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...my oldest DS, who is 9 years old, recently took the Iowa (his first standardized test ever), which is required in GA for 3rd graders. I was a little nervous about the results, BUT he scored in the 96th percentile in Reading and the 92nd in his overall Iowa score!!! HOMESCHOOLING WORKS!!! I have HOD to thank too--we have used HOD for the past two years (have been homeschooling from the beginning) and it has been so wonderful to know that all our bases were covered for this test!

Just wanted to share this good news with all of you and brag like a proud momma should!

Congratulations to you and your son! What a great encouragement!

Awesome! Congratulations to you and your ds!

That is awesome!!

That's awesome!!!

We're doing the IOWA for the first time, ever, next month, and I'm nervous! (dd isn't nervous--but I am!)

3sweeties,

I am praising the Lord with you on these results! It is good to enjoy these moments.

We're so glad that you are enjoying HOD and pray that your children will be drawn ever closer to the Lord with each passing year!

Blessings,
Carrie

That IS encouraging to know! Congratulations to you! I know you are beaming!

Way to go!

Thanks, everyone!!!

That's great to hear, Jessica! I am celebrating with you and your little guy today! It is amazing how our dc are well prepared for even standardized testing, though they have learned in a CM style way instead. They just seem to know their stuff and remember it better with HOD's CM style plans. One thing I have noticed, because they are used to seeing and reading proper English, grammar, and writing, I believe they find it glaringly obvious when things are wrong. Seeing spelling, grammar, writing errors within standardized testing is not hard when you've only seen it look right. My ps students had to do Daily Oral Language drills that had them see things written incorrectly first, and then next they were supposed to correct them. I believe this seeing things improperly so many times made errors seem correct over time. We did those drills every day, and yet on testing in that area, most students did poorly.

The way HOD has dc rely on only their memories to retell back what they have read CM style teaches them to read carefully the first time. In contrast, in school we used to have dc answer multiple choice/true/false/short answer type questions. I noticed many dc would read the questions first, and then read the reading selection, simply reading for those specific answers. They never really took in much from the readings, as they just were reading to find specific answers rather than to understand the selection as a whole. Dc do not have time to do this in standardized testing as it is timed, and conclusions must be drawn from the reading as a whole.

We are standardized testing this week, and it is interesting that my dc are often reading the selections and laughing or being entertained as they read this or that - they don't even view the reading in standardized testing as superfluous. And it's not all that living either. I had to laugh - my oldest ds asked if we could make Gooseberry Pie, which I saw was one of titles of the stories on the test. I told him he could try to look a recipe for that up on the internet, and he said he pretty much remembered it from the test anyway. He proceeded to tell me the steps as he remembered them, and I was flabbergasted! I didn't read the story, but the steps he shared seemed to make sense, and we sure haven't ever made Gooseberry Pie. I guess oral narration just gets in their blood. They try to do it even on standardized testing excerpts! Neither of our sons used scratch paper for the math either. I credit HOD's hands-on activities, and Singapore math for that. Anyway, thanks so much for telling us about your ds, as this is reassuring to those starting their HOD journey especially!

In Christ,
Julie

YES, Julie -- he scored 100%!!!!! on Spelling, Vocabulary, Punctuation, and Factual Understanding in reading comprehension!!! We have been doing dictation and narration for 2 years now with HOD -- they have obviously worked for him! Also, 100% on the whole section of Problem Solving & Data Interpretation--thanks, Singapore!!!

This is all very encouraging for me. We have been homeschooling for a year now, dd in 8th and dd in 2nd. We have not been using HOD and my girls were tested a few weeks ago. The 8th grader did fantastic scoring 98% and 12+ grade level. Learning new things has always come very easy for her and she has an amazing memory. However the 2nd grader scored well below average in all areas except science. I received my box of Bigger last week and after getting her tests results and reading this post we are not going to wait until fall to begin, we are starting next week. After looking at what is covered in Bigger as compared to what we have been using, which by the way is from a large homeschool company that is supposed to be very good, there is so much more "meat" in Bigger. I am praying that with this switch and schooling over the summer will get her were she needs to be.

I'm still waiting for our IOWA scores.....

Jessica, way to go!!! Congratulations that your son did so WELL! What a blessing getting to homeschool him is, I'm sure!

That's great! When my dd (then 8 y/o) took the 2nd grade ITBS last year, she did well, too! I think 95th or 96th percentile overall. I just finished administering that same test to my son today. I will say that he is a different learner from his sister. VERY DIFFERENT. I think he'll score generally well, but I noticed some areas of weakness... one being the ability to "mentally" problem solve through math that he should have been able to do. It was because the problems were presented in bit of a different way than what he's used to. We've always done Math U See, but I'm wondering if it's not working for us. I'm sort of regretting not following HOD's plans to use Singapore. Sigh. On the other hand, my dd did really well on her ITBS math sections and had used MUS, too. So... maybe it works more for her and not my son.

I've got some questions about Singapore... I suppose I should start a new thread!