Winning Strategies for Test Taking, Grades 3-8: A Practical Guide for Teaching Test Preparation

145 Pages·2009·1.994 MB·English

by  Linda Denstaedt, Judy Cova Kelly, Kathleen Kryza

WINNING
STRATEGIES
for Test Taking
Grades 3–8
ForMarciaStein,MikeKelly,andRogerPothus,
whoseloveandencouragementnourishusonourlifejourneys.
WI N N I NG
STRATEG I ES
for Test Taking
Grades 3–8
A Practical Guide
for Teaching Test Preparation
L i n d a D e n s t a e d t
J u d y C o v a K e l l y
K a t h l e e n K r y z a
Copyright©2009byCorwin
All rights reserved. When forms and sample documents are included, their use is
authorized only by educators, local school sites, and/or noncommercial or nonprofit
entitiesthathavepurchasedthebook.Exceptforthatusage,nopartof thisbookmaybe
reproducedorutilizedinanyformorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permissioninwritingfromthepublisher.
Forinformation:
Corwin SAGEPvt.Ltd.
ASAGECompany B1/I1MohanCooperative
2455TellerRoad IndustrialArea
ThousandOaks,California91320 MathuraRoad,NewDelhi110044
[phone] India
Fax:[phone]
www.corwinpress.com
SAGELtd. SAGEAsia-PacificPte.Ltd.
1Oliver’sYard 33PekinStreet#02-01
55CityRoad FarEastSquare
LondonEC1Y1SP Singapore048763
UnitedKingdom
PrintedintheUnitedStatesof America
Libraryof CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Denstaedt,Linda.
Winningstrategiesfortesttaking,grades3–8:apracticalguideforteachingtest
preparation/LindaDenstaedt,JudyCovaKelly,KathleenKryza.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-4129-6702-0(cloth)
ISBN978-1-4129-6703-7(pbk.)
1. Test-takingskills—Studyandteaching(Elementary) 2. Test-takingskills—Study
andteaching(Middleschool) I. Kelly,JudyCova II. Kryza,Kathleen. III. Title.
LB3060.57.D462009
371.26—dc22 2008049665
Thisbookisprintedonacid-freepaper.
09 10 11 12 13 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
AcquisitionsEditor: CarolChambersCollins
EditorialAssistant: BrettOry
ProductionEditor: VeronicaStapleton
CopyEditor: ClaireLarson
Typesetter: C&MDigitals(P)Ltd.
Proofreader: DennisW.Webb
Indexer: SheilaBodell
CoverDesigner: MichaelDubowe
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
AbouttheAuthors xiv
1. CoachingTestThinkers 1
2. Test-ReadingStrategies 17
3. Question-AnsweringStrategies 51
4. ConstructedResponseQuestions 71
5. WritingtoaPrompt 89
6. PreparingtoUseThisUnitof Study 113
References 121
Index 123

Preface
Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things losers don’t
liketodo.
—AlbertGray,Officialof
thePrudentialInsuranceCompanyof America
I
n this age of high-stakes testing, teachers feel pressured to spend more
andmorevaluabletimepreparingstudentstotaketestsandlessandlesstime
preparingstudentsforlifebeyondschoolandtests.Theproblemiskidsdon’t
reallycareabouttests!Today’sstudentswanttobeinspired,challenged—they
want to see a connection between what they are learning and their lives.
Whenwefocusonrotememorizationof informationovermeaningfullearn-
ing, more and more students do not see school as a place where they are
learning information relevant to their lives. And we are losing them.
According to Klem and Connell (2004), “By high school, as many as
40–60%of allstudents—urban,suburbanandrural,arechronicallydisen-
gagedfromschool”(p.263).Clearly,teachingtoatestorfocusingamajor-
ity of teaching time on test taking is not working for students (or for
teachersforthatmatter).Buttestsdohavetheirplaceintheworldof edu-
cation. So how do we strike a balance between preparing students to be
effectivetesttakerswithpreparingthemfortheworldof the21stcentury?
Wedecidedtowritethisbooktohelpteachersfindthatbalance.Inour
many years as educators, we’ve discovered that the methods teachers
applytotestpreparationmakeallthedifference.Sowedesignedthisbook
tohelpteacherspreparestudentsfortestsandforlifeusingmethodsthat
areengagingandmeaningfulforstudentsinGrades3through8.Thegoals
of the book are to (1) inspire students by helping them see themselves
as competent learners and confident test takers, (2) show teachers and
studentstheimportantlifeskillsthatareinherentinlearningtotaketests,
and (3) create an efficient three-week unit of study on test taking that
vii
viii •• Winning Strategies for Test Taking, Grades 3–8
allows teachers and students to deeply learn the skills and strategies
neededfortesttakingsotheycanspendtherestof theyearonothernec-
essaryandmeaningfullearning.
Toinspirestudentstobecomeconfidenttesttakersandlifelonglearn-
ers,weteachthemskillsthattheyown,skillsthatgenuinelytransferout
of theclassroomandskillsthatmakeadifferenceintheirlives.“Akeyfind-
ing in the learning and transfer literature is that organizing information
intoaconceptualframeworkallowsforgreater‘transfer’;thatis,itallows
the student to apply what was learned in new situations and to learn
related information more quickly” (National Research Council, 2000,
p.78).Transferfromschooltoeverydayenvironmentsistheultimatepur-
poseof school-basedlearning.
Throughout the book, we ask teachers and students to reframe test
taking by thinking about it as a sport or a game. Like sports and games,
testtakingrequireslearningasetof skillsandemployingasetof strate-
gies to reach a final goal. These skills and strategies can be learned
through practice, just as skills and strategies needed to play a sport or
game are learned. When students see the connection between sports or
gamesandtesttaking,itnotonlyraisestheappealof testtaking,butalso
helps connect the skills they are learning to their lives outside of school.
Therefore,teachingtesttakingwithinthesportorgameanalogycreates
a powerful conceptual framework to help students acquire and transfer
theskillstheyneedtosucceedinandoutof school.
Toshowstudentsandteacherstheimportantlifeskillsthatareinher-
ent in learning to take tests, we studied and researched state tests from
aroundthecountry.Weanalyzedthekindof thinkingandrespondingthat
learnersareexpectedtodoonthesetests.(SeeFigureP.1,“Characteristics
of StandardizedTests.”)Thenweextrapolatedthekeymetacognitiveskills
studentsneedtoacquirethiskindof thinkingandresponding.
Thisallowedustoshowstudentsthatlearningimportantmetacogni-
tiveskillswillpreparethemtobebothgoodtesttakersandlifelonglearn-
ers.Forexample,whenteachingstudentstowritetoaprompt(atypeof
writingtheyprobablywillnotuseoncetheyaredonewithschool),teach-
erscansuggestthattherearepowerfulmetacognitiveskillsembeddedin
learningtowritetoprompts.Theabilitytoquicklyandeffectivelyframe,
organize, and communicate thoughts is indeed a skill students will con-
tinuetousethroughoutlife(injobinterviews,atsocialevents,evencon-
vincing their parents to let them stay overnight with their friend). Now
studentscanseetheconnectionbetweenwhatweareaskingthemtodo
fortheshorttermandhowitwillbenefittheminthelongterm.Learning
to take tests includes valuable life skills such as metacognitive self-talk,
decisionmaking,andformulatingeffectiveresponses.
Preface •• ix
Figure P.1 Characteristics of Standardized Tests
Characteristics of Standardized Tests
• Tests sometimes crowd many words on a page.
• Questions always follow the selections.
• Multiple-choice test questions are sometimes written in
very formal English.
• Multiple-choice test questions may ask about a similar
concept in different ways.
• Multiple-choice answers sometimes include distracters
that draw attention away from the correct answer.
Copyright 2009 by Corwin. All rights reserved. Reprinted from Winning Strategies for Test Taking, Grades 3–8:
APractical Guide for Teaching Test Preparation, by Linda Denstaedt, Judy Cova Kelly, and Kathleen Kryza. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Corwin, www.corwinpress.com. Reproduction authorized only for the local school site or nonprofit organization
that has purchased this book.