In my first post in this series I talked about how it is essential to help students transfer their everyday reading skills to state tests. Some students are able to make this shift on their own, while others benefit from having some classroom time spent understanding the testing genre. I also previously mentioned how my state has blueprints and specifications, which includes stem questions for each of the reading strands, making it easier to help familiarize students with the test language.
Our director originally brought up the idea of having a 5 question quiz each week to go along with our read aloud using the stem question format. I liked this idea in that it would give students opportunities to get how the tests are set-up without using too much of classroom time on test prep activities. I think it ended up working really well for some of my colleagues; however, I struggled with implementing it consistently. It was hard to know exactly where I would be in the read aloud book on the day designated for the quiz. I also knew that hearing a book prior to answering questions and reading the text while answering the questions were two different skills.
Lately I have been reflecting on the possibility of having a text of the week. I got the idea from Kelly Gallagher's article of the week. I thought that I could adapt his original idea to include stem questions. I would be able to frame the text as they would be in state testing as well. Although this would incorporate many more texts than current events. It would include fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, as well as texts that match up well with reading to perform a task.
This summer I will continue to think through this idea, but I know that in one form or another, I am going to try it out next year. Yet another example of King's concept of "two previously unrelated ideas [coming] together."
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