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The beginning of the school year is an interesting time! Just as you and your students are getting to know each other and are falling into a routine, itโs time to administer the beginning of the year assessments. One of the biggest hurdles in administering individual assessments is maintaining a quiet environment so that students can do their very best. In this post, I wanted to share some tips for how to keep students quiet and engaged while youโre testing individual students.
Testing students one at a time is essential for educational planning! While some assessments can be administered to a whole class, certain tests must be done individually. If you donโt have an assessment team at your school, this task will likely be something you are asked to complete as part of your school day.
As teachers, we know that testing in the classroom usually presents a few challenges.
With those challenges in mind, I wanted to share some tips for keeping students quiet, seated, and engaged while youโre busy with assessments.
Classroom community is often overlooked when people look for ways to keep students quiet during assessments. Foster an environment of mutual respect and care! Encourage students to make choices that will help their peers, and remind them that their peers will do the same for them.
Dimming the classroom lights can be a visual reminder that the classroom needs to remain quiet. You can also keep the lights on above the testing table, which serves as a reminder of why itโs important to be quiet. Plus, it ensures that your students can see their testing material!
One of the biggest interruptions for individual assessments is when students have questions. Be sure to have a procedure in place for students to ask for help. Whether itโs hand signals, a parking lot, or a question break after every few tests, make sure itโs communicated to students that they may not ask you questions during assessments.
Rather than have students silently read for hours or use iPads all morning, find some quiet classroom activities that students can complete independently at their desks.
Silent reading and educational iPad games are great fast-finisher activities. However, some students might rush through their independent work to go straight to those activities. You might consider using additional quiet learning activities for fast finishers, depending on your class.
When you can sense that most students have moved on to a fast finisher activity, take a break! Give students a chance to stretch their legs, ask questions, and talk to their peers.
Are you feeling stumped for activity ideas to use during testing? I wanted to share some of my favorite activities that help to keep students quiet and seated during assessments.
Writing activities with fun prompts are always a hit! Plus, these can serve as an independent writing sample for your back-to-school assessments. โWould You Ratherโฆโ writing activities are always popular with students! They have so much fun answering the questions, they donโt realize theyโre hard at work.
There is always room for math fact practice in an elementary classroom! I like to use math fact worksheets with additional tasks, like circling the problems that equal a particular number. This slows students down and can actually help them catch some errors and self-correct.
There are so many ways to make literacy worksheets more engaging for students! My students love to do word-building activities with spinners. They use a paperclip and a pencil as a spinner, then write down any real words they make.
Since your students will have a wide range of literacy skills, consider using literacy activities that have built-in support. For example, instead of handing out a traditional reading passage and comprehension questions, I like to use a story that is visually divided into parts and illustrated. This makes it easier for students to navigate the story to answer the questions independently.
If your class is up to the challenge, fine motor activities are a great way to keep students quiet and seated. I would not suggest using independent cutting and pasting activities in kindergarten, but second graders can definitely work on these tasks. Since these activities have multiple steps, students remain engaged for a longer period of time.
Coloring is another fine motor activity that students love. One way that I like to encourage students to color while Iโm testing is to use worksheets with plenty of clip-art on them! Students love to color the fun graphics on each page, then turn over their worksheets to color on the back.
Are you looking for a variety of activities to help your students remain seated and engaged while you test your students? Check out this resource with 60 pages of activities that are perfect for second graders!
These learning activities review first-grade skills, making them perfect for independent work at the beginning of second grade. Since students will be working on these tasks independently, it can also provide a snapshot of their academic skills at the beginning of the year.
Back to School 2nd Grade
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Back to School 3rd Grade
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