STAR Testing

STAR Testing

Does your school use STAR testing for monitoring? What are your thoughts on STAR? We’ve seen STAR be used well and not so well. Our entire district uses Renaissance AR and STAR, but different schools determine to what level they use it. Some of the schools place a lot of focus on AR, but they don’t focus on using the STAR test. What are they using to determine student levels? Some schools (or at least teachers in those schools) focus on both strongly.

I spent time student teaching in a local school that placed a large focus on AR school-wide. Administration asked that teachers test their students’ STAR levels once a month. The teacher I was placed with at the time would have her students test every two weeks. She used this, along with another program the school had purchased, for progress monitoring. She met with the students and talked with them about how their scores had changed. Seeing what these scores and how it affected them encouraged the students to focus on the tests more.

However, some schools focus on getting AR points and they use the STAR tests to place students in groups. These groupings aren’t always beneficial to the students though. For instance, one first grade student has the second highest amount of points in his class, has the best ratio of test passes to tests taken, and the highest percent of comprehension on his AR test. However, this same student scores continuously early kindergarten on STAR reading and early second grade on STAR math. In this particular case, what can be done to motivate this student? He strongly dislikes taking these tests. He finds them confusing (reading) and boring (math). This student is very strong in math and has qualified for Math Olympics at school both in kindergarten and first. In reading he has simply been placed in the lowest group. The student and teacher both agree that the books in his guided reading group are too easy for him, but the teacher continues to keep him in this group based on his STAR score. What else could be done? What other assessment could be used? Why is he scoring so low on STAR if he’s able to perform well in group?

Again, what do you think about STAR? Do you or a fellow teacher use it? If so, how does it take effect in your classroom?

~Steph

Accelerated Reader (AR)

Does your school use Accelerated Reader (AR)? All of the area schools here do. How do you keep up with who is taking tests and how they are scoring? Do your students have goals to meet?

Well for the 1st grade class we volunteer in, it is a headache. Steph is working to develop some ideas to help monitor students and their AR testing. As of right now, we are using a folder log. We stapled it in a file folder for each student. Because this is a first grade class who does AR during centers, we are completing the log as they are testing. Others may want to let the students complete it themselves. This log lists the book title, book level, score, and points earned. This way the teacher can quickly look over the folders and see student progress.

We're also wanting to create small folder or something to send home as a reading log to have them fill in at home with their families each night with what they read that night. We're working on the idea/design right now.

What have you tried or seen? Was it successful? What ideas/thoughts would you like to implement, but you just aren't sure how to go about it?

Being the Room Mom

Our son's school is really big on parent volunteers. Steph is the room mom for Joey's 1st grade class. We are curious about other's perspectives.

Are you a parent volunteer?

Are you a room mom or dad or grandma or...?

Are you a teacher with parent volunteers? 

 As a parent volunteer do you feel overwhelmed at times or do you feel like you're in the way? Do you ever feel like maybe your overstepping or getting close to?

Teachers, we all love help in the classroom. But...do you ever just want to look at your parent volunteer and say "just stop"?  

The reason we ask is because as certified educators we sometimes forget the boundaries that may be present for us as parent volunteers. This time last year we were in charge of developing and implementing things in a classroom for a grade, but now we're getting a taste of being in the classroom again and love it! We just don't want to be overstepping when it comes to helping out. We want to help and not become a problem and just more work. 

Steph has become the "AR Queen" for the 1st grade Pandas class at SCE. In doing so we've come up with lots of ideas to help the students (and the teacher) with AR (accelerated reader). We're keeping an AR Folder Log. And we're working on other tools to use for monitoring. 

We feel like the teacher treats us differently than she would just any parent volunteer because we are certified educators.

So what do you think? Where is the line?