From Stress to Success: Strategies for Empowering Students on Testing Day

Hey, there. Happy Monday. I’m your host, Sara Marye, and I am so glad that you are here. Today I am wrapping up a three part miniseries all about helping you and your students feel prepared for the upcoming standardized testing season.

I know that this is not everyone’s favorite time of year. In fact, I don’t know any teacher that does look forward to test season. But since it’s something that we all have to deal with, I want to provide support to you and your students during this time of the year.

If you are just joining us on the podcast, welcome, I am so glad that you are here. But let me encourage you to go back and listen to episode 124, which was all about mastering the constructed response. It’s really a teacher’s guide to boosting students confidence on that part of the test.

And then last week’s episode, episode number 125, was all about providing your students with a five step process for writing a constructed response. So both of those episodes are going to give you some guidance on the constructed response portion of the test.

But since we know that tests are more than just constructed response, I did want to share some test prep strategies that are going to help boost your students confidence on the other part of the test. So today, I’m going to share five strategies that are really going to help your students feel confident as they approach test day.

So these five strategies that I’m going to share are all things that are 100% within your student’s control. You know, especially when it comes to testing, it can be stressful for students and stressful for teachers.

And while we can’t always control the topic of the test, or our students reading abilities, when they come to us at the start of the year, both of which are going to have an impact on their performance on the test, we can help our students develop test taking habits and behaviors, things that they can do that are going to help them feel more empowered and confident on test day.

So these five things that I’m gonna share with you have nothing to do with the topic of the test, or even, you know how your students can apply the standards, they really are going to help your students feel empowered on test day.

So the first one is to teach your students to carefully read all instructions on the test. And if we think about it directions tell our students how to do something, or in which order something should be done. And sometimes our students don’t just understand the importance of directions. I’m sure you have given your students and assignment and they turn it in and you realize they didn’t even read the directions at all.

So knowing that reading the directions carefully is not a natural strength of our students, it is our job to emphasize it. Directions on any assignment are important and something I realized when I was in the classroom is that even if my students could read the directions, that didn’t necessarily mean that they understood what the directions were saying. There’s a big difference between the two.

So when you intentionally practice reading the directions, and then having students really express or regurgitate their understanding of the directions is going to help your students be prepared for various question types and multi step directions on a standardized test.

And you can even give your students a practice test from your state’s testing website. And don’t even have them answer the questions. But instead, have them read the directions, circle directional words like first, second, next, then have them write a sentence or two explaining in their own words what the direction said to do. And that’s it.

You know, I think oftentimes when we think of practicing or preparing for the state test, we focus so much on the content. But being successful on a test is also understanding what the test is asking us to do, and being successful with executing it in the correct order. So make sure your students understand how to carefully read the directions and understand what they’re asking them to do.

Strategy number two is have your students rephrase the test question before they answer it. And I don’t know how much you’ve dug into your state test. I have spent lots of time reading through different state tests on different websites, because I want to make sure that I understand what your students are being asked to do on their state test.

And sometimes test questions are really phrased in a way that doesn’t make sense to students, or at least it doesn’t use common or normal language. And so one thing that you can do to help your students better understand test questions, is to teach your students to rephrase the question using their own words. Basically, we want to make sure that our students understand what it is the question is asking them to do or think about.

And like I said, I’ve spent lots of time looking at different state tests and paying attention to what is being asked, and I’ve noticed that a lot of tests will include questions that are written similar to this one: what is the most likely reason the author included a map of Africa in the selection?

And that question really isn’t phrased in a way that we normally talk about texts with our students. You know, we don’t usually ask our students what is the most likely reason, and we often don’t refer to texts as selections. So we want to make sure that our students understand that when they see questions like this, basically, they’re being asked, why did the author choose a map of Africa for this text?

So teaching our students to rephrase the question in a way that makes sense to the students can help them feel more confident in finding the correct answer, especially if they’re aware of phrases like what is the most likely reason or selection, if they sort of know to pay attention to those phrases, and rephrase them using their own words, they’re going to feel a lot more confident answering the question.

Okay, strategy number three is teaching our students to answer the question before they read the choices. And I know that we often train our students to read the questions, look at the answer choices, and then go and read the passage. But I actually think that there’s a better way to do it.

So one of the things that you can have your students do is teach them to answer the question using their own words before they look at the multiple choice option. And we do this because sometimes our students can be distracted or influenced by the multiple choice options presented in a text.

In fact, test creators will intentionally throw in distractor questions with the intent of trying to distract students from the right answer, which I just think is really unfair. But to help our students feel confident in their answer choice, get them in the habit of covering up the answer choices with their hand or a piece of scratch paper, and then reading the question, and then trying to answer it using their own words.

Then once they’ve come up with their own answer, they can see how their answer compares to the multiple choice options. If they don’t see an answer choice that matches up with their answer, then this means that they need to go back and reread a portion of the text and make sure that they’re really understanding what the test is asking them.

But if they answered it using their own words, and they see a multiple choice option that matches it, they should feel pretty confident in that answer choice because they were relying on their own knowledge of the text to answer the question not being influenced by something that was included in one of the multiple choice options.

Okay, strategy number four is to give your students a set of steps that they can use to review the test when they think that they are finished. And this is going to be the final thing that your students are going to do before turning in their test. And if you think about it, we really want our students to end their tests on a high note, we want our students to feel confident that when they are finished taking the test that they’ve done everything that they can to be successful.

And even though we know that by the time students reach the end of the test, they are tapped out, they’re exhausted, they’re ready to turn it in. Sometimes they’re ready to turn it in faster than we want them to be. But it’s really important that we teach our students the benefits of reviewing all the hard work that they put into the test.

And so to help them do that, you can use what I like to call the 4 C’s. We’re going to teach our students to complete, choose, check, and then celebrate. I think anytime we can give our students an acronym, or a set of steps or something to remember the steps are much more likely to put them into practice.

So when you’re talking about reviewing a test with your students try to put a positive spin on it. Talk about what a great accomplishment it is for them to complete this test that they are showing everything that they’ve learned this year, and they’ve worked so hard to prepare for the test, and to complete it. And reviewing all of that hard work is just the icing on the cake. It’s like putting the finishing touches on a really successful year.

And so when students review their test, we want them to make sure the test is complete. So we want to encourage our students to go back, look through all all of the questions, make sure every question is answered, every answer choice has been bubbled in on the answer document.

And just make sure that the test is complete that if there’s a constructed response question that they’ve written that that all of the answers are recorded where they’re supposed to be, but double checking for completion is essential.

During this review, we also want to make sure that our students return to any flagged questions that they left unanswered, and that they choose their final response. You know, I’ve had students who will turn in tests and leave some questions unanswered. And when I asked them about it, they say, Well, I just don’t know. And so we want to make sure the students understand that even if they’re uncertain, or not confident that they do choose a final response for every single answer, and that every question is answered on the test, we don’t want them to skip anything.

The third C is to check, we want students to double check, even though they’ve looked for completion, they’ve chosen all their answers, it never hurts to go back and double check. So we want to make sure that students have chosen their final answers.

And now it’s time to go back and double check everything one more time, especially that bubble in sheet to make sure that there are no answers with double bubbles or, you know, lines that are outside of the circles that every bubble is filled in correctly. And, you know, it’s this time to dot their i’s and cross their T’s. So we want to make sure that students do one final check.

And then last but not least, we want to teach our students to celebrate, you know, it takes them a lot of hard work, and dedication to finish the test and put all of these review steps into place. And so we want to make sure that students understand that when they go to turn in that test that they want to give themselves an internal celebration that they want to pat themselves on the back that they want to give themselves a high five, and celebrate a job well done.

And while they can’t necessarily jump for joy, while others are still testing, we can teach them to take a few deep breaths and mentally celebrate their hard work.

Okay, the fifth thing that you can do to help your students feel confident on test day, is to make sure that they are creating a plan for how they’re going to prepare at home. And if you think about it, we spend a lot of time preparing for standardized testing at school.

And while it can feel like a huge burden for teachers, we also want to make sure that our students families are in the loop too, when it comes to the details of standardized test day. But that responsibility really shouldn’t be on you, especially if you’re an upper elementary teacher, your students can play an important role in this.

So I think it’s really important that students be involved in creating an at home plan to share with their families. And if you think about it, you probably send emails to parents, you probably send home flyers with your students. But if they’re not communicating, you know, if they’re not telling, Hey, Mom and Dad check your email, or Hey, Mom and Dad Look at this flyer about test day, it’s possible that their families aren’t as informed as we think they are.

So to help your students understand the importance of creating an at home test plan, you can sort of have a classroom discussion and really discuss a couple questions or scenarios with your students so they understand just how important it is that their family knows that test days coming up.

So consider discussing these questions with your students. What would happen if your parents didn’t know about your state test and you were late to school on test day? What if your family didn’t know about your state test and you had a late night family movie night the night before? And what if your family didn’t know about the state test and you woke up late and didn’t have time to eat breakfast the morning of the test?

And I’m sure after discussing these questions with your students, they’re gonna realize that it’s like wait a minute, my family needs to know and understand that test days coming up. And that is a big deal for me. So after you discuss those questions with your students, I suggest having a brainstorming session and this could be done as a whole class or in a small group.

But have students brainstorm ways that they can prepare at home for test day and things that they want to communicate to their parents as well. You know, things like it’s important to get a good night’s sleep before test day. It’s important to avoid eating sugary foods the night before, it’s important to eat a healthy breakfast, they should lay out their clothes and school supplies the night before so they’re not rushed in the morning.

And we want to make sure that the rest of their family knows that they must be at school on time on test day. So you could have your students write a letter to their family, they could create a poster to share at home that lets their family know just how important test day is. So put some of the responsibility for communicating with your parents on your students.

Okay, let me review the five test taking strategies you can teach your students to help them feel more confident on test day. Strategy number one, carefully read the directions. Strategy number two, rephrase the test questions using your own words.

Strategy number three, answer the questions before looking at the multiple choice options. Strategy number four, use the four C’s to help them review their tests before turning it in. And strategy number five, create a getting ready at home plan.

And if you’re looking for other test taking strategies, go back and listen to episode number 75, which I recorded last year. And I share seven additional test prep strategies that are going to support you and your students during test prep season.

And if you really want a lot of support and implementing any of these strategies that I listed today, I would encourage you to check out my test taking strategies resource bundle on TPT.

For all of the strategies that I mentioned today, plus 10 others, I have scripted lesson plans, anchor charts, student practice pages and other resources that are going to really help your students master these test taking strategies so they do feel confident on test day. And you can find those at stellarteacher.com/testprep.

That’s one word, stellarteacher.com/testprep. I really hope that this little mini series on test prep helps you feel more empowered to support your students as you enter a test prep season. I am cheering you on and of course reach out to me with any questions that you might have. I hope you have a stellar week, and I’ll see you back here next Monday.