Okay- can I just heave a big sigh of relief first? We are not in a state that requires testing, but if my kids want to play on the public school sports teams then we are supposed to test. So, this year we decided to test using the Iowa test administered by the state homeschool group. We tested our two oldest, and my husband came along to proxy one while I did the other. It was an eye-opener for DH to see how fast our one son reads- and how he reasoned some of the answers out. That was a good thing there. Plus, my kids got done and it was like, "That's it?". We got our results back last week, and one scored an 88 and one scored a 90 overall!! I can live with that! We told them that this time the test was to see how I'M doing in teaching them, and there were a couple of areas we all agreed that could use some work (capitals and punctuation). Now, next year the test will show how much the boys work on those areas. Anyway, I hope this made sense. I was just thrilled at how they did (even with the problem areas), because it gives us something to work for, and shows them that they ARE learning! And it was reassuring to my DH to see that we are accomplishing things in our schooling. Thanks for letting me "talk"!! Praise God for homeschooling, and what it is doing for our family! MT3
CONGRATULATIONS! We do need to tetst once a year, so we always do the ITBS test. Usually we've done it through a local Christian school, but there's all new faculty now, and they aren't ready/willing/able??? to work with us, so this was our first year of me proctoring my own chldren in my own home. Plus one of the girls who usually tested with us at the other place came and tested with us. My dd got 88 overall (which is actually low for her) and ds got 90 overall! So we got the same scores as yours did! For reading and spelling dd was grade 13+. She has the hardest time with the math computation...) We usually find an area or 2 or 3 to work more on for the next year. The thing that gets me is the reference materials section. It's not relevant at all in today's world, but it's still there to lower their score when they don't do well at it! But I don't really care, it's not something I'm worried about them HAVING to learn! Besides, we had a crazy year with so much traveling back and forth, so I'm happy they did as well as they did! We should compare again next year and see how we all did!
Tiffany- are you not testing since it's not a requirement, or will you test when they're older even though it's not a requirement? I am kind of obsessed with testing, i think we'd do it each year even if it weren't required. I never thought I'd be obsessed until I saw how much they progressed the years that we unschooled (it was a lot) Anyhow- my 7 yr old tested at a higher reading level than my 11 yr old and I know that's not true. I think my 11 yr old was bored with the test or something. So I'm kind of annoyed with our results this year. It's the first year we've used the MAP test. I'm not sure if I like the way the results are... kind of vague. I've heard of a computerized version of the Woodcock-Johnson. Anyone know about this?
