death. Then when I’ve confirmed that they really don’t tell me anything new, and I’m not going to change anything based on the test results, I file the test results away and forget about them. We continue working on the areas that I already knew need work.

I also no longer look at the test questions myself, and I am happier that way. I remind myself that I test my kids for the experience of testing, and that the actual results don’t really matter.

[freesia]

I read something that Debra Bell wrote that said that before fifth grade her kids weren't really consistent in showing what they knew on standardized tests.  Having now had 4 third graders take the IOWAs, I just concur.  They are all over the place on the third grade tests and by fifth (the next time I test) they are consistently very high (except in spelling, where, as 8 says--not a surprise!.)  I was actually really pleased that my present third grader did as well as she did in reading as she didn't really read until Sept. 

 

[73349]

To comply with state law.

And... not a whole lot else. I see my kid doing the same thing sitting next to me every day that he does on the test, to the extent the test tests anything relevant: he's a science and social studies rock star who wins anything he can reason his way through, but bombs what could be aced just by memorizing/applying rules he "should've" known two years ago.

[8filltheheart]

Our experience is that they can just prep for the ACT/SAT wo regard to early testing.  It really isn't a biggie to spend a few hours during the summer learning how to take those tests.  I personally think the types of questions asked are significantly different than anything on the non-college bound company tests.

[Carol in Cal.]

DD took the state tests most years because we were in a public ESP and then a public charter.  I would print out the practice questions off the state website, she would do them little by little, and we would talk about the answers and how the test tries to trick you.  Then she would always do better on the actual tests because of avoiding those dumb mistakes.  I didn't love spending time on this, but I figured it was a necessary skill, and indeed by the time she got to take the Catholic high school entrance tests she totally aced them.  

I still resented it as a waste of time, but consoled myself that the public schools spent one afternoon per week on this starting in the beginning of January (testing being in May), so at least we wasted a lot less time than the schools did.  And honestly, her taking that test was kind of a public service to the schools that she was enrolled in, since her performance was consistently good and it made them look good.  I thought that was a nice thing to do for them.

[daijobu]

Others have done a great job of covering the testing issue.  But if you think your students aren't retaining the information as you thought they were, you can try what is recommended by BFSU science.  I had my dd's keep a science notebook.  At the end of each lesson I would give them an oral quiz.  So I'd ask them, "what happens when you put a stick into water and why?"  I'd transcribe their response and draw the appropriate diagrams on the whiteboard as they also drew it into their notebooks.  So if there were any misunderstandings (and there were plenty), I could correct it right away.  For some reason they appear to understand while I'm explain it, but when I ask them to explain it to me, the disconnect was clear.  

This was just for elementary and middle school, where I didn't do any other sort of testing in science.  

[Tsuga]

11 hours ago, Momto5inIN said:

I read the title and my first thought was "to beat myself up with, mostly" lol

 

Yeah, either question my entire life and parenting strategy or massage my ego, depending on the test.

These tests are designed to provide anchors for growth measurement. If I knew my kid had specific college goals that required standardized test scores and I felt knowledge wasn't reflected in the scores, I'd consider planning financially for standardized test prep starting in high school, early middle if the child's goals and percentiles were way out of whack.

Other than that--not a lot you can do, really, unless you've really been totally slacking. Most likely the scores reflect familiarity with the situation and the kid's propensity to perform at those specific types of tasks, than actual ability. Much more important would be how the child took on work independently as they grew (i.e. do they read books and retell them for fun, do they apply basic mathematical thinking when estimating how to use their allowance, can they make a graph for a science project, etc.).

[Arcadia]

My kids did the Stanford 10 online tests years ago.  We (husband and I) chose that test because it is online and untimed. We did it to get my husband’s parents off our backs for “undereducating” our kids. 

My DS13 has always been a very quiet child. He prefers a written test to oral test even in public school kindergarten. He tends to test well anyway so the test scores just validate that he test well. He had state testing in 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade as a public school kid so he was already a seasoned standardized test taker.

DS12 has always joked when anyone asked him a question. He always does better when taking a test in a classroom so ironically does better for SAT and ACT testing than he ever did for class tests for his online class.  He does well for class tests for his outsourced brick and mortar class. He just does better doing tests “in a crowd”. For him test results just validate that he likes to clown around when answering questions under non-test conditions even when he knows how to answer. 

[linders]

I wouldn't worry about the details of the specific questions and tests for now, but I might start doing some standardized test questions together every once in a while. They may not matter while homeschooling, but someday your kids may need/want to take PSATs/SATs/ACTs where it does matter for colleges and scholarships. Test taking is a skill - reading the question carefully, understanding what is being asked, knowing how to narrow down possible answers. Some kids do this intuitively (my DS15 is good at it), some need explicit instruction (my DS17). I know there are many flaws with standardized testing, but it is a fact of life.

[purpleowl]

I also give my kids a standardized test (ITBS) each year even though it's not required of me. I want them to be comfortable with the format of standardized tests, and I want outside confirmation that their relative strengths and weaknesses are where I think they are. If results do not confirm what I believe to be true about their strengths and weaknesses, I reflect a little bit. Is there a good explanation for the mismatch? Why did I believe things were like this, and why did the test show things are like that instead? Do I need to adjust the way I assess my child's progress in that area so I can have a clearer view of her abilities? Is there a change I could make in my instruction that would benefit my child more than what we're currently doing? ...And then I make changes, or decide not to, and I file the test results away and forget about them.

During test taking, I try not to watch them answering the questions because it drives me batty when I see them answer something wrong that I *know* we talked about. ? I don't give anything away on the outside, but on the inside, I'm going, "Really, child? REALLY?" 

I also point out to my kids that the way we approach science and social studies is not the same as most schools, so I don't expect them to know everything in those sections. (Well, I don't expect them to know everything for any section, but I point out that it's okay if they feel uncertain/clueless on more questions in those sections.) 

[Bambam]

I started my girls when the oldest was in 6th grade - only because she would freeze on math tests at home. If there was anything slightly different, she would freeze up. Obviously that would be bad for test results, so I had her take the Stanford with a group. Her little sister (3rd grade) demanded to go too, and so I gave in. Normally, I would not test kids under 6th grade. They don't know enough, imo, to do standardized tests.

I got the results. I laughed at some. My 3rd grader's reading comprehension was very high, but she didn't do well on identifying short vowels and long vowel sounds. I didn't see any reason to care about that at all! And since she just scored a 36 on the reading portion of the ACT, I feel vindicated. 

So, I realized that some of the test were things that I didn't really care about because they were not important to us. I had already suspected that when I looked at our state's standardized tests and found a question about convergence on a 3rd grade math test. Really? Usually you don't talk about convergence until you get to high school where it actually applies to the math you are studying and isn't just a vocabulary word. And I realized that many of the questions were on things they had to think up so they would have something to question the kids on. 

I tested them once with the IOWA and CogAt. I liked the CogAT portion. But the basic test - so much of those topics were things we hadn't covered or things I didn't really feel were important. The math? Yes. The reading comprehension? Yes. The science - totally depends upon what you have been studying vs. what is on the test. Social studies - hit or miss. 

I continued to test my girls every other year - for the experience of a timed testing situation. Once we could switch to the PSAT, we did (I had the youngest take it in 9th and 10th grade as practice before it counted in the 11th grade). 

[catz]

We've had to test annually in our state and my kids just didn't take it real seriously at their ages.  We did switch from oral format to written earlier than some just because I thought hey if you're not really going to try you might as well practice a bubble test.  I had one kid that would always ceiling whatever section of a test he got first and hit or miss the rest before about age 11.  LOL.  They'll take it more seriously as they mature.  And my oldest is taking his final ACT this week that took his first standardized test orally in kindergarten (PS) so I really have seen a progression.

[wintermom]

We don't have to do standardized tests here, but I have used a few of the on-line versions with my dc. The on-line versions have the answer and marking keys. I use them to:

- get a little taste of what it's like to do a timed assignement

- become familiar with how questions are can be worded

- see if they can use some critical thinking to figure out what is being asked and try to answer the question

Then the most important part for me, is that we go through the test and look at what the student answered and what the expectation was using the marking key. If I didn't have the students' answers and the marking key, I wouldn't bother with this if I didn't have to.

[Lori D.]

Wow, I don't think it occurred to me to get worried about DSs and testing -- although, we did it with our homeschooling group, so I was NOT in the position of *watching* them fill in wrong answers -- that *would* be stressful! (:P

I didn't start DS#1 with testing until grade 4, and DS#2 not until grade 5. Scores before that would really have been meaningless. They took the tests up through 8th grade, which gave me enough consistency to see that they were progressing (although, I could clearly see that without tests, just through their daily work and through the fact that they were moving forward through the levels of material each year). Probably the main reason we tested was for ME -- to make sure I didn't have have gaping "holes" in things we were covering. For example, after one earlier year of testing, the scores in one area made me realize we hadn't covered things like maps, graphs, and charts. So I made a mental note to add in something for getting exposure to that for the following school year.

My other reason for testing was to help DSs.
- help them relax about the idea of timed tests
- help them practice the "art" of transferring your answer from the booklet to the answer sheet and filling in bubbles properly
- help them learn some "test taking tips and tricks" (for the first 2-3 years of tests, we spent several months in advance of the tests spending about 10-15 minutes 3x/week going through a test prep booklet)

Since everyone else they knew in the homeschool group was testing all together, it actually made it a fun break in the routine. For those 3 mornings, we met at a church, the boys got some practice of being in a class setting with other kids, and taking direction from someone not me, and then on the way home we would stop for ice cream, and then do no other formal schooling for the rest of the day. All of that worked to make testing not stressful for DSs.

PS - re: what to do if the test results seem to indicate kids are not retaining info
If this is your student's first test, or the student is below 6th grade, I wouldn't read too much into the test results. I know kids from our homeschool group who got out of order on the bubble answer sheet, so it ended up looking like a complete fail. Some kids over-think the questions. Some kids haven't yet figured out the "trick" to how to test or what the questions are looking for. Young elementary ages are all over the place in learning and in focus for testing. And, your material may have a different scope & sequence so the students may be seeing material that is all new to them...

All of that to say, I don't think I'd worry too much unless you see 2-3 years in a row with one area repeatedly coming in with low scores -- lower than you would expect for what you've covered. At that point, you want to take a close look at what materials you are using -- are they solid? do they fit the student's learning style so the info "sticks"? And look at how you are schooling -- are you consistent in regularly covering that area? are you leaving the student to work solo too much, or not checking in regularly to monitor the student's progress? And once you rule out those things, there might be the need for an evaluation to see if there is some sort of disability or issue that is impending learning...

[EKS]

All kids make bonehead errors on standardized tests.  In fact, you can use the results of standardized tests to get a rough idea of the level of mastery of grade level material--90th percentile and above indicates mastery (which is different than instructional level).  What this means is that 90% of kids have *not* mastered grade level material.  Since most of these kids are working at their instructional level (or frustration level), they are going to make what seem like ridiculous errors on grade level tests, but these errors are only ridiculous if you're assuming that they have achieved mastery.

Homeschoolers (me included) love to talk about "working to mastery," about how they don't move forward until their child has "mastered" the material.  Unfortunately, to have truly mastered something to the point of being able to apply it flexibly at a (sometimes much) later time can take *years* of practice and/or consolidation (depending on the task and the person).  This is why if you were to give middle-aged adults a math test, the vast majority would top out at about a 4th or 5th grade level.  Yes, they may have learned algebra and geometry and even calculus back in the day, but none of that was given a chance to fully incubate and set, so three decades later, it has mostly seeped into the ether. 

[egao_gakari]

On 6/5/2018 at 3:21 PM, freesia said:

I read something that Debra Bell wrote that said that before fifth grade her kids weren't really consistent in showing what they knew on standardized tests.  Having now had 4 third graders take the IOWAs, I just concur.  They are all over the place on the third grade tests and by fifth (the next time I test) they are consistently very high (except in spelling, where, as 8 says--not a surprise!.)  I was actually really pleased that my present third grader did as well as she did in reading as she didn't really read until Sept. 

 

Hmm, I do see this with my kids. My 5th grader did not do as well with this test as the 7th grader, definitely.

On 6/5/2018 at 9:54 PM, daijobu said:

Others have done a great job of covering the testing issue.  But if you think your students aren't retaining the information as you thought they were, you can try what is recommended by BFSU science.  I had my dd's keep a science notebook.  At the end of each lesson I would give them an oral quiz.  So I'd ask them, "what happens when you put a stick into water and why?"  I'd transcribe their response and draw the appropriate diagrams on the whiteboard as they also drew it into their notebooks.  So if there were any misunderstandings (and there were plenty), I could correct it right away.  For some reason they appear to understand while I'm explain it, but when I ask them to explain it to me, the disconnect was clear.  

This was just for elementary and middle school, where I didn't do any other sort of testing in science.  

I do BFSU too, and I've noticed this exact phenomenon! I've spent literally an hour on notebook time after certain BFSU lessons where it appeared that she was following along just fine.

On 6/6/2018 at 7:04 AM, linders said:

I wouldn't worry about the details of the specific questions and tests for now, but I might start doing some standardized test questions together every once in a while. They may not matter while homeschooling, but someday your kids may need/want to take PSATs/SATs/ACTs where it does matter for colleges and scholarships. Test taking is a skill - reading the question carefully, understanding what is being asked, knowing how to narrow down possible answers. Some kids do this intuitively (my DS15 is good at it), some need explicit instruction (my DS17). I know there are many flaws with standardized testing, but it is a fact of life.

Yeppers, DS13 is a very intuitive learner and absolutely aced this test (cool that the results come out so quickly). DD11 needs absolutely everything to be explicitly taught.

On 6/6/2018 at 10:03 AM, wintermom said:

We don't have to do standardized tests here, but I have used a few of the on-line versions with my dc. The on-line versions have the answer and marking keys. I use them to:

- get a little taste of what it's like to do a timed assignement

- become familiar with how questions are can be worded

- see if they can use some critical thinking to figure out what is being asked and try to answer the question

Then the most important part for me, is that we go through the test and look at what the student answered and what the expectation was using the marking key. If I didn't have the students' answers and the marking key, I wouldn't bother with this if I didn't have to.

Do you have a certain website that you use for the online versions of the test with the marking key? I'd love to use something like that.

1 hour ago, EKS said:

All kids make bonehead errors on standardized tests.  In fact, you can use the results of standardized tests to get a rough idea of the level of mastery of grade level material--90th percentile and above indicates mastery (which is different than instructional level).  What this means is that 90% of kids have *not* mastered grade level material.  Since most of these kids are working at their instructional level (or frustration level), they are going to make what seem like ridiculous errors on grade level tests, but these errors are only ridiculous if you're assuming that they have achieved mastery.

Homeschoolers (me included) love to talk about "working to mastery," about how they don't move forward until their child has "mastered" the material.  Unfortunately, to have truly mastered something to the point of being able to apply it flexibly at a (sometimes much) later time can take *years* of practice and/or consolidation (depending on the task and the person).  This is why if you were to give middle-aged adults a math test, the vast majority would top out at about a 4th or 5th grade level.  Yes, they may have learned algebra and geometry and even calculus back in the day, but none of that was given a chance to fully incubate and set, so three decades later, it has mostly seeped into the ether. 

This is a FANTASTIC perspective!! I was blown away by DS13's test results--90th percentile or higher in every subject... meanwhile DD11 floated in the 60's, 70's, 80's depending on the subject. I was sort of tearing my hair out wondering if I was somehow failing her--but from this perspective, she's being challenged at her grade level, which is perfectly fine, and it's DS who needs more challenging work and perhaps needs a higher level of the test if we choose to do it again next year. I am very, very encouraged by your comment ? 

[Arcadia]

For your 13 year old,  I would consider using any of the 8 free SAT practice test in this CollegeBoard link and do them under timed conditions for next year.

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/full-length-practice-tests

Stanford 10 is untimed while the ACT, SAT and AP exams are all timed tests. I prefer the paper version of the SAT practice test as the actual test is still on paper for the Saturday test dates. Khan Academy has the computerized version of the same practice tests if you prefer the online version. 

[wintermom]

17 hours ago, egao_gakari said:

Do you have a certain website that you use for the online versions of the test with the marking key? I'd love to use something like that.

In Ontario, Canada, the public schools used standardized tests for grades 3, 6 and 9 for math, reading and writing, and grade 10 for a literacy test. There are sample tests and marking keys on-line at this website: http://www.eqao.com/en

[deerforest]

On 6/5/2018 at 12:13 PM, 8FillTheHeart said:

I have only ever given my kids standardized tests in states I have had to in order to fulfill the state's requirements. I don't give them bc they have never revealed anything I didn't already know.

• His spelling is below avg. Really? I didn't know that when seeing with spelled withe or whith or whithe. ?Or he is very advanced in math. Yeah, the alg at 10 didn't give me a hint about that either.

Fwiw, I would not pay any attention to any standardized results for subjects other than LA and math.  What we do at home does not even remotely resemble a ps sequence, so there would be zero correlation between the test and their knowledge.

in terms of the question you posted, **after** the testing is over, I would ask your child to look at the lake and ask which would be on the bottom: rocks, dirt, or wood and see what her response is.  Sometimes, the answer is as simple as they didn't pay attention to what the question asked (maybe she read it as which wouldn't be on the bottom.) Sometimes they read too much into questions ("I thought that answer was so obvious that that couldn't be what they were asking, so I thought they must have meant for the wood to stay on the bottom it would have to be under the rocks and sand.") 

Take the tests for what they are worth (an indicator of how they were stressed or not, paying attention or not, caring or not). I personally don't think they reveal much. I know exactly how my kids are performing and the only thing that matters to me is how they perform compared to their abilities, not compared to standards based on a bubble test.

 

You totally saved me a lot of typing! We have to do yearly testing in our state, and it's never enlightening or useful. Just a checkbox. 

[rutamattatt]

Our first year of standardized testing freaked me out while I waited for results.  My DH is a "numbers" guy, so he was very invested in test scores to help him reaffirm to himself that homeschooling was the right choice.  I finally had to sit myself down and do an evaluation on my own of what I thought their strengths and weaknesses were.  And go figure - I was dead on when we got results.  We do testing every other year.  

This year my 7th grader didn't do great on the "social science" portion, but we did a year on World War 1 & 2 so he didn't nail all the Constitution questions.  In years past I would have taken that info and freaked myself out that my DS won't ever be able to get into colleges competing against his PS peers because we didn't do Constitution studies in 7th grade.  Now I take that info and file away that we need to make sure we spend some time in history on the Constitution this coming year.  (And then I start planning how we can combine DS16's government class with DS14's Constitution study need because I am all about reshaping the wheel and not reinventing it...). So like a previous poster said, I have learned how to let the test scores serve as more of a guide for planning and tweaking.  

One of the hardest challenges for me with regards to homschooling has always been trusting that the path my kids are on is a good path.  Test scores can rattle that insecurity cage.  I've had to learn to use them as a tool and not as a gavel.  

[egao_gakari]

38 minutes ago, rutamattatt said:

Our first year of standardized testing freaked me out while I waited for results.  My DH is a "numbers" guy, so he was very invested in test scores to help him reaffirm to himself that homeschooling was the right choice.  I finally had to sit myself down and do an evaluation on my own of what I thought their strengths and weaknesses were.  And go figure - I was dead on when we got results.  We do testing every other year.  

This is pretty much our situation... I wouldn't do standardized testing at all if I'd been HSing them all along, but they're my stepkids and spent several years in PS before coming home, so DH is pretty eager to compare their pre- and post-HS scores. Every so often we get hints that the non-custodial parent doesn't approve of homeschooling (in fact, she attempted to bring it up in a court hearing last summer, where it was immediately shut down as irrelevant), so we want to make sure that if it ever does get brought up in court, we've dotted all Is and crossed all Ts. For hubby, that means testing even though we're not in a testing state, and potentially sending them back to PS if their test scores after HS are worse. Definitely not my preference, but it's the way it is right now.

(He also recently started a small business and has been working from home a lot, and the kids are driving him up the wall. I think he was secretly hoping their scores would drop so he'd have an excuse to send them back to PS ? )

[RootAnn]

Well, I'm in the same boat as Tsuga,

On 6/5/2018 at 9:28 PM, Tsuga said:

Yeah, either question my entire life and parenting strategy or massage my ego, depending on the test.

We do IOWA (or, as we call it, "the ITBS") here in 4th, 6th & 8th. We don't need it for state testing. We don't need to waste 3-4 days on it every year, but it is good to be tested in a timed environment to get comfy with the idea. It helps me to see if I've just missed something completely (a la maps, charts, graphs like Lori D said) and if they are progressing. So far, the kids have shown growth each time they took the tests, sometimes small growth & sometimes bigger growth. By 10th, we've moved onto the ACT. (I made my oldest take both the ITBS & the ACT in 8th. I might have dd#3 do the ACT in 8th as well. We'll see when we get there.)

I remember when the results came back from dd#1 taking the ITBS in 6th & dd#2 taking it in 4th. DH joked I deserved a raise for one kid's results & to be put on probation for the other's.  Not all of us have kids who score near the tippy-top of the % range.

I purposefully didn't look at ds#1's answers this year because I knew I'd bang my head against the wall in frustration. Give him 10,578 more repetitions in everything & he'll be fine. DD#2 helped me learn that some kids just need to go over it a zillion times or more.

It was helpful to have dd#1's ITBS & ACT scores with us when we took her to a brick & mortar school for a tour & to talk to the guidance counselor. DD#1 didn't want to go, but if she had, those scores backed up my 9th grade transcript & got the guidance counselor to change her mind about whether to make my DD repeat 9th grade or transfer in as a 10th grader. [Nothing would have helped at the local school, but one district over is more welcoming. That guidance counselor is the one who allowed dd#1 to take the PSAT there in 10th & 11th grade. I will be forever grateful to her.] So, if everything hit the fan here (one of us parents died, for example), those test results would help get my kids proper placement in a brick & mortar school somewhere.

[cintinative]

14 hours ago, RootAnn said:

So, if everything hit the fan here (one of us parents died, for example), those test results would help get my kids proper placement in a brick & mortar school somewhere.

 

I never would have thought of this, but that is so true.

[SamanthaCarter]

I use them to send to the state. That’s it. I’ve seen over the previous three years that they really aren’t very diagnostic, so I don’t care anymore. My kids place pretty far above the minimum acceptable score for the state, so I’m happy we arent raising flags. 

[Irene Lynn]

I homeschooled our daughter all the way through and her first standardized test was the PSAT.  I did give her an SAT prep book to go through before taking it.  She stressed out with tests when she was little, so I didn't push it.  I also didn't need any proof of how she was doing.  Our son went to public and private school until 4th grade, so he was tested with our state's test, Iowa basics, and CogAt a few times.  The private school did not follow the state's schedule with science and social studies.  They did a small amount of practice questions to make sure the style of the test did not interfere with the results.  My son found that helpful.  We both think that going into it cold he would have made more goofy errors.  In the private school there were only 10 kids in his class.  The material was good, the teachers tried hard to cover and review material to get it in their heads, but some kids failed the state test and some kids pretty nearly aced it.  I am guessing the others were somewhere in the middle.  I am only personally aware of a couple of kids at the top and a couple at the bottom.  (I helped with tutoring after the testing, which is how I became aware of a few results.  That and another mom complaining about the test and the results.)  Their test results were consistent in all three tests.  My point is that kids can test all over the place with the same diligent teaching. I did not have my son test this year, but I might in another year or two to see how it compares with previous testing.  I'm curious and he doesn't stress out with testing.  Interestingly, my son still showed solid scores in areas of science that had never been covered in school.  He is not a big reader either, though he does like science and can think logically.  It does make you wonder what the tests show!

I did share the test results with my son.  We talked about his weakest areas (spelling) and his strongest areas.  Both my kids can be idealist and pretty hard on themselves, so we talked about how he had much more to learn in life, but he was doing very well with his progress at his age. Don't look down on your progress, sort of thing.  Also, since we were going to homeschool in 5th, we talked about a game plan for spelling.  He doesn't like it, but he could see that though it wasn't horrible, it was his weakest area that needed continued effort.

I have decided after this year of homeschooling that I want to have a day every so often, where we review what we have covered so far. This shows him that we have covered some new material and just refreshes the mind.  A lot of knowledge needs time to sink in fully.  I have found that small amounts of priming the brain to rework that pathway every so often works better for long term retention for my kids than a ton of drill work at one time and then mostly leaving it.  EKS talked about "mastering" material and forgetting it later...  I agree with this. Most high school and college subjects are crammed into the brain in a relatively short period of time and then left there.  Those subjects are the easiest to forget.  If those subjects are built upon in a later class, then the brain thinks about it for a stretched out period of time and tends to retain it better.  I have found that doing fewer grammar or math questions on new material each day and then adding in a few review questions on the past material every day, kept the brain reworking how to do those other types of problem until they were easy. This actually required fewer total problems and cemented the concept better.  Ex. Learn about multiplying fractions today and do about 5 straight forward problems and a story problem, then do one adding fractions and one subtracting fractions with carrying or regrouping.  The next day do 5 more multiplying fractions and challenge problem and do one fraction problem requiring simplifying in the answer and one problem finding greatest common factor.  I keep rotating the review questions to keep the brain coming back. Some kids may need more drill or a different technique than my son to establish a new concept, but the small amount of review over a length of time after introducing a concept, does make a long term difference. 

Overall the testing isn't that helpful unless you need the scores to get into a program or the ACT/SAT to get into college and get scholarships.