I give the Woodcock-Johnson Test of Achievement to home-schoolers in Western NC. I like it because it is primarily oral, there are no bubble sheets, and the results are available immediately (at least when I'm doing the testing). Also, because it is a one on one test situation, I can often detect learning issues or make recommendations to the parents based on learning styles, etc. My son is not old enough to require testing, yet, but it is also the test I will have him do. There are several of the hs'ers that test with me and do the ITBS. As far as when to give the test. I think the state of NC recommends March and April, BUT the majority of mine test the last of April and May. I've tested a handful the past couple of weeks, taking this week off, then next week, it hits hard. Some weeks I will be testing upwards of 15 - 20 students. :/
well for the moment I am working with my kids doing the LA and Math assessment tests, I will see if they are up to grade level at least and if there is anything they don't know... that will be good enough for the moment.
I do the standardized testing because it is the easiest way to fulfil the requirements in my state. In my city, the ps system has a homeschool office in their main building. The tests are done there. We are scheduled to take tests June 17 and June 19th. The best part is that it is completely free.
the only problem i would have with that is that its the government school system doing the testing... and will they be honest? in my state with all the garbage they had going on I would seriously wonder.
We do ours through the ps and they send us a copy of the Stanford report. I think it all depends on the district.
That's a good point. From my ds's scores I think our system for the moment is grading honestly though. I think the main problem is that homeschool kids may not be prepared for the tests because of how different we can teach our kids and our methods can be so different. I mean, my kids were learning world history and chemistry when kids in their grade were learning american history and life sciences. Also the way I teach math may vary with the way the school is teaching math...actually I know it is as I know a few math teachers.
If I order a test from one of these companies, and we move, will this be what they use to determine what grade DS will go into in that state?
Probably not. They'll ask you what grade he is and then evaluate him for reading and math...even if you have report cards from a pub sch when you transfer, they still always eval the kids themselves. I asked a similar question of our kids old Dept of Defense school before we moved to see if they felt we should do a correspondence type school to get a transcript. They said even if we had one or had nothing to show what we've done, they still eval for themselves.
We finished the girls CAT-E tests last week (half way done with my son but he's in K and not req'd to test). Got their results this week. They both did well. So well, that it's annoying because their actual percent is higher than the standardized norm. For example, my oldest didn't miss one question (she's good at testing like this) but she still couldn't get higher than a 93 in vocab because evidentally 7% of kids tested also got them all correct. It was the same for other sections. Her overall composite should be a 100 but its lower because its normed. (It was a 99 but my perfectionist daughter is annoyed) Anyway, she works mostly above grade level but we test at the grade she would be in pub. sch (in accordance with VA law). I don't really care what the normed score is as long as it meets the law req'ments of 23% and 4th stanine.......BUT for my daughter its hard for her to understand. She worked hard all year and scored 100% on every section of the test but didn't get it to send to the local school district....this bothers her. I've explained the process but it's still annoying to her. Fortunately the testing results do show that she answered the questions correctly. My younger daughter had the same sort of issues...only her perfect math section was normed at an 86 because evidentally 14% answered them all correct in the year that the norms are based on. Fortunately, she couldn't care what it says. I told her how many she missed total on the test and off she raced to play :lol: My son's testing won't be quite the same result. He's a wiggly boy. He's taken 3 of the 6 sections. He did fine on 2 of the 3, sound recognition always gets him...he's NOT an auditory learner and has trouble with hearing rhyming and ending sounds....but the rest of the sections should go better next week. Ahh.....the reasons I wish that VA law wasn't easiest to satisfy with a standardized test. I wouldn't test every year otherwise. I would test periodically but not annually.
