(Continued from EdWorld At Home)
Here they are: a list of top-5 things you the parent can do to
help alleviate standardized testing pressures.
5. First of all, realize that some (but of course not all) “testiness”
that goes around the house might be related to tests. While the
“accountability movement” has its supporters, detractors,
and experts who disagree about what it is in the first place, there’s
no doubt that testing is a bigger deal than it used to be. If a
kid’s showing impatience, etc., it might be worth asking (later
on, perhaps) if he or she is sweating a test.
4. Okay, if you find out your kid is sweating a test, the next
step is to sort what kind of test it is. A Friday spelling quiz
shouldn’t cause same kind of anxiety as a state mandated standardized
test, but especially with younger kids, they might not know that.
They might know that there’s a whole lotta testin’ goin’
on, but not really understand that various tests are of various
degrees of importance. It’s always best to do your best, but
don’t inflate the importance of a Friday spelling quiz unnecessarily.
3. Deal with the “globally overwhelmed” child. In other
words, perhaps test anxiety is just part of an overall feeling of
losing control. Especially in middle school, kids are suddenly overwhelmed.
One reason for this is that they are juggling more tasks, yet still
may be depending on whatever old habits they’d developed in
elementary school for keeping up. Sometimes this hits hardest the
kids who are accustomed to being successful in school. They haven’t
had to write down their assignments, for example, because they really
have had elementary school (one teacher with a couple pull-outs,
for example) mastered. Suddenly, there are more assignments, multiple
teachers (who may or may not coordinate to present the child with
one simple calendar), and each task is bigger than before. Sports,
music, dance, etc., also become more demanding in middle school.
How to deal with the swamped kid? Well, first of all, explain that
it’s normal to get swamped and to have to learn techniques
like keeping a to-do list. If you can pick a moment when you’re
not having to reconstruct your child’s homework from archaeological
layers of papers in their room, it might help, by the way!
2. Help by understanding the scope of the test, so that you can
also put that in perspective for your kid. A “big history
test” can be kind of an intimidating prospect, especially
if a kid has been resisting the work and isn’t sure whether
World War I or the dinosaurs came first. Kids can have a tendency
to exaggerate (a lot! I mean, really, a million times over!), and
finding out that the “big history test” involves knowing
the names of the 13 original colonies can give you a feeling of
confidence that you just might be able to coach your young historian
to a reasonable degree of success on this one. Of course, finding
out that your young Churchill has left a whole semester’s
studying to the Sunday night before the semester final would be
another matter, and probably would require more of a long-term approach
to correcting some very poor time management.
1. In addition to reassuring your kid that test anxiety is something
that everybody experiences, it’s important to link preparation
and results in your kid’s mind, so that the testing does what
it really should do – make your kid a more industrious student!
Make sure your young test-taker knows that the more and better preparation
he or she puts in, the better his or her resulting test grade is
going to be. Make sure he or she understands that the next test
will most likely be a more pleasant experience if he or she totally
keeps up with the homework and studies hard.
That said, you might also remain alert to the possibility of asking
for help from a school psychologist. Most of the time, of course,
test anxiety is temporary, manageable, and your kid will get through
it just fine. Severe test anxiety, however, might be an issue to
get help on. Like so many things in parenting, it’s your judgment!
Here’s an article for administrators from
Education World that you might find interesting.
From the Principal Files
Has Accountability Taken All the Fun Out of Teaching and Learning?
Does the accountability movement in schools force teachers to spend
more time teaching to the test? Does the emphasis on testing take
all the fun out of teaching? Education World's Principal Files principals
share their thoughts about the impact of standards and testing on
classroom teachers and students. Click
here for more!
Education World®
Copyright © 2005 Education World |