Lost on how to handle 2nd grade assessments

[Anonymous]

DS is in FCPS 2nd grade, he had speech and reading delays and is just now caught up. He does Math and Reading consistently each for 30 mins every day and is doing very well in these areas.

Now almost every other week, we get an email from the teacher about an upcoming assessment like Native Americans, Explorers, famous Americans, Science etc. We are given only 1-2 days notice and the material sent home is usually atleast 10 pages long and appears that DS does not recollect much from his notes when we do review with him.

DH has to spend 1-2 hrs after his workday to go through materials with DS and DH is getting really stressed out.
- I really wish they had text books so DS can read up and prepare days/weeks in advance and get into a routine over schoolwork. For e.g. in Famous Americans, rather than reading about 8 Americans in 2 days, if he could spread and study over 8 days, I think he can retain better.
- Whereas DH thinks if DS listened in class he would have gotten 80% of the content and would only need 15 minutes review at home. I dont know, I was not much of a listener in class either.

This is brewing a lot of unhappiness at home, which is soon going to blow up. In our parent teacher conference, the teacher just said all materials are discussed in class, and no online materials or textbooks are available.

What do you do for kids who cannot readily absorb all stuff being taught in class by just listening??

[Anonymous]

I think reviewing for more than 15 min. is counterproductive. What you describe seems excessive. Have you asked the teacher what she expects or how your son should be "studying" -- at this age, it shouldn't be a hard-core studying process. They should be picking it up at school. If not, maybe the school needs to do more for him during the lessons or during the tests.

[Anonymous]

OP,

DH may be partly right. Chill. Mastery is not required. Teacher is just letting you know. This is not that important. The idea is to get a general view of the information. Some kids may be more 'into" it. Go over it, and let it go.

[Anonymous]

I would not do all that work at home. If he's not retaining it from class and the other kids are, teacher should know the class thing isn't working. Also, can you ask DC or teacher who the person was so you can pull up autobiography frim internet bf the review material comes home right bf the test.

[Anonymous]

I went through this. My son was in second grade and bringing home work that (I'm not kidding) was taking 5 hours to complete. He sat at the kitchen table and cried. I thought something was wrong because he couldn't get through it. I finally asked his teacher if he had to do all of it. She said, "no, stop after 30 minutes."

My son turned out fine. I just think that expecting some kids to do the same thing as other kids at that age is completely crazy. "Assignments" in second grade should be much more broad---like read for 30 minutes or count by 10's or 5's or something like that.

This part of your post is so true: " if he could spread and study over 8 days, I think he can retain better." Most people need time to absorb material. Cramming is not really learning. Kids should be enjoying learning at that age.

[Anonymous]

This seems like a lot of homework and review. I have taught 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades. Our students get nowhere near that amount of homework.

[Anonymous]

OP here, thanks. Few clarifications:

These are not homework that need to be turned in.
These are tests he has in school for which materials are sent home alongwith an email from teacher asking us to help him prepare for the tests. This is usually 1-2 days before the test. The materials are usually 10 pages long and on Science, Social studies etc.

DH and I are are both on the same page regarding the problem, DS is not absorbing stuff in class. So needs longer periods of review at home, which DH is currently tasked with after his workday
DS gets a 2 or 3 after all the long efforts at home (out of 4), and we are afraid that if we dont review with him it is going to be worse.

Whereas we dont agree on possible solution:
- DH thinks if only DS listened in class he would know most of the material before it comes home
- I think if he had material weeks beforehand, he can prepare over time. We dont know what the curriculum is, we dont know when the tests are happening, so no way to even lookup online.

I think we will have another conference with the teacher and ask her on what she expects us to do at home. We just cannot afford 1-2 hours in the evening randomly on weekdays every other week, and yes it is frustrating for DS as well.

[Anonymous]

When that stuff comes home, it never even occured to me to do anything with it. I just file it away (or recycle it...). My older child is in 8th grade and was never expected to study for any tests until third grade. These assessments don't count for anything.

[Anonymous]

What grades does he get on these tests?

[Anonymous]

Meh?
There's never any test prep for science or social studies in my DC's FCPS second grade. Yeah, they take tests but not many and only after spending quite a lot of time in the classroom on the subject. Time in the classroom does not involve only listening to the teacher read the material but there's lots of interactive stuff, hands-on experience and the like. Sad to say but your teacher and her/his methods suck a bit.

[Anonymous]

16:46 here.

We usually break our assessments down so that we are assessing one standard at a time, or just one or two benchmarks. Ten pages of review is a lot for one assessment. How many standards (or benchmarks) are being covered on one assessment?

You say your child gets a 2 or a 3 on the test. Again, it sounds like these are assessments that cover a lot of material. How many standards are they assessing at once? Is your child getting a 2 or a 3 on each standard assessed?

If it's is a test that covers numerous standards or benchmarks, then the grading rubric should reflect a grade for each one and not just one grade for the overall test. I think it's best to assess in smaller chunks.

[Anonymous]

OP, either our kids are at the same school or this test hell exists in several schools or perhaps *gasp* countywide? I am getting a second grade education I never had. Made it through college and a Ph.D. program, but all the tests in second grade are driving me mad.

[Anonymous]

Too many tests at such a young age. I wish they would at least alternate between tests and projects. Projects are not as fun as they should be because my daughter still gets tested on the unit.

I feel like we are all part of some disturbing experiment and the teachers end up being the scapegoats even though I suspect they hate this too, but they have no choice. Kids this young should not be stressed out. Keep learning fun and exciting. Give us textbooks to know WTF is going on and save some trees and/or electricity (computer use) by ditching the tests.

[Anonymous]

Textbooks should *definitely* be given and it's absurd that FCPS has decided they are no longer needed. We had to repeatedly request a math textbook because the online version just wasn't working (would often freeze, was just generally user-unfriendly). My kids have to have an actual book they can flip through for reference. Finally got one, but until we did, homework was a miserable experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is in FCPS 2nd grade, he had speech and reading delays and is just now caught up. He does Math and Reading consistently each for 30 mins every day and is doing very well in these areas.

Now almost every other week, we get an email from the teacher about an upcoming assessment like Native Americans, Explorers, famous Americans, Science etc. We are given only 1-2 days notice and the material sent home is usually atleast 10 pages long and appears that DS does not recollect much from his notes when we do review with him.

DH has to spend 1-2 hrs after his workday to go through materials with DS and DH is getting really stressed out.
- I really wish they had text books so DS can read up and prepare days/weeks in advance and get into a routine over schoolwork. For e.g. in Famous Americans, rather than reading about 8 Americans in 2 days, if he could spread and study over 8 days, I think he can retain better.
- Whereas DH thinks if DS listened in class he would have gotten 80% of the content and would only need 15 minutes review at home. I dont know, I was not much of a listener in class either.

This is brewing a lot of unhappiness at home, which is soon going to blow up. In our parent teacher conference, the teacher just said all materials are discussed in class, and no online materials or textbooks are available.

What do you do for kids who cannot readily absorb all stuff being taught in class by just listening??

It is frustrating that there are no online materials or textbooks. Kids who get distracted in class, e.g. some with ADHD, are at a disadvantage because if they often miss things in class, they don't have a textbook or online book to refer to to fill in the gaps. That said, I wouldn't worry about social studies that much at this point. It's rote memorization, and it's not going to affect your child's long-term success in life. For science, just try to make sure he has the basics down so he can keep building a good foundation. He doesn't need to stress himself out in trying to achieve mastery.