FCPS-Are you kids taking two very long tests not part of the curriculum-math and language arts?

[Anonymous]

I have a 6th grader at FCPS ES school and a 5th grader at another. They were chatting and complaining yesterday of two very long tests they have been taking for a while it seems. From what I understood, they get to work on it through the day, whenever they have time. Both my kids were done with the language arts one and one said he was 80% done with the math and the other said 60%. They explained that the test shows them how much they have completed. What tests are these? I'm supposing they are county tests?

[Anonymous]

Why not ask their teachers? Why wasn't it your first instinct to ask at school rather than here? Sorry, I honestly don't mean to sound snarky, I just always wonder, when this kind of "What was my child talking about?" question comes up, the first stop is here instead of the school. Here, you'll get suppositions and probably some misinformation, and then a lot of opinion about the evils of testing etc., etc.....

[Anonymous]

These are new assessments called i-ready. They give the teachers a great deal of information about the students’ strengthes and weaknesses in math and language arts. The questions adjust based on the students correct or incorrect answers.... . All FCPS students will take them three times a year unless the parents opt them out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not ask their teachers? Why wasn't it your first instinct to ask at school rather than here? Sorry, I honestly don't mean to sound snarky, I just always wonder, when this kind of "What was my child talking about?" question comes up, the first stop is here instead of the school. Here, you'll get suppositions and probably some misinformation, and then a lot of opinion about the evils of testing etc., etc.....

I can tell you why. Because teachers and principals don't want parents meddling in their business and make sure parents know this subtly if you go around asking these questions.

[Anonymous]

OP, Did you not receive a letter or an email about iReady?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not ask their teachers? Why wasn't it your first instinct to ask at school rather than here? Sorry, I honestly don't mean to sound snarky, I just always wonder, when this kind of "What was my child talking about?" question comes up, the first stop is here instead of the school. Here, you'll get suppositions and probably some misinformation, and then a lot of opinion about the evils of testing etc., etc.....

I can tell you why. Because teachers and principals don't want parents meddling in their business and make sure parents know this subtly if you go around asking these questions.

Oh, please. It's not meddling in the school's business to ask a teacher to decipher what a kid was imperfectly describing. Decent teachers want parents to understand what's going on in class. Decent parents can ask in ways that are not critical or meddlesome. Sorry if your school has problems with basic, civil, mature communications between teachers and parents, but that's not the case everywhere.

[Anonymous]

They better not be included as part of the student's grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They better not be included as part of the student's grade

...Or what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They better not be included as part of the student's grade

They aren't. Good God people, chill out. It's a screening assessment. No need to have a cow. My third graders have taken the reading section and nobody panicked. They weren't frustrated. It will give us good beginning of the year info.

[Anonymous]

We received a letter about the I-ready tests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We received a letter about the I-ready tests.

We received a letter too. We've also gotten emails about it, and information about it is on the website.

[Anonymous]

I didn't receive a letter but it was mentioned at back to school night. My 1st grader had fun taking the language arts part, enjoyed his first "real" test. (I don't think he's done math yet). I wonder how long that will last...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These are new assessments called i-ready. They give the teachers a great deal of information about the students’ strengthes and weaknesses in math and language arts. The questions adjust based on the students correct or incorrect answers.... . All FCPS students will take them three times a year unless the parents opt them out.

You are sadly mistaken if you think these test results "give teachers a great deal of information about students' strengths and weaknesses in math and language arts." That could not be further from the truth.

--FCPS teacher who has been reviewing the results in team meetings this week

[Anonymous]

Yup no good information from these, and they take forever. My first grader came home saying that "the computers were down in the entire county" so they had to wait to take their test until later in the afternoon. Yes that is frequently the way tech works in schools.
Also he said the way they tested sight words is by having a word on the screen with three "bubbles" underneath it. When you touch a bubble the computer says a word. The kids have to match the written word with the spoken one. This just doesn't tell you if the kid actually knows the sight word but merely if he can identify it in a field of three. These are two very different skills and identifying a word/ letter in a field of three is something we write on IEP for very young kids who struggle with recall because it is a precursor to recall. How the teachers are getting good info from that I have no idea!!!

[Anonymous]

If you ready the "scientific data" on the iready website you will see that in order to find the Lexile level for their passages, the put it into Microsoft word and let that tell the, the level. They say this- so next time you want to know your kids reading level, just type a few sentences from their book into word and ask it to tell you.... after all it is what your kids school system did.