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Should You Use Standardized Testing with Your Homeschooler?

March 11, 2019 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

The term “standardized testing” is enough to strike fear into the hearts of most school kids. This process can often mean whether they pass a grade or remain behind their classmates during the next year.

For homeschoolers, though, standardized testing can create other concerns, especially because so many of us have students who are working at different grade levels in different subjects.

If you have a student who is working on fourth grade math and sixth grade ELA, will homeschool standardized testing even work?

In our family, we’ve resisted standardized testing over the years. Since our state only requires us to test every three years, we’ve been able to avoid a lot of the pressure that public school students in our area face.

But, we still have to administer a test, which means considering several factors before choosing an exam. Here’s a look at how we chose our homeschool standardized testing program and how you can use it with your own kids!

Does standardized testing work for homeschoolers? Find out what you should consider before trying it with your kids.

Image c/o: VIPDesignUSA / depositphotos

Does Standardized Testing Work for Homeschoolers?

At heart, I’m completely anti-testing. I was a good student in school and I always did well on my tests. But, times have definitely changed since then.

For several years, our local public school system used the CRCT. The test was so difficult that many educators and administrators were sentenced to jail because of providing false test scores in order to keep their jobs.

We didn’t want to place that kind of pressure on our kids, so we only tested every three years, as our state law required.

Standardized Testing for Homeschoolers

My husband and I aren’t interested in teaching children to test well. We want them to learn material that will help them in their lives and future careers and, for many years, I just didn’t see how testing would help them reach that goal.

As my kids have gotten older, though, I’ve started to notice some things that caused me to reconsider my anti-testing stance.

Taking Standardized Testing at Home

For one thing, all of my kids have different skills and talents. One of them is a natural linguist and was bored to tears by studying the ELA material for their specific grade level.

One of them is a natural mathematician who has almost no patience to learn the math lessons assigned to their grade level.

Using At Home Standardized Testing with Older Kids

And yet another is so eager to learn that they have already skipped a couple of grades.

It was time to assess where everyone was so I could omit the material they already knew and work on strengthening each child’s weaker areas.

What to Consider When Choosing A Standardized Testing Program

Another reason why I was hesitant to use homeschool standardized testing with my kids was their attention issues. Two of our children have ADD/ADHD and, honestly, the length of some of these tests are a bit much for my ADD as well.

At Home Standardized Testing for Early Grades

So I knew I would need to choose an at-home standardized testing program that would be simple enough for me to administer and relaxed enough for my children to complete.

Which is why I was thrilled to learn about the Stanford-10 test.

I wouldn’t need to take my kids to an offsite testing location. I wouldn’t need to have someone else proctor the test. And I wouldn’t have to grade it myself. The ultimate low-stress standardized testing option for homeschoolers.

Do you use homeschool standardized testing with your kids? How do you go about choosing your program? Share your experiences in the comments!

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Filed Under: Homeschool Planning Tagged With: homeschool standardized testing, standardized testing

Affordable Homeschool Standardized Testing for Families

January 17, 2017 by Selena Robinson Leave a Comment

Standardized testing is a somewhat controversial subject among homeschoolers. Some families perform testing regularly to assess their children’s performance each year. Others decide not to use standardized testing at all, opting for other ways to check their children’s understanding.

Our state requires us to assess our children with a standardized test occasionally. And, while I’m not a big fan of testing in general, I do want to know where my kids need the most help so I can adjust my homeschooling methods to assist them.

Which is why I was excited to try MAP testing from Affordable Homeschool Testing Services LLC! Read on to see how we used the company’s MAP test to administer a standardized test to our kids with almost no prep at all!

Disclosure: I received this product in exchange for this post and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.

Need to give your homeschooled kids a standardized test? Learn how to do easy homeschool standardized testing at home!

The Challenges of Homeschool Standardized Testing

We’ve been homeschooling for eight years, so we’re not new to offering standardized testing to our kids. But over the years, we’ve found that giving a test at home can pose quite a few challenges.

  • Deciding on a test format: This can be daunting. There are so many tests to choose from! From the CAT to the ITBS to the PASS, there are several standardized tests available and trying to find the best one to assess your children can be confusing. Some tests are not even available for parents to proctor and must be completed at an assessment site, which can be inconvenient.
  • Scheduling a test for more than one child: Think back to taking a standardized test in school. Remember having to sit in a quiet room for at least an hour so you could concentrate? How do you offer that kind of environment when you need to test more than one child?
  • What adjustments to make for active kids: Since some of our children have ADHD, I was concerned about making a few adjustments to the testing schedule to help them stay focused during the assessment.
  • How to help the kids after the test is over: Once you get the testing results, how can you go about helping the kids to master the concepts they struggled with? A final score alone is not enough to help us know what to teach going forward.

How to Take MAP Homeschool Standardized Testing Online

With Affordable Homeschool Testing Services LLC, though, we found that all of our concerns were met. The Measures of Academic Progress test (MAP) is a thorough assessment of exactly which concepts kids grasp and which ones they need additional help mastering and that’s the test we administered.

The test assesses three subjects: reading, math, and language arts over the years of three days. On the first day, the kids were tested in reading, then math on the second day, and ELA on the third.

Homeschool Standardized Testing Setup at Home

I set my two oldest kids up at the school room table (also known as the dining room table) with separate computers they could use. Each child has to work at his or her own computer, because the test is administered entirely online.

The test is designed to be challenging, so kids will only get about half of the questions right. Fortunately, they don’t know if they’re getting any right or wrong. The test just moves continuously. No error messages or warning sounds, which can be discouraging.

Taking a Homeschool Standardized Test Online

I did make sure that the kids had a couple of pencils and some scratch paper nearby, especially for the math portion. Other than that, all we had to do was log into the testing site and wait for the test proctor to call us to set us up. Since we scheduled our testing days and times in advance, we were ready to go.

Reading the Instructions for a Homeschool Standardized Test

With the reading portion, the kids really needed to slow down and concentrate, which is something they struggle with because of their short attention spans. For example, the reading test often featured a passage for them to read and then answer a few questions. On the next page, they might see the same passage again – this time with different questions. So they couldn’t just run through and assume they knew the answers.

Taking a Homeschool Standardized Test on the Computer

Another option I appreciated was that the kids could go back and review their answers before finally submitting the test. That gave them a lot of flexibility to reassess their answers, just in case they had completed the test in a hurry.

Taking a Break During a Homeschool Standardized Test

Since the test was untimed, we could take breaks as needed. I didn’t allow them to decide when they wanted a break. Otherwise, they’d have been asking for a break every 10 minutes. But we did take them every 30 minutes or so.

The actual length of the test varies according to each child’s performance on the assessment. If it seems that your child has grasped a specific concept, the test may shorten by a few questions. If it seems that a concept is challenging, it may add a few more. My daughter, who was taking a 6th grade assessment in all subjects, had about 50 questions per subject.

Helping Kids Concentrate During Homeschool Standardized Testing

We finished taking the test on Wednesday morning. By Friday afternoon, I had an extremely detailed report (around 60 pages) that showed me the grade level each child was performing at in each subject. The report also included a list of the specific subject objectives that were mastered and those that needed reinforcement.

But, what I really loved was the math objectives list. Not only did it explain which math concepts my kids needed assistance with, it included links to those specific objectives on Khan Academy so I could view the videos with the kids. That was a goldmine of information. Sometimes the way educational standards are written can be confusing, but seeing the specific objective in action gave me a great starting point.

Simple Homeschool Standardized Testing at Home

Have you administered a standardized test to your kids? Do you have questions about using the MAP test with your family? Ask away in the comments!

Now is a great time to try out MAP testing from Affordable Homeschool Testing Services LLC, because through July 5, 2017, you can save $5 on the assessment with the coupon code MAPTest17!

To learn more about Affordable Homeschool Testing Services LLC and the different homeschool testing options available, visit the company’s website to schedule a MAP testing appointment or follow them on Facebook!

Don’t miss these other homeschooling posts!

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Plus, get more tips for teaching kids at home on our Homeschooling Pinterest board!

Filed Under: Curriculum Reviews, Homeschool Curriculum Tagged With: affordable homeschool standardized testing for families, affordable homeschool testing review, curriculum reviews, homeschool, homeschool standardized testing, homeschool standardized testing program, homeschool testing, online standardized testing, standardized test, standardized testing, standardized testing for homeschool, standardized testing program

Hi! I'm Selena, a veteran teacher and homeschool mom to four. I'm so glad you're here!
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