Stephanie Elms

Hey Kelly...I just wrote a post to my local hsing group about our
experience in testing...maybe it will help get the juices going.

The main problems that I had with our testing was that it caused us
(including Jason!) to focus on what Jason did not know. DH wanted to
know why his math score wasn't higher (and pretty much ignored his high
english score). I had a minor bit of panic when I first saw the math
part of the test (I got over it though). But worst was that after
finishing the math portion Jason uttered words he has never said before
"I hate math". Luckily we don't "do" math, so it is not an issue, but it
seemed sad to me and I was thankful that this is just a once a year hoop
we jump through (Virginia requires either testing or a portfolio review,
but the portfolios at becoming more and more tied to the Va "Standards
of Learning" (SOLs - yes I kid you not) so we choose the test).

The tests totally ignored all the other cool stuff that Jason does
know...his concepts of physics (momentum, friction etc), his love of
doing experiments, his incredible knowledge of ancient egypt, his great
problem solving abilities on his pokemon game, his curiosity, his
wonderful ability to recall just about anything about any character from
the Redwall books, well I guess that I could go on.

Oh another problem with tests is that people put too much emphasis on
them...I know that if my family finds out that we tested, they will use
the test score to determine whether homeschool is "working". Which is
why we had Jason take the test in January, so that we could always say
that the test was not a true reflection of his ability since it was
taken 6 months before the end of the "school year".

Oh, since I know that not everyone is up on the testing jargon...8th
stanine is "above average" (90th percentile meaning that he scored as
good or better then 90% of the kids who took the test) and 5th stanine
is "average" (50 percentile).

Don't know if any of this will help...I would love to see what you wrote
when you are done!

Stephanie E.

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie Elms [mailto:stephanie.elms@...]
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 2004 11:59 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [VaEclec] Our experience with testing

With Jason being in first grade this year, this was the first year that
we had to provide proof of progress..I posted a couple of months ago
with a bit of panic when I got a copy of the CAT test, mainly because I
was worried about the math section. We unschool and do not "do
math"...no drill, no workbooks. We use math a lot and play lots of games
with math and talk about math concepts. But still I was a bit worried
about the 2-digit addition and a couple of other problems with which he
had not much experience. I decided to just give it to him without any
real prep (I have been really enjoying watching as Jason gets new
concepts on his own and did not want "mess up" his natural progression).

We spread out the test over a week or so, working as long as Jason
wanted and then forgetting about it for a couple of days. Very relaxed,
on the couch. We started with language arts and as expected, Jason had
no problem answering the questions...I already knew that he has a great
vocab, wonderful comprehension and even though we did no formal grammar,
he had no problem picking correct tenses or changing declarative
sentences into questions. We moved on to the math section...this did not
come as easily to Jason...he had to think a bit more. But it was
actually pretty neat to watch him reason his way through. He seemed to
look at it as a big puzzle. First he would look at the problem, then he
would look at the answers and say "this one is ridiculous...this one is
ridiculous". Then he would look at the problem and see which answer made
the most sense. It was pretty neat to watch actually. Some he was only
off by 1 and some that I thought he would have trouble with he got no
problem! His approach was extremely logical and pretty remarkable to me
considering he has never taken a test before. :o) The other thing that I
found interesting was that after he was finished he uttered words that I
have *never* heard him say before: "I hate math". It surprised me and
made me kind of sad. I guess that it is a good thing that we don't "do
math"! LOL!

We got the results back very quickly. He scored in the 8th stanine in
language arts and 5th in math. One interesting thing is that DH
immediately focused on the math score, wondering why it wasn't higher
(dh is supportive of hsing, but not as convinced about unschooling). I
quickly reminded him that he does absolutely *no* drill and he took the
test 6 months early and he still did as good or better then 50% of the
kids taking the test. I also wanted to know why he was only focusing on
the lower score and why he thought that Jason had to do above average on
everything.

So what did I learn about testing? Well, I learned that tests really do
not tell me anything that I did not already know about Jason...well, not
exactly, I did learn that Jason is a better, more logical test taker
then I thought LOL! I also learned that tests can make you focus on what
kids *don't* know rather then on what they do. I also learned that it is
better to just relax about it and not make a big deal over it (we did
not tell Jason his score and he has not asked). All in all it was not a
terrible experience...I would prefer not to have to do it, but it is
worth it to be able to continue to hs. I *am* glad that it is over and
we can go back to our happy little lives free of testing for another
year.

Stephanie (in Annandale, Fairfax County)