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Should You Use Standardized Testing with Your Homeschooler?

March 11, 2019 by Selena Robinson 4 Comments

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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!

Check out these other ways to make learning simple in your homeschool!

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

Comments

  1. Jenn L says

    May 29, 2013 at 7:39 pm

    I’m proud to live in Texas, where we are considered private schools and do not have any testing requirements! I was 1 semester away from becoming a teacher when I decided to ditch that idea and skip the teaching certification with my degree plan. My instructors were telling me not to be surprised if kids threw up prior to testing. Yikes!!
    Thanks for the link to the test you guys use. I will check it out for my own reference! 🙂

    Reply
    • Selena@lookwerelearning says

      May 29, 2013 at 10:03 pm

      There is definitely too much pressure on kids in PS to test well. No child should have to worry that much about choosing the right answer on a multiple choice test. 🙁

      Reply
  2. Nithya says

    April 3, 2019 at 2:55 am

    Great blog there, Taking a test is necessary to know how the kids are actually progressing in par with other kids studying in the standard schools. It must be really difficult for you to teach kids with ADD. It is encouraging to see what you are doing and the progress that your kids are making in their education. Thanks for introducing the Stanford 10 tests I was not aware of this.

    Reply

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  1. Hearts for Home Blog Hop #20 - Enchanted Homeschooling Mom says:
    June 6, 2013 at 6:00 am

    […] 6. The Standardized Testing Dilemma (Look! We’re Learning) […]

    Reply

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