Question About Student Testing in Schools

I'm a teacher, and no, it is not accepted practice, because the mothers become privy to private information about children's abilities. I think you are within your rights to speak to the teacher and tell her you are uncomfortable with this.

Sometimes schools mandate that all teachers do reading assessments at different points in the school year. This usually consists of the students reading word lists and/or passages. They are occasionally timed, and they are "graded" on the accuracy of their reading. Older kids are assessed on other areas - fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, etc. This assessment is simply a tool to see where each particular student is reading at the beginning of the year, and it is used later to track the students reading ability throughout the school year. This type of assessment is not usually used to calculate a student's grade. Sometimes teachers will have parent volunteers administer these tests for them, since it can be time consuming to do all 30-some tests. The tests themselves are usually very straightforward, requiring the student to simply read a word list or passage, so the "grading" of the student's performance is not subjective (therefore, the parent volunteer could not be partial to their own son or daughter). All that being said, it does indeed make many parents uncomfortable to have another parent assess their child, and consequently be aware of their child's academic level. If you feel this way, you are definitely within your right to tell the teacher and ask her to asses your child herself. She should respect your wishes and your right to privacy on this issue.
Good luck!
Amy (special education teacher)

Only trained staff can assist classroom teachers in administering all assessments. Trained staff include (there may be more in your district) paraprofessionals (EAs,aides) and ELL (English Language Learners) Teachers who have had assessment training.

The reading assessment results are present on my son's report card 3 times a year. Of course the teacher will use this number to help grade him!

At his school, the reading assessment involves reading books of increasing difficulty and answering questions at the end of each one. The number of the last book with the questions successfully answered is the number on the report card.

His first grade teacher really went by the results from the end of the Kindergarten year as to where to start him for first grade.

I would make sure that the teacher does at least one assessment herself for your child so that you know the number is in the correct ballpark.

HI....I was a mom who did assessments of kids in school, and believe me, we did not make judgements about kids and their abilities. I did this for district 11 and we were given a script of what to say and basically recorded kids responses. The responses for each individual student were recorded and then compliled on one overview sheet for the teachers to look at and make their own assessments on. In our situations (and I would imagine in yours also) we were not GRADING kids. You are right in saying that should come from qualified teachers. I think you should find from the teacher (not your child) what information was collected, and how it was being used.

I would first call the school and find out what type of "test" it was. If it something, hold you left arm up or point to your feet something that any parent would be able to determine I wouldn't feel any type of discrimination could be an issue. Those type tests are then reviewed by the teachers & counselors and if they feel something isn't right another test might be given to see the quality of the child by an adult. I know that my school district we do use parents to help out but these parents can not test their own children and can not test any child that is in their child's classroom so that there is very little discrimination. I would talk to the school counselor, principal and/or teacher. Honestly... I would talk to the principal first he knows alot about what is going on the school. You could also raise the question with the teacher but they have very little about how the tests are given.

O.K...I know I am going to catch slack for this, but... This is first grade we are talking about, and how does testing affect grades? Even in high school you see kids with bad grades score phenomenally on tests, and vice versa. They generally have very little to do with each other.

As long as your child is making progress and improving...why care what the tests say? Unless the test are in place to validate some notion or theory, it is the last thing you should be worrying about at this age. Tests are all relative; a brillant child can test badly on one day, so the results may not in any way be indicative to how the child performs overall.

I would worry less about testing, and more about how and what your child is learning. I certainly would not put this much stock into a) a test and b) her grades at age 6. All I would focus on is improvement vs. scores.

School is about more than a number. Be thankful you have parents who are willing to donate their time and energy into making the classroom a better place for your child.

I volunteer in an elementary school and have been asked to "proctor" tests. This just means that I administer the tests- distribute the booklets to the children, make sure the children are comfortable, make sure they have appropriate materials such as pencils, calculators, etc. If there is more than one student, I make sure they are situated in such a way that they can't cheat. There are very strict guidelines as to what you can and cannot do. I can only read test taking directions to the students, I cannot read actual questions to them or tell them what the questions mean, etc. I do not asses the results of the test nor do I discuss the tests with children when they have finished. In fact, some of the tests are sent to outside agencies for evaluation.

Personally, I think you are overly concerned about someone else having an advantage over your child so you may still wish to talk to the teacher just to put your mind at ease.

When my daughter was in K they had mom's help kids with stuff but never test. And I wasn't exactly comfortable with the mom's helping my kid either I didn't want them to know my daughter was behind it was a lack of privacy to me. I also didn't like how they had reward charts all over the room if you could tie your shoes, count to 100, lost a tooth your name went on the poster. Well how embarrassing for my daughter whose name was never on anything til most of the other kids passed her up.

S.,

It depends on what kind of testing it is. When I volunteer with the kids, I test them on reading and math, but it's objective and not subjective testing. (Star the words they can read without assistance and circle the ones they can't. Write down the highest number they can count to without making a mistake.) It's that kind of testing. Or it's paper grading like a worksheet of 2+2, 1+3, etc. Any parent can do it. Either the child knows the answer or they don't.

I did do some more subjective testing in my child's last school, but I have an Elementary Ed degree and I had been volunteering 4-6 hours per week for the whole year before she gave me the assignment and gave me sufficient training beforehand. She told me she wouldn't normally give that kind of assignment to a parent.

I did have my son's reading level tested by a volunteer parent at the end of last year and I questioned the accuracy of it. He was in kindergarten, but started reading at age 4. They placed his reading level lower than I expected and when I asked about it, his teacher said that the parent volunteer said my son could read the stories, but couldn't comprehend the meaning or summerize what happened well enough. That's subjective testing and I felt it should have been done by the teacher.

In first grade, the grading system is different than older kids. It's not like colleges are going to see her first grade GPA. I would say just keep an eye on it and make sure your daughter's work is appropriate for her skill level. If it bothers you about the test, find out exactly what kind of test it was and what role the parent volunteer played in administering and scoring.

S.

my sister volunteered in her sons class. she did what they called reading assessment but it was her having one on one time with the children and having the child read to her she had a list of words what the children should be able to read. It wasn't so much a test as was just a check up on if the students were learning correctly in class. i also went to my nephews class and did "math stations" where i would have a group of 5 kids that i would lead in math activities for 5 mins and then they would rotate through where other moms were helping. If it was the same as what my sister does then it is not graded it is mere;y to make sure that all kids are going along the same pace. If extra help was needed the teacher would work with the students. maybe you should address your concern to the teacher or volunteer for a day to see what is going on in her class