Standardized testing is a reality in our students’ lives. Are you wondering how you can support your students in demonstrating all they know on the test but not stop the rich, ongoing literacy instruction months before the test?
As a literacy teacher, I found the big test prep push took away valuable small-group instruction and opportunities for students to engage in meaningful reading and writing. Thinking of the test as a specific genre helped me understand the demands of the test. It helped me focus on productive opportunities to support students in their test reading and writing performance across the year. Treating the test as a particular genre helps students to feel secure in what they know and can enable them to demonstrate their understanding of reading and writing in the test context.
“Testing as a Genre” Defined
When you think of testing as a specific genre, you can think of it like any other genre study. Testing as a genre means that there are particular characteristics of form, style, and content that are common across standardized tests. Some characteristics include the different types of questions and different types of formats that students need to use to respond to each task. Students need to analyze the prompt they are responding to and write concisely to the direction of the question or prompt. There are short and long selections which may or may not be related to each other. Another important aspect of the testing genre is the specific testing vocabulary. Identifying the vocabulary used throughout the test allows you to incorporate it into your students’ daily instructional language. This builds flexibility for students in understanding the vocabulary and reduces the challenge of the test items.
Planning and Teaching for the “Genre of Testing”
When you closely examine the tests to know what literacy knowledge they call for and what format students will need to respond in, you can then ensure that students will have multiple opportunities to respond as a reader and writer to its specific demands as part of your daily literacy instruction. For example, across the typical day of literacy teaching and learning, provide your students with multiple opportunities to provide evidence from the text to support their ideas, identify the author’s message, and use evidence-based language in their writing about reading. All of these competencies are called for in test performance. Robust literacy instruction provides various learning opportunities for students in whole groups, small groups, and individually to practice and become proficient in the demands of the test.
To delve more deeply into helping your students understand testing as a genre, please join my colleague, Nikki Drury, and me for our two-day workshop on The Genre of Testing: How to Set Your Students Up for Success, on November 19 and 20.
