You don't have to lose your temper to get testy with your kids. In fact, getting testy can be a good thing. It's actually a great study tactic. Have your student design a test that covers content material, and you will help him or her build comprehension skills in addition to study skills.
Most tests are designed to assess student knowledge of important concepts. One part of comprehension is the ability to pick out and recall important concepts. We have a match made in heaven for nurturing study skills! Challenge your student to create questions about ten to twenty important ideas from the text (and an answer key), then check his or her work by taking the test yourself. You will quickly see if the questions cover main ideas and important concepts or simply require regurgitation of trivia.
If you find your student needs help and guidance to distinguish the important from the unimportant, there are several strategies you can try.
- Create your own version of the test and discuss the similarities and differences.
- Try co-authoring a test and take turns justifying the inclusion of each question.
- Use the topic sentences of each paragraph as a guide, rewording them to create questions.
- Look for bullet points, diagrams, vocabulary words, and lists because these items will show their importance by being highlighted in the text.
- Compare the homemade tests to those provided by the publishing company to help students create increasingly accurate versions.
Photo by carlaarena
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What a wonderful idea to have kids write a test of their own! That really helps you see what they know. Thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks, Kris! I've been using it for years with my own students, and it works like a charm. Plus, it seems to be highly motivating! Most of the kids really want to 'give the teacher a taste of her own medicine,' and so they jump at the chance to write a test for me!