Elementary Testing Prep Resources

High-stake testing evokes a passionate response in almost all teachers. While I have strong feelings about testing, I recognize that standardized tests are going to be part of my life for the immediate future. Regardless of my thoughts, my students will have to take a high-stakes test this spring, and my value as a teacher will be judged on my students’ scores. No pressure, right?

I’ve known people who believe that teachers should not do any test prep whatsoever, and I’ve heard of others who more or less stop teaching to prepare for state tests. Neither extreme is helpful to students. You have to find a good balance of preparation and to avoid either extreme.

The absolute BEST test prep for 3rd graders is high quality instruction all year long. While I do not teach for the purpose of testing, I recognize the need for review. Stopping instruction and cramming huge amounts of test prep is not helpful for students. Instead, early in the year I begin adding short doses of test prep into my instruction.

Assessments

Students are easily tricked by wrong answers in multiple choice questions and often try to choose the first answer that could possibly work, rather than the best answer. I typically feel confident about my students’ basic math skills and conceptual understanding of the math concepts I’ve taught, but I’m usually not confident with their multiple choice testing skills and strategies.

To give students experience with this I made a multiple choice version of my math assessments. I really like the original version of the assessments, but I feel that my students would benefit from practice in a multiple choice format. When I created the questions and answer choices, I focused on common error patterns.

I use these assessments along with my short answer assessments. This is a great way for me to authentically integrate test prep into my assessments. Of course, this isn’t the only format of assessment I use, because I differentiate my assessments with a combination of traditional assessments, performance tasks, and projects.

You can find the third grade version of the assessments here or the fourth grade version of the assessments here.

Consistent spiral review is another essential component of test prep. Regular practice allows students to more easily store challenging skills and concepts in their long term memory, and it makes retrieval of those topics easier for students. One of my favorite quotes is, “practice makes permanent”. As much as I believe in the importance of spiral review, it’s hard to balance the need for spiral review with the need to continue moving forward with instruction. I typically incorporate my spiral review into my students’ morning work, homework, and centers.

Morning Work

I’ve written several different blog posts about my morning work, so I’m just going to give a brief overview. To learn more, you can start here. One assignment in our morning work folders are Weekly Word Problems. Students independently complete three word problems everyday, they write their own word problem on Friday.

Another activity is the Number of the Day, which I also love because of the repetition of skills practice for third and fourth grade standards. This is perfect for morning work or homework, and kids love it! There are six versions so you can differentiate as needed.

Classwork

I change things up a bit on Fridays. Rather than having my students complete their typical morning work, they complete what we call “Super Testers”, which is another form of spiral review. I particularly love this review, because it’s presented in a multiple choice format. The questions and incorrect answer choices were all deliberately added in specific ways to ensure my students would be prepared for their high stakes test. My students complete the assessment independently, and we grade them together in class. Each student has a pen the she/he uses to grade their assessment. We discuss each question, and students keep track of what they’ve missed.

Another one of my favorite strategies for spiral review classwork is through Math Check-Ups. I use this in place of math exit slips. Rather than giving the assessment at the end of class, I give it at the beginning. This allows me to see who retained the content from the previous day’s lesson. I’ve found that this is much more effective and measuring students’ understanding, because it gives them time to forget. These assessments are very short and should never take students more than 5-10 minutes to complete.

Homework

I know there is a lot of debate about homework. Many teachers don’t have a choice, so in those cases I highly recommend spiral review practice pages.

There are several math options you can choose from.

I also have a third grade and fourth grade version of the spiral language review. These go over every single standard pertaining to that grade level. These were no joke to create!

Centers