14 Power Strategies
to Boost Reading & Writing Achievement on Standardized Tests
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Anticipate the tasks
2. Recognize question formats
Review similar tests
Regardless of your state’s assessment, all students are held to the standard of college and career readiness. Consequently, practice tests all tend to have the same question types.
- Access the “Released Items Repository” for the ILEARN assessment.
- Pearson hosts PARCC practice tests for grades 3-11.
- Smarter Balanced has sample items and tasks for Grades 3-8 and Grade 11.
- Test-released questions from the The New York Regents Exam are available for grades 3-8 and grades 11-12.
- FREE practice tests and tips for the new SAT (March 2016) are available on the Khan Academy website.
- The Reading & Writing Project offers texts sets (organized by grade levels) including passages, videos, and assessment questions. (Click on Resources, then Assessments, then Reading & Writing Performance Assessments.
Create your own technology-enhanced questions
Search or create technologically-enhanced questions utilizing over 30 different formats.
Access interactive online activities that simulate the tasks students see on standardized assessments.
Utilize Quizizz for frequent formative assessment
Maximize on-screen reading time
With all the researched disadvantages known, review ways to maximize on-screen reading time.
Nadine Gilkison, Smekens Education Digital Resource Designer, created these Google slides as a part of a classroom lesson.
Gaming Poster and Strategy Card: Compare similar reading skills between digital text and video games.
Analyze the research about on-screen reading
3. Decode vocabulary in questions
Decode the vocabulary within complex tasks
The standards include teaching the meaning of numerous general academic vocabulary that are universal across all content areas. This standard is assessed through the wording of questions and prompts. Students cannot accurately answer the question if they don’t understand the complex vocabulary within it.
101 Strategies to Make Vocabulary Stick
Access an editable PowerPoint template or Google Sheets to type in the key terms and simple definitions your students need.
When introducing new academic terms/phrases, provide a simpler kid-friendly synonym for each.
These close reading questions include the academic vocabulary seen on standardized tests.
Common Core Reading Warm-Ups: Grades 3-8 offers passages with corresponding questions and tips for decoding the academic vocabulary in the questions.
Decode prompts using a 4-step process
Rework a prompt to serve as the introductory paragraph in an extended-reading response.
This Teaching Channel video introduces the parts of an essay, including how to rework the prompt to serve as the introduction.
4. Identify the best answers
Note important words in questions and answers
Smoky Row Elementary teacher Barb Mahnesmith guides her fifth graders to analyze multiple-choice questions and answers.
Note the important or key words that would alter the meaning of each statement.
Guide students to eliminate wrong answers in multiple-choice questions.
PDF | Smartboard | Promethean
Access a Google doc for additional practice.
Access a PowerPoint for additional practice.
Teacher Katie Powell at Southmont Jr. High School (Crawfordsville, IN,) used special floor tape that leave any sticky residue. She gave “answer” index cards to each group and asked them to place the cards face down within the target. After all answers were placed, the class had a “big reveal.”