Dear Families:
Here are some tips to improving your child’s test-taking performance
Tip #1: Read, read, read! One of the best and simplest steps to improve the reading ability of children is to provide sustained periods of time for children to read.
Tip #2: Help your child to read like a writer. One of the best ways to improve reading comprehension is to teach children to read from the point of view of the writer by “getting into the head” of the author.
Tip #3: Read a variety of books and magazines. In the world outside of school, students need to be able to read a variety of texts, from road signs to restaurant menus, from comic books to classics, from tennis shoe ads to computer manuals. To help your child became savvy in many reading situations; provide them with abundant reading opportunities.
Tip #4: Build your child’s reading stamina. One of the main problems children face with reading generally, and with reading tests in particular, is they just give up. To build reading stamina, you may want to encourage your child to gradually increase the amount of time he or she reads at one sitting, set individual reading goals and take short breaks.
Tip #5: Teach your child that visuals are part of the text. Test items may require students to do more than just read the words in a passage. Students may need to gather information form photos, captions, drawing or charts and graphs.
Tip #6: Help your child know how to use text-based support in written responses. Most of the constructed-response items in the ISTEP exam contain two parts. First, the student is asked a content question such as “What is the main idea of this passage?” or: Why is this appropriate title for the story?” Second, the student is told to support his or her answers with details and examples from the story. If students give answers to questions but do not support those answers adequately with specific details from the passage, they will receive only partial credit. This is the most common cause for the loss of points on the ISTEP test. You can improve your child’s score simply by teaching your child to use specific details from the story.
Tip #7: Teach your child to read the test questions first. While directions on most standardized test tell students to read the passage first and then answer the questions that follow, classroom research has proven that many students do better if they read the items first, then return to read the passage. Reading the question first gives students a purpose and direction for their reading.
Tip #8: Help your child find out how many test items they can hold in memory while reading a passage.
Many elementary students will have trouble remembering more than two questions at a time. Even high school students probably will run into trouble if they try to remember more than four items at a time.
Tip #9: Teach your child to identify all parts of a question. Another test-taking skill you can teach your child is how to identify exactly what each question is asking. Some questions have multiple parts, and these parts are often combined into a single sentence with a single question mark at the end. Students should underline each question word (who, what, when, where, why, how, and any other word or phrase that indicates a question). By doing so, they can see if a question has multiple parts. (Next to not supporting generalizations with specifics, not answering all parts of a multi-part question is the most common mistake on the ISTEP exam.
Tip #10: Teach your child to paraphrase test items, turning questions into statements. For example, the question “Why did the main character steal the ball?” could be rephrased as “The main character stole the ball because…” This practice allows the child to phrase the question in a way that makes the most sense to him. He is then ready to read the passage and look for answers.
