Showing posts with label testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label testing. Show all posts

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Maureen Gets Sent Home From School!

Optimistic Outcomes Wins 2009 Teachers’ Choice Award for the Family

Optimistic Outcomes won the coveted award after receiving top marks from a panel of judges. Teachers’ Choice is the only award that requires every judge to be both a teacher and a parent.

This is a prestigious honor for educational products that enhance learning at home. Optimistic Outcomes will be featured in the April 2009 edition of Learning Magazine® which reaches over 150,000 PreK-Grade 6 teachers.

Parental involvement is the key to having a positive outcome for children. We are honored that teachers recommend our product and send us home to help their students’ families.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Teaching To The Tests

Tests Are Tools; Not Accurate Predictors of Future Success

Spring is in the air. It must be test-taking season! Children all over America are preparing for a wave of high-stakes testing in schools. This is an important time to pause and remember that exams are just one indicator of how a child is learning and remembering information. Tests are simply a “snapshot in time” of how a child performs on a given day. While tests are an important tool, they are not an accurate predictor of future success.

Three Testing Tips

1. Before discussing upcoming tests with your child, take a moment to analyze your own feelings. Often parents are more nervous about a test than their children! If you are nervous, the best thing you can do is relax. Children are experts at picking-up on a parent’s emotions.
2. Here is a quick reminder if you find that your child is excessively nervous about test day. Reinforce to your child that he will not know the answer to every question, and that is okay. Remind your child that you will always love him and believe in him regardless of any test score.
3. Self-talk can be a self-fulfilling prophesy. Teach your child to be aware of what she is thinking to herself before tests. Show her how to repeat positive messages to herself. Thoughts such as, “I have studied and will do my best” are positive and not overstated.

Worry Can Decrease One’s IQ and Ability to Perform

I recently attended a fascinating lecture by Dr. Ned Hallowell regarding his book Worry: Hope and Help for a Common Problem. (It was an excellent presentation, and if you have an opportunity to see Dr. Hallowell in person, I would highly recommend going.) Dr. Hallowell cited studies that show our society worries more today than a decade ago. He also explained how worry that develops into fear and/or shame can actually decrease one’s IQ and ability to perform.

Along that same train-of-thought, I've included an interesting article (below) regarding the “mental static” cause by test anxiety:

Helping Children Overcome Test Anxiety
(excerpt from American School Counselors website)

"Test anxiety is almost universal. In fact, it is unusual to find a student who doesn’t approach a big test without a high level of anxiety. Test anxiety can cause a host of problems in students, such as upset stomach, headache, loss of focus, fear, irritability, anger and even depression. New research is helping to better define how emotional stress and anxiety affect learning and academic performance.

Stressful emotions can inhibit a student’s ability to absorb, retain and recall information. Anxiety creates a kind of "noise" or "mental static" in the brain that blocks our ability to retrieve what’s stored in memory and also greatly impairs our ability to comprehend and reason…"
Read More

Do your children get stressed about tests in school? How do you help them cope?

"Optimistic Outcomes: What Every Parent Wants and Every Child Needs" includes 49 test-taking strategies that can improve your child's testing skills for a lifetime. For more information, go to Optimistic Outcomes.