Webinar Recap: Test Prep with Kids Discover
Across the country, teachers and students are getting ready for their state’s standardized testing. We know that this can be a stressful time for everyone in the classroom and we want to help. Earlier this week, we hosted a new Webinar on how to use Kids Discover Online for Test Prep. Since we know teachers were still in the classroom or simply on Spring Break, here is a full recap. For more details, be sure to watch the full Webinar video.
Finding Standards-Based Resources
I always like to start by sharing one of my favorite features of Kids Discover. Our Search by Standards feature does a lot of the heavy lifting for you and creates a list of Relevant Units according to the standards for your State and Grade.
If you teach for a Standardized Science test, in particular, this will be your best friend. You can quickly find the Units for your students to have one additional layer of resource to use for instruction. While the Search by Standards feature recommends whole Units, be sure to explore to find which Topics, within that Unit, best aligns with the needs of your classroom. Depending on the Grade’s standards,
Teacher Guides
The easiest option to find testing resources is to use our Teacher Guides that we have created for the vast majority of our Units. To find those, you simply go to the Unit Overview page and they’ll be located at the right. All you need is a Free Account.
Inside, we offer several pages of additional activities for each Unit. There are discussion questions to use with your students (either in Whole Group, Small Group, or Individual Conferencing). Our Cross-Curricular Extensions will help your class dive deeper into a Unit that you may have already taught in class.
The Teacher Guide feature I really want to highlight is the “It’s In the Reading” pages. I’ve always thought of these as a great assessment piece, but they can easily be translated into Test Prep. Have your students read the questions and answer according to what they find in the assigned Topic.
Small-Group Instruction
When I was in the classroom, my district required daily Small Group Intervention, especially as we approached State Testing. Kids Discover Online is known for students reading individually, but I can see this is also working for small groups. My district used Guided Reading and the different Topics would fit that kind of lesson planning to a tee, especially since you can adjust the Lexile Levels. Since a huge piece of that lies in Vocabulary, you may want to refer to our Power Vocabulary Guides.
Similar to our Teacher Guides, Power Vocabulary is located on the Unit Overview page. It highlights the content/domain-specific vocabulary included in the Topics. You can review with your class as a Whole Group, in a Small Group, or print off the double-sided Vocabulary for students to quiz themselves independently or with a friend.
The beauty of using Kids Discover for Small Group Instruction these final weeks before your State Prep is that you can really custom fit each lesson to your students based on their needs. That most obviously means reading level, but consider grouping your students by specific test-taking strategies, or their strengths and weaknesses.
Post-Testing Activities
Speaking from personal experience, it’s so tempting to have a “freebie” day after hours of intense state testing. We as teachers are still stressed, and our young students are mentally exhausted. Still, it’s so important to keep the academics in the classroom during this time. Kids Discover is the perfect balance of “fun” for your students while still staying academic. The power comes from students being able to make their own decisions on what they read post testing.
If you haven’t done so already, it starts with giving your students a small window to dive through our Discover Map. The activity I recommend is giving your students 5 minutes to make a list of all the Units that sound interesting to them. Afterward, have them Star their Top 5. This will be the “bank” for students to read from once they are done with Testing for the day. It gives them something to look forward to and a sense of ownership and pride in deciding what they read.
