A Child's Story of America Test?

[jjcmehl]

I will be using extensions with Bigger for my DD9 next year. I happened to come across the book with the test and answer key at a used book sale. Would you recommend using the test? I have never tested the children in the past. She will be reading the book on her own. I was thinking, it might be good for me to insure she is reading with comprehension. It would also be a great intro. to test taking, standardized testing is mandatory this upcoming year. Thoughts/insights?

[my3sons]

Hi Christine! I am doing Bigger Hearts now, and boy are you in for a treat. I think you and your dd have a wonderful year of reading living books ahead of you. I have become an avid CM'er, so keep that in mind as I share my thoughts here as you may have a different bent than mine. After years of giving standardized tests to dc, I've decided that the tests in themselves do very little to promote comprehension. On the other hand, CM style responses of oral and written narration seem to do wonders for comprehension. I think it's because dc can't wing it, or guess their way through it. My ds has done HOD and not taken any type of tests before his Iowa Basic Skills tests each year, and has done very well with the tests. This year in CTC, there is a book with a 10-15 closed answer quiz at the end of each chapter (Tiner's book "The History of Medicine"). I was surprised to find he asked me nothing about how to do it and just read the directions and turned it in on our counter for me to correct. He has aced about every quiz in that book, with no prior experience of doing that type of testing.

So, you can probably see where I'm headed with this. I truly think that if dc are doing the CM skills they are to be doing, and we are guiding them to become proficient at these skills (via the HOD plans ) they will do well with testing, as much as their God-given abilities allow them to. Since your dd is only 9 turning 10 yo, and the extension is geared for 10-11 yo's, I think just doing the extension itself will be more than enough for her, and if you would enjoy having her do the CM style follow-up activities suggested in the Appendix at the beginning of the Extension Package schedule of reading, that would be a nice way to check her comprehension. I would not over-burden her with the tests, etc. in "A Child's Story of America". If you wanted to have her take one with the thought of teaching her test-taking skills, talking through that with her, and approaching it as a team effort of teaching good reasoning for tests, that may be beneficial, but I'd probably only do it once or maybe twice, as the other responses suggested would be much more likely to promote good comprehension, and would do so in an enjoyable way as well. I hope something here helps you ponder this and helps you arrive at the decision that best matches your goals.

In Christ,
Julie