If we had no
winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of
adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. ~Anne Bradstreet
Welcome back
from spring break! I hope everyone had
an enjoyable vacation.
The month of
April brings MCA testing. It is always
advisable to make sure your child gets a good night’s sleep and protein-packed
breakfast on the day of testing. If you
have any questions about MCA testing please take a look at the “Parents Guide
to the MN State Test-2013” at the following link: http://www.eagleridgeacademy.org/news2.html The schedule for lower school testing is below.
April 16-17th- Grades 3, 4,and 5 MCA Reading Test
April 18-19th- Grades 3, 4, and 5 MCA Reading
Make Up Test
April 30th- May 2nd- Grades 3, 4, and
5 MCA Online Mathematics Test
May 9th- Grade 5 MCA Online Science Test
For more
information about preparing your child for testing, I have copied an article
from Our Children, the National PTA
Magazine below.
Helping Your Child Perform Well on Tests
Ronald Dietel
Published in the November/December Issue of Our Children, the National PTA Magazine
Teachers,
parents, and schools have a common goal and shared responsibility to have
children perform well on tests. Tests are, after all, the primary means on
which students and schools are measured.
Many test preparation recommendations focus on the physical aspects of being prepared for a test. Get a good night’s
rest the night before. Eat a good breakfast. Relax mentally.
Test
taking strategies, on the other hand,
frequently focus on ways to make a good guess or prevent a careless mistake.
Answer easy questions first. Avoid
answers that include words such as “all, none, never, or rarely.” When
completely baffled, select (c)!
Eva
Baker, chair of the National Research Council’s Board on Testing and
Assessment, emphasized that kids are different. “Anxious kids need
to be guided to reduce their anxiety.”
She also pointed out that tests
are different, consequently, children should prepare for the specific type of
test that they are taking.
Success
depends on good instruction, parent support, and hard work by students.
“Doing
well on tests ultimately means knowing the test content,” says Joan Herman,
Co-director of the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and
Student Testing (CRESST) at UCLA and author of several books on evaluation and
assessment. “Getting good at format and knowing the tricks of test taking only
take you so far,” says Herman, “if you don’t know the relevant content and
skills.”
Other
test experts said that when their own children were growing up, they emphasized
the learning process.
“I
focused on helping my children find methods of studying and reviewing that
worked for them,” said Dan Koretz, a Harvard professor and testing researcher.
“I
think the goal is to motivate but not freak them out, and to help kids see that
their performance is not tied to parental love,” added Baker. “The other big idea,” said Baker, “rather
than a gimmick—is to help kids understand that effort, not smarts, make the
difference.”
One
thing I did,” said Koretz, “is that I pushed them [my children] to discern what
level of studying generally produced a given grade, which was often more than
they initially thought.”
Research
backs Koretz and Baker up.
“Accomplishment
in a particular activity is often more dependent upon hard work and
self-discipline than on innate ability,” according to the U.S. Department of
Education in What Works: Research About Teaching and Learning. Written in the
1980s, the What Works pamphlet summarized key research findings sponsored by
the federal government and was reviewed by leading scholars.
A
key performance factor for a substantial number of students is test anxiety,
according to University of Southern California Professor Harold O’Neil, Jr.
“The
relationship between high anxiety and poor performance is particularly strong
for high stakes exams,” said O’Neil, including the SAT, advanced placement
exams and the Graduate Record Exam. One of O’Neil’s current research projects
is to develop an Internet-based program to help reduce student test
anxiety.
What You Can Do
Here
are some suggestions on what parents can do to help their children perform well
on tests, especially in a high stakes environment.
• Instill the value of learning in your child at an early age.
Encourage curiosity and provide a nurturing, learning environment.
• Make sure your children are good readers. Reading comprehension
is an essential skill in both learning and testing.
• Communicate frequently with your child’s teacher or teachers. Be
familiar with the content they are learning and the tests they are taking.
Never miss a back-to-school night where can parents learn what types of tests
their children will be taking and what students must do to earn a high
grade.
• Know your child’s learning progress and needs by monitoring
assignments, homework, and test performance. As your child matures, they should
need less monitoring, but if your child needs extra help at any age, make sure
they get it. If school instruction appears weak, getting more of the same
instruction may not help. Look to other resources if necessary.
• Increased accountability has moved many school districts and
schools to increase homework and the number of classroom tests. Establish a regular time for homework and
studying. Children should have a quiet place to work, free from distractions
such as e-mail, the Internet, TV, music and phone calls.
• Don’t make your child nervous about tests, even big ones. O’Neil
estimates that between 10-20% of children and adults have high anxiety
contributing to lower performance. On the other hand, if your child isn’t
preparing for a test and his or her results show a lack of concern, take
action. Again, children have different needs which themselves may be
inconsistent from one testing occasion to the next.
• Research indicates that positive self-imaging can improve
performance. Encourage your child to develop a positive attitude toward school
and testing. Knowing how to prepare for a test and following through can
contribute substantially to a positive self-image.
• Review tests with your child after they are returned home for
what they understood and what they didn’t. Teachers tend to use similar test
formats so reviewing tests is good preparation for the next test or as a clue
to better ways of studying.
• Tests and grading systems are not perfect. Classroom tests may
vary substantially in content, format, and level of difficulty, even with two
teachers teaching the same subject. A few teachers still believe in “killer”
tests to either wake students up or in a belief that hard tests and low scores
equate to good teaching. Parents should keep these factors in mind when judging
their child’s performance.
Lower School
Spring Pictures are on Thursday, April 11th. It is a free dress day for students who are
choosing to have their pictures taken.
The annual PTO
elections are taking place on Thursday, April 11th at 6:00. Please consider coming to the meeting and
taking part in the process. It would be
delightful to see some new faces involved in the PTO. Everyone is welcome!
Have a great
week!
Mrs. Baier
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