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Taking on a 3rd-grade test
Are you smarter than a third-grader? Thatx92s the question that Pioneer teachers posed to parents of third-graders last Thursday evening as they hosted the WASL Information Night from 6-7:30 p.m. in the Pioneer Gymnasium.
As third-grade students in the Quincy School District take the statewide mandatory exams this week for the first time in their academic careers, teachers at Pioneer invited parents and family members in to view sample WASL questions in reading and math. The samples were actual WASL questions, retired from service, that show different student responses and their scores.
In preparing Pioneer students for the tests, teachers wanted to give parents ideas about how to support their childrenx92s academics. Pioneer principal Donna Kiehn said, x93Sometimes the WASL assessment is a mystery to parents. Our Learning Improvement Team thought that the best way to help parents learn about the assessment was to provide an opportunity for parents to actually see WASL released items and have fun x93scoringx94 the student work. During the family event, anonymous samples of student work for math and reading were placed about the gym. Parents and students were given scoring guides called rubrics. With the rubrics in hand, the parents and students looked at the student work and gave each math or reading sample a score. They could look then at the scoring key to find out what the actual score from the state had been for each sample. I think parents were surprised at the expectations, and now more clearly understand how their own child will be evaluated.x94
Third-grade teacher Laurie Norton, along with other staff members, helped facilitate the fun event. x93As a district we want to work as closely with parents as possible when it comes to their childx92s education. We feel this significantly affects a childx92s success in school. The goal of our WASL night was to give parents an idea of what we are working towards here to get their student ready for this first test experience. And I also feel we were hoping to take some of the mystery and fear out of it for students,x94 said Norton. She added, x93I think parents enjoyed the night and experienced some of the challenges we are facing, but more importantly I saw kids walk away with a positive attitude about feeling prepared.x94
Mrs. Kiehn explained, x93The teachers had also provided samples of work that is done at Pioneer throughout the year, which supports our students in being very familiar with the WASL format.x94
Pioneer teacher Mary Bennett thought the evening event had a good turnout. x93As a Learning Improvement Team, we worked hard to have all of our stories, math problems and examples translated into Spanish (for the event),x94 she said.
x93I was very pleased with the event,x94 said Kiehn. x93As parents left the event, they expressed their appreciation and thought that it had been fun. We definitely plan to do this again next year,x94 xa0
