With increased accountability for schools to demonstrate student achievement comes high-stakes testing. Althoughtesting can be stressful for students and teachers, there are measures we can use to lessen that stress and helpstudents do a better job showing what they know.
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1. Use Data
Throughout the year, use data to drive instruction and meet the needs of individual students and the class. Whatstrengths did students have? What were their weaknesses? What areas do you need to spend more time on? Do youneed to break students into smaller learning groups to focus on these areas? Ask yourself these questionsthroughout the year as you continue to monitor students’ growth on key skills and purposefully andthoughtfully plan scaffolding into lessons.
2. Teach and Provide Practice with Multiple-Choice Strategies
Sometimes, we assume students know the tricks and tips to answering multiple-choice questions, but that is notalways the case. During lessons, it is easy to model the thinking processes and strategies for students and leadthem through guided practice on items already in your lessons and assignments. What are the key words in thequestion? Can some choices be eliminated? Students also need to know it is OK to skip a difficult question andreturn to it, especially if a test is timed. Teach them to mark skipped questions so they can easily find themto answer later.
3. Include Explicit Instruction on Depth of Knowledge (DOK) Words
We all understand building students’ vocabularies is critical to success in school, but academicassignments and assessments have their terminology. Students may have difficulty understanding what a questionis asking them to do or what kind of answer a question needs. Building instruction of DOK words into everydaylessons can be quick and easy since students are constantly being assigned questions to answer across contentareas. Underlining the key words in questions and discussing what information the answer needs, shows studentsthe process and builds comprehension skills. Help students know where to find the information in the text, ifnecessary.
4. Teach Previewing and Reading for a Purpose
Most assessments today have a reading comprehension section or questions that involve reading information orwordproblems. It is helpful for students to preview the text looking for text features, like title, headings,pictures and captions, graphs or charts, bold or italicized words. Thinking about the clues these text featuresgive is an important step in comprehending text. One might believe these strategies only apply to ELAassessments, but math, social studies, and science tests often include lengthy word problems, passages, ordocuments for students to read. Knowing why they are reading the text, the structure of the text, and whatinformation will be important, will help students be more successful in analyzing it.
5. Use Strategies for Planning and Drafting Constructed Responses and Essays
Have you watched students brainstorm wonderful ideas and then not be able to put those same ideas into a roughdraft? One critical step in the writing process is the planning stage, which comes after prewriting(brainstorming, listing, etc.) and before drafting. There are quick, easy-to-use outlines and graphic organizersstudents can utilize in class and on their assessments to plan and organize their thoughts before answering.Most high-stakes assessments even provide a space for students to prewrite and plan for open-ended questions andessays. Even better, planning tools can be taught and used across content areas and grade levels. Step Up toWriting® has several proven, effectivestrategies for this purpose.
6. Create Positivity
Whether students have emotional or behavioral difficulties or test anxiety, high-stakes assessments can befrustrating. Creating a climate of “Can Do” and teaching ways for students to deal with the stressof testing will help lessen frustration. Teach students to take small, slow breathing or stretch breaks duringtests in ways that will not distract others. Remind students how to deal with difficult questions—look forclues, break apart the question, take your best shot, return to it later—so they will not immediately giveup. As educators, we are good at reminding parents to ensure their children are fed and well rested on testdays, but we need to include parents in more aspects of high-stakes testing. Start by communicating test-takingstrategies to parents and caregivers and incorporating those into homework. Have students practice relaxationtechniques at home. Celebrate completing testing and meeting goals in school and include parents and caregivers.
Today, high-stakes assessments are an integral part of our students’ educational experiences. By utilizingthese strategies, we can create a more positive testing environment and set up our students for increasedsuccess.
Improve state writing scores with writing practice that focuses on the skills found on most state tests.Step Up to Writing® Fourth Edition is an unparalleled writing instruction program designed for learners of all levels and types in grades K–12.
