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Archive : 2008 : February : 4

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By starry1

I just posted something about this further down so i copied and pasted it here:
We do that once a week test taking thing....I actually am starting to do it twice week...my school orders special booklets for us: Test Ready
(math and language arts) which is good for comprehension and basic computation and modeled after national standards....then we also have special prep books based for our State tests...We also have released test questions for the state website.....

we teach them HOW to take a test, by modeling and helping them practice certain Test Tip strategies.....we have special colored

posters to help us, such as Plug and Play, Find the Stinker, Reread, Underline the answers, read the questions first, look for context clues, and etc......the kids get real familiar with the strategies. I say, okay today we are working on this one specific strategy....but after awhile they start to use a variety of them....also sometimes we just use the Test Tips on our regular work (such as if we need to read all the answer choices to fill in the blank)
I also have a Test Tips poster in my room.........

Anyways, we have a "Go for the Green" campaign at our school...All proficient/advanced level kids are green....all basic kids are yellow....all Below Basic and Far Below Basic kids are Red......its like a stop light....usually when we grade these tests we put the color next to how much they missed and stuff...it really motivates them(sometimes i put a color on their tests or even some class assignments) we have colored posters in our rooms to help motivate them too....they seem to understand the color-coded rubic a lot better than letter grades or even numbers...they all know Green means third grade level and where they are supposed to be...yellow means almost there....red means try harder.....

ACADEMIC VOCABULARY: I do this a lot with my class, especially because i have many students who are limited in their English...I teach them academic vocabulary throughout the year, its a lot of Spiral Review..such as if i teach them synonyms/antonyms, thats when I would introduce those academic words...etc...but it's also constantly reviewing those terms with them, so that they remember them....
I also have a list of academic words and I make sure to teach them the different terms, like i said its best to teach the vocabulary with context.....

we are beginning to also go over academic vocabulary on our test prep days...we have a composition book/journal called Test Words....we write the definitions in these books....I sometimes introduce new terms to write down in the books when we come upon them in our test prep booklets. I also keep track of the terms on chart paper..