3rd grader barely passed SOLs- what should we do?

[Anonymous]

My daughter originally failed the math SOL and brought her score up by 50 pts on the retake, into the 430 range. She passed reading the first time with a score in the 420s. Her grades in both math and language arts throughout the year have been consistent 4s.

What could be the disconnect? We do we need to do next?

[Anonymous]

This is so vague. What do you expect internet strangers to say with this brief paragraph? She's your kid. Figure it out. Sit down with her for 30 minutes each day and try to do some math/reading together to start.

[Anonymous]

If she gets good grades (I guess a 4 is an A?), who cares?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter originally failed the math SOL and brought her score up by 50 pts on the retake, into the 430 range. She passed reading the first time with a score in the 420s. Her grades in both math and language arts throughout the year have been consistent 4s.

What could be the disconnect? We do we need to do next?

My smart kid almost always had lackluster SOL scores. They were not reflective of his school performance or abilities. (And in fact got very high SAT scores later on.) I wouldn't be concerned unless you're angling for a G&T invite.

[Anonymous]

Quit worrying about test scores and read to and with her--yes, even though she is in third grade, you can still read to her. Take turns reading a book that engages her. Make it fun! Do a little journal writing every day--both of you--together. Less than five minutes--unless she wants to write more. What she did today--what book she read, movie she saw, friends she played with, etc. It doesn't need to be a novel.
Play Scrabble.

For math, have her help you cook measure, etc. Count money and see how much you have. If you go shopping, give her some cash and let her decide what she can purchase. Make it fun.

Once a week or so, you might give her a worksheet that reflects a test. Time it. Make it a game.

[Anonymous]

Just stop. Your kid is fine. There is no need to worry. Make sure that she enjoys school, loves to read and isn't afraid to take risks. Please make sure she plays this summer and has down time. Way too many kids are "programmed."
--FCPS elementary teacher

[Anonymous]

Those scores are fine. Enjoy your summer.

[Anonymous]

Did they come home today with the report card?

[Anonymous]

My 3rd grader got similar scores (somewhat higher in math) but usually got 3's and some 4's. The consistent 4's may have given you a different impression. Grading on report cards is subjective anyway.

[Anonymous]

These tests are not fair. In math they could not go back and review answer. If your kid is not the type to work slowly and double check her work, she was probably picking some answers too quickly and once she hit the next arrow, it was too late to go back. If she did a calculation and didn't look closely to see if it was labeled millimeters and not centimeters, she could have missed it.

On the reading, the poems were in a text window of only eight lines each, so they had to spend a lot of time scrolling up and down and it was distracting. For informational flyers or directions, the text boxes were also very small, so they had to scroll repeatedly.

For many questions, all the answer choices were not visible and they had to know to scroll down to see more choices. If they didn't think to do that, they were screwed. I saw kids not read the whole selection because they didn't scroll all the way down. They just didn't realize.

Other kids were distracted by playing with the highlighter function or changing the background color, just because they could.

If your child didn't take tests online all year, she was probably not used to the computer format. If she had a new teacher, she probably didn't get the extensive test taking strategy lessons she needed.

I would not be worried this year, but you could ask how she did compared to her classmates, and make sure to read with her and discuss higher level thinking, like inferencing and making predictions.

I was horrified at how unfair the test format was.

[Anonymous]

Your child passed. There is no "barely" passed. Move on.

[Anonymous]

My child always just ekes out a pass on her reading and scores higher in math

This year (5th) she retook the reading (passed on second try) and got a pass advanced in math.

She is adhd and may have a reading problem like dyslexia. The school is going to test her at the beginning of next year.

She's just over the moon with her math score, though. She claims with the advanced pass in math, it qualifies her for the presidential award. I have no idea if this is true, but hey, motivation for her?

[Anonymous]

Nothing. She passed. That was what was needed, so why would any further action be necessary?

[Anonymous]

I think some of the other posters are being a bit dismissive.

My daughter barely passed the reading SOL overall, but did not pass one of the comprehension subtests. We had had other concerns with reading in third grade that her teacher and the school dismissed. We ended up taking her in for some private testing that summer and found that she had some previously undiagnosed Dyslexia and other learning disabilities. The teacher seemed to have given her all As and Bs - even though we could tell she was not reading for her assignments and didn't seem to grasp concepts she had learned when we studied at home.

In the Fall, we were able to use the SOL results along with the private tests to get the school to do a full battery of testing. She ultimately got an IEP and now she is in a class with a fantastic special ed teacher who has helped her tremendously! She hated going to school in third grade and now loves it!

It could also have just been a bad day for your kid, but look at it as part of the whole picture!

[Anonymous]

Think about this: the classroom evaluation is fairly arbitrary because the classroom teacher can give easy or hard tests. I'd get next years' curriculum and get cracking! IXL online and 30 minutes a day.