Posted on 03/03/2019 11:06:31 AM PST by bgill
Many teachers on social media are asking whether the STAAR test is too hard for kids after a popular article suggested many tests are between one to three grade levels too advanced. In a February article for Texas Monthly, author Mimi Swartz looked at two studies that ran STAAR reading tests through at least five "readability tests". One 2016 study, by the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, found most reading passages are one to three grade levels too high. The other study, done in 2012 by Texas A&M University-Commerce, found most STAAR reading tests they analyzed were at least two grade levels above the students’ current grade level... The STAAR tests include poetry and nonfiction, which Dr. Miller says can throw off the readability scales, but overall, she believes the method is accurate... "The language of the test is usually very different from the language we use in class,”
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
How does nonfiction "throw off" students?
So, if they pass they should be allowed to wear tear drop tattoos if they feel so put upon by the Ordeal?
“Many teachers on social media are asking whether the STAAR test is too hard for kids...”
Sorry, but that tilted my thoughts on that test. And those of us who had a real education can guess the direction that my thoughts were tilted.
It is long past time to 1) eliminate the Dept of Eddikashun, and 2) eliminate publik skoolz. Really. Does anyone really think it would hurt? Does anyone really think we couldn’t find folks with talent who would turn out much more knowledgable children than the dregs oozing out of our publik skoolz?
They explained that:
"The language of the test is usually very different from the language we use in class”Facts are confusing to students who are used to being fed propaganda and lies.
Reading a bubble-gum wrapper is “challenging reading” for some of today’s youth.
I sub and you should see the literal trash the lower elementary is reading. I told the kids they would be better off reading non-fiction (usually they are among the older books in the library and haven’t been tainted with the leftist propaganda.) The parents seemingly don’t have a clue and frankly I think don’t care what their children are reading. Back in the “good ole days” with an emphasis on old, my mother would take us to the public library in a town about 10 miles away. She was selective in what we chose and I am thankful. I was blessed with two wonderful parents.
“The language of the test is usually very different from the language we use in class,”
The test must be in English.
I do not believe in "grade levels" for reading.
Kids in the 1890s went from McGuffey Readers to the King James Bible and Shakespeare without tween girl soft porn and antiwhite limited vocabulary fictions in between, it should be possible to do this today.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina, Kansas - 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case, Illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
Today’s college grads would fail.
We home schooled and taught our daughter to read phonetically - which BTW took very little effort on hers or our parts. By 6 she was reading at a 4th grade level. By 10 she was reading at a HS senior level.
We had to be careful that she wasn’t reading *content* that was unsuitable for her age. A few books snuck by us. “Daddy, what does XXXX mean?” XXXX being pronounced correctly but the meaning would be unknown.
A 10th grade reading level now is equivalent to a 6th grade level when I was a kid. And we are discussing kids reading several levels below that current 10th grade level. We have a lot of K-12 illiterates.
Uh, what is that telling us about the language they use in class? And the content of the class?
Mainly because they cannot differentiate between the word "goes" and the word "said". Drives me nuts. But it is ubiquitous and pervasive. There is no getting away from it.
Ages ago my grandmother bought me a copy of McGuffey’s fourth reader. I doubt there is a school child today who could read that.
Sounds like the state needs to require the teachers to pass the 12th grade version of the test, as a condition for teaching license.
All you have to do is teach them the letters and their sound equivalents. By the age of five or so a light will go inside their heads and they will be reading literally anything, with fluency and ease. It's like magic.
I remember my father relentlessly interrupting me and asking, “Where did he go?” when I made that mistake as a kid.
Need an Ebonics version of the test? Maybe Spanglihsh?
Same here. Several of the parents in our kiddo’s 2nd grade class did the same so the teacher let the kids go to the library and read whatever level they wished. The teacher tried to explain they’d finished the “approved curriculum” reading textbook assignments within the first couple months of the year but the principal wasn’t buying it and fired her. All of that group graduated from HS with honors.
Good gracious, the reading textbook had all the tenses mixed up - “He bend the stick.” It’s no wonder students can’t pass the test.
Then came the 4th grade math teacher who used @ instead of X in multiplication equations.
In 8th grade algebra and on into HS, the teacher was an alcoholic (with DUIs) who admitted not understanding algebra so the students had to teach themselves.
Wait til they test them with the CC math.
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