This book is a tool to give your students practice in taking standardized tests. Research shows that students who are acquainted with the scoring format of standardized tests score higher on those tests. Students also score higher when they practice and understand the pressures of timed tests. The concepts presented in this book are typically found on standardized tests at this grade level. The scores on these activities are an indication of a student's ability to take tests, not necessarily to master the concepts or concepts or content for practice.
Reading comprehension is a vary important skill for students to master: The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has stressed that "all students must have the opportunities and resources to develop the language skills they need to pursue life's goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society. These standards assume that literacy growth begins before children enter school as they experience and experiment with literacy activities reading and writing, and associating spoken words with their graphic representations." The NCTE also states that students need to "apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts." This book helps students to practice a variety of testing strategies.
The book is broken into three units, each focusing on a particular area of reading comprehension: Vocabulary, Context, and Comprehension. The book's structure has two parts. In the first part are a pretest and a posttest. These tests can be used as diagnostic tools. The pretest can help you to determine student problems. The posttest can help you to determine progress. In the second part, seven lessons provide students with practice in typical test formats they can expect to see. These pages also identify testing strategy tips to improve accuracy and speed. At the end of each lesson, students are encouraged to evaluate their performance. Again, the goal of the book is to improve the student's ability to perform well on tests.
Unit 1 : Vocabulary
- Finding Synonyms
- Finding Antonyms
- Finding Analogies
Unit 2 : Context
- Using Words with Multiple Meanings
- Using Context Clues in Sentences
- Using Context Clues in Paragraphy
Unit 3 : Comprehension
- Recognizing Main Ideas
- Finding Facts
- Reading Stories
- Reading Longer Stories
- Reading Other Kinds of Writing