Homeschool Test Score Reveal! How My Kindergartener’s End of Year Test Scores Stand Up To Public Ed
Vložit
- čas přidán 14. 07. 2023
- The decision to implement standardized or norm-referenced testing in your homeschool is a very personal one. One of the beauties of homeschooling is that depending on your state, you may not even need to adhere to district or state testing at all!
I am lucky to live in beautiful and free state of Florida where we only need to provide an end of year portfolio to show our child's progress. Most of the homeschooling families that I know and love are very against any kind of formal testing and some even scoff at the mere idea of it.
However, I am in a unique position as an ex-public school teacher turned homeschooling mama. It has been very difficult for me to get out of the 'system' mindset and embrace the fluidity and confidence that homeschooling is supposed to bring. How do I know if my child is retaining what she needs to know? How do I know if I chose the right curriculum or not? Is she below where she would be if she were in public school? How much has she improved since the beginning of the year, if at all?
These questions kept me up every night. I detested the amount of assessments I was forced to give as a public school teacher. I knew first hand that a child is so much MORE than a test score and that they can perform better or worse on any given day depending on the kind of morning they had at home.
But here I am in my first year of homeschooling yearning for some kind of formal measurement to give me the reassurance I need to know that I am doing a good job.
So I purchased the NWEA MAP test from www.homeschoolboss.com. We took the test three times --beginning, middle, and end of the year.
The results SHOCKED me.
Will I test my daughter again next year? After this....I honestly don't know. But I do know that I don't regret testing her this year. I feel it's what I needed as a first time homeschooling mom to gauge our success.
Find me on Instagram and Tiktok for more!
@wildflowerheartandhome
LinkTree: linktr.ee/wildflowerheartandhome
Chills this testing is awesome
Thank you for this video, I am a PEP student in Florida and wanted to use something to test my daughter and this looks great. Can you elaborate more about some egg reading app that you mentioned?
Hi sweet mama! I didn't test my child this year, but I can definitely see the value in it. I am also a former elementary teacher and sometimes I do find myself falling into past habits, but if there is no harm in it then why not? I am sure this was of great relief to you to know she's doing great! 🙌☺️
Hi!! Love hearing from other public school teacher homeschooling mamas. How long have you been homeschooling?
It’s helpful to know ur not fucking up ur kid’s education 😂❤
Ha yes I agree!
This video was so helpful. I plan to do this test for my kids too when the time comes. How long did the test take your daughter to do on the kindergarten level? How do you administer it? Also I was reading your description and I believe in FL we have to also do annual evaluations along with the portfolio.
Hello! The test is long, unfortunately, but because it's adaptive and changes difficulty levels with each passing question, I understand why it is longer. It's between 35 and 42 questions depending on how the child is performing.
It took my daughter about an hour to finish, sometimes a little longer, but she is a perfectionist and scared to just 'guess' even when it was a question I knew she had never seen before.
Since we homeschool, it's weird because we don't have a 'proctor' or anyone watching us administer the test, so it's kind of an honor system that you just sit there and quietly watch and don't help the child. As a teacher, we had a proctor that would watch us to make sure we weren't cheating, but then again our pay is tied to our test performance to the desire to cheat is bigger -- As a mom, I didn't help her at all because I genuinely wanted to see how she was progressing independently.
You can do the test on a computer or we actually used our IPAD. You schedule the test online and choose a time slot. When your time comes, you call the phone number and they will walk you through how to get the test started. We are only supposed to sit there and tell our kids 'try your best' but sometimes I would speak up and remind my daughter that it's okay to guess on questions that she had never seen before because the test is giving her questions above her grade level. Results get emailed to you 24 hours later!!
I am glad you mentioned the Florida thing. Our evaluator at our Co-op said we just present our portfolio at the end of the year showing all our child has done throughout the year. I haven't heard about any other evaluation or assessment but I will check into it!
Hello! Besides the map test...would you recommend any other type of test?
Can you explain how to did this testing? Did she do it alone or did you overseee and read the questions to her? I'd like to do the same for my daughter
Hi!! The MAP test for grades K-2nd actually has the computer read aloud to them. I just sat there and watched to make sure she wasn’t clicking around crazy. 3rd-5th they read the test on their own!
We shouldn’t over correct and never do test that’s like doing drugs cuz ur cult siad they were bad 😅