Whether we like it or not, standardized testing is a reality that our students are faced with every year. These tests can especially be stressful for our struggling readers. So how can we help them feel more confident with these tests and overcome testing anxiety? I’m sharing a test taking strategy that has proven to be highly effective for struggling readers.
Retelling Strategies
Before students can answer test questions, they need to check for understanding as they’re reading. Students can use 3 different strategies at the end of each paragraph, page, or chapter to see if they can retell what they just read. After introducing each strategy, it is beneficial to guide students to pick which of the 3 retelling strategies work best for them.
- SAY what happened: Stop Think Paraphrase
- DRAW what happened: Stop & Sketch
- WRITE what happened: Stop & Jot
Since we are focused on using these strategies to help students with standardized testing, we will only further discuss 2 out of the 3 of them. While Stop, Think, Paraphrase is a beneficial strategy for struggling readers, it is not one they are able to use on a test.
What is the Stop and Jot Strategy?
When students are reading a story, they can stop after each paragraph, page, or chapter to write a quick note about what they just read. Since we are using this as a test taking strategy, you’ll want to encourage students to stop after each paragraph.
This is a skill you’ll need to spend time practicing with students. Struggling readers tend to struggle to summarize the most important details of each paragraph. I encourage my students to keep their notes to 5 words or less per paragraph. This encourages them to only write the most important part. Plus it prevents them from spending too much time writing notes about each paragraph – which isn’t our ultimate goal for this activity.
What is the Stop and Sketch Strategy?
When students are reading a story, they can stop after each paragraph, page, or chapter to draw a quick sketch about what they just read. As with Stop and Jot, you’ll want to do this after each paragraph when using this as a test taking strategy.
Students may want to spend a lot of time drawing their sketches. I remind them that this isn’t art class and our purpose is simply to remind ourselves about what we read. You’ll need to spend time modeling and practicing this with students. I encourage them to draw basic shapes and symbols to record their thinking to save time.
How Can These Be Used as a Test Taking Strategy?
When taking a test students can use a blank piece of paper to use the Stop and Jot or Stop and Sketch strategy. They will need to clearly number each paragraph. Students can refer back to the sketches and notes they took while reading to retell the entire story.
When students begin to answer the questions, they can refer back to their notes. This may help them identify which paragraph closely relates to the question. As a result, they can go directly to that specific paragraph to look for the text evidence without needing to reread everything. This helps save them time and makes it feel slightly less overwhelming.
Why is this Beneficial for Struggling Readers?
This test taking strategy benefits struggling readers in two major ways. It helps them slow down as they read a passage to check for understanding. It ensures that they’re reading carefully rather than just skimming and skipping to the questions. If they are unable to jot or sketch about what they just read, it should signal to them that they need to reread.
This strategy also helps struggling readers know where to look back within the text. Since they tend to read slower than their peers, it can be a daunting task for them to go back in the text to find an answer. Quite often they don’t know where to look and become overwhelmed. This provides them with a scaffold to identify exactly which paragraph may include the answer. So rather than trying to reread a lot of the text, they can go directly to the related paragraph.
Teacher Tips
This will require LOTS of modeling and practice before students are able to independently implement this on a standardized test. You’ll want to practice during your small group instruction as well as on other tests and quick checks leading up to the standardized test.
After finishing a story, encourage students to see if they are able to retell the story using only their notes. This is a good chance for them to evaluate if they were effective with their note taking. You’ll also want to practice using their notes to identify which paragraph may have text evidence to answer sample questions.
This strategy alone will not be the answer for all struggling readers to be successful on their standardized tests. In fact, there are many test taking strategies for elementary students you may want to work on throughout the year.
What other test taking strategies have you found to be beneficial for struggling readers? How else can we build their confidence during test taking time? Share in the comments!
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