Saturday, April 2, 2011
Guiding Readers and Writers grades 3 - 6: Caleb's Chapter: Chapter 27-Understanding the "Tes...
Guiding Readers and Writers grades 3 - 6: Caleb's Chapter: Chapter 27-Understanding the "Tes...: "Chapter 27 of Guiding Readers and Writers underscores the necessity of interweaving test-taking strategies into the general curriculum. The ..."
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Oh my goodness! I just realized I messed up Caleb's summary of Ch. 27. That's what I get for keeping pushing buttons. I will blog anyway and if someone can help Ms. Technology here that would be great.
ReplyDeleteAs we all know and feel the pressure of high stakes test taking accountability is intense and has the potential to take some of our jobs. If that is not pressure enough, we continue to place students under more demanding pressure by expecting them to just "know how to take the tests".
We have been very guily at the middle schools in Anderson County, NWMS, anyway, to focus on our content area without focusing on literacy at all. I don't know how many times I have heard and probably said myself that "these students' cannot read". Sorry elementary school teachers! When a student is sent to sixth grade they are handed a large textbook (Social Studies, Science, Math, Language Arts, Technology, etc.) and expected to be able to read and decipher the text. We must be more responsible for continuing what the elementary school teachers have started. We must read, write, discuss our subjects with our students and allow them to do the same with us and the other students.
Now here we are at a crucial point in the year (standardized testing time), and I was very interested in this chapter. Number 2 on page 461 says it the best..."Create an ongoing curriculum to help students develop the genuine reading and writing abilities that will provide a foundation for good test performance (as well as all the benefits of a literate life)". Being a competent reader and writer is basic to performing well on tests. Well, yeah, if you can't read the material how can you test on it.
Middle school teachers, we have let our students down when it comes to literacy which leads to disappointing and degrading test scores and teacher effect. The real key to test performance is the high-quality reading instruction that students experience daily throughout the course of their education. We must "HELP" students to learn to read and respond to texts, make inferences from the text, compare texts, analyze the text, and choose materials related to purpose.
I liked the idea of students studying four books about one issue or subject or four books by a single author, or four books in one genre and produce evidence of learning. This requires the students to really think. I imagine giving students four articles about a topic in science by four different authors and having them compare and contrast the different author's theories. Or as we did at the ETHS on Friday, looking at the differences in Columbus as a hero or evil. What a way for students to discuss their evidence of learning.
Angela, I agree with your comment that if all teachers at the MS level would continue high-quality reading instruction, our students would be better prepared for these high stakes tests! Likewise, if EVERY teacher understood his/her responsibilty as a READING teacher, our students would be better readers.
ReplyDeleteI've not taught the higher grades or been subjected to such pressure to produce high scores, so it's difficult for me to see teachers spending weeks practicing THE TEST. I read recently that if we would explicitly connect our every day teaching to specific styles of testing questions, our students could make the connection without excessive test practice. For example, in our literature discussion group, four students state what they think the MAIN IDEA is. We could record these and show how all answers have some accuracy, but one is the BEST answer. We can teach testing genre everyday, using examples from every content area.
Students can't help but feel the pressure! I know the teachers do! What can we as coaches do?
Angela and Sue, I agree with both of you. We are really dropping the literacy ball at the middle school level.
ReplyDeleteSue, I do hate that we as educators are putting so much pressure on kids with weeks of TCAP review. My 4th grader comes home daily nearly in tears from the pressure she is feeling from her teacher about TCAPS. It makes sense to incorporate TCAP like review throughout the course of the year. This would help alleviate some of this pressure.
One teaching team in particular at my school has done a good job of doing just that this year. Instead of waiting until weeks before, they create their lessons around the intent of the standards. This has required their assessments to resemble the TCAP. I will be excited to see their TVAAS results.
That's right RaeAnn...we have dropped the literacy ball in middle school. I'm optimistic that we can really make some positive changes in the near future though. We can continue that high-quality reading instruction in the middle grades.
ReplyDeleteAs we think about testing, I agree that teachers should not wait until testing time to do TCAP review. I like the idea of creating assessments that resemble the TCAP. The testing format would be familiar to the students.
What about test-taking strategies? As mentioned on p. 465, "the task in multiple-choice questions is usually to select the best answer from a limited number of choices." We should teach our students how to take multiple-choice tests. On p. 467 there are some general suggestions for helping students do their best on these tests. If students were more aware of the structure of the test and how to take it, we might notice a significant difference in test scores.