Children at the Center: A Workshop Approach to Standardized Test Preparation, K-8

By Kathe Taylor

Do tests really matter? Whether they accurately reflect how much children have learned is a question many teachers would answer with an emphatic No But as the movement for standardized testing sweeps the nation, it is clear that tests do matter: When children don't do well on them, they suffer. Children at the Center provides solutions for resolving the ethical and practical dilemmas posed by this trend. It was written by teachers who have seen otherwise well-respected schools damaged by poor test scores . . . who have personally struggled with assessment that doesn't align well with curriculums . . . who have discovered that most teachers are ill-equipped to confidently interpret norm-referenced test scores, and therefore be effective advocates for students. Mostly, it is written from a pragmatic perspective geared toward the needs of children. To that end, readers will find: an innovative, ethical, inquiry-, and workshop-based approach to test preparation practical, teacher-ready workshops and student materials that have been field tested in several states; and refined based on classroom teacher feedback models of responses to real-life questions parents typically ask about testing a teacher-friendly review of norm-referenced test construction and interpretation. As standardized tests continue to shape curriculums, and teachers are held more and more accountable for student performance, Children at the Center will prove essential in helping us pass the real test: preparing children for the future.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0325000956
• ISBN13: 9780325000954
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Heinemann
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.9" x 0.3" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Help your students learn how to deal with standardized tests

This book grew out of ten one hour workshops for upper-elementary school kids that the authors developed working with classroom teachers. The seventy-nine fifth graders who did the first version of these raised their median performance on the total battery of the district's annual normed multiple choice achievement test from a normal curve equivalent of 41 to a normal curve equivalent of 65.7. (Detailed step by step accounts of what the teachers and kids did and why are the heart of the book, and the materials they used are in an appendix.) The workshops focus on collaborative activities that help students learn how to show more of what they actually know on tests like these, paying some attention to helping them manage their feelings as well as attention to helping them understand how the questions work and ways to go about answering them successfully. Other chapters discuss issues teachers face in explaining norm-referenced results to parents and what teachers can and can't ethically do about helping kids improve their test taking. (One gives a clear comprehensible review of some relatively sophisticated and practically important issues about how norm-referenced tests are constructed and what the results can and can't actually be used for, too.) This is a smart, principled and practical book that will be especially useful to teachers who'd like to use collaborative, inquiry based learning to help their students do better on multiple choice, standardized assessments.