We've only just begun, WASL style

The first round of testing began at my school today. We've spread it out over three weeks, which is especially good for the 4th graders who have to do reading, writing, and math. The 6th grade teachers report that they're actually feeling pretty good about things after last year when they did the pilot WASL, the ITBS, and the NWEA in back-to-back-to-back weeks.

I spent the morning proctoring for a group of 4th graders. The prompts seemed fair this year, and by careful reading of the questions I think you could pretty easily get the full points. I was the "scribe" for one little guy, which meant he dictated his answers to me and I would write down exactly what he'd say, then we'd go back through and he'd edit what I put down. It's a tricky process, because we're not allowed to put in any punctuation at all--the kids have to re-read what we've written and then tell what should be where.

Tomorrow I'm going to sit in on the 5th grade science test; I'm really interested to see just what that looks like. Our 5th grade team does some of the neatest experiments (messy, too!) and I'm hoping that the kids will be able to transfer that learning into the writing that's required for the test.

All in all it was a very stress-free operation. That starts with our prinicpal, who's made it clear from day 1 that the scores will not be the be-all and end-all of this school. The teachers in the upper grades do a great job of communicating to their kids that this is just another test, and it's one that they are ready for and will do well on if they just use skills that they've worked on all year long. Hopefully the results will reflect that!