Tips for ImprovingStudent Performance :Tips for ImprovingStudent Performance


Relax – Eat Well – Get Plenty of Sleep :Source: Dr. Jerrod Wheeler, Espy Elementary Relax – Eat Well – Get Plenty of Sleep Eat Brain Food: Emphasize the importance of eating protein and fruit in the morning and carbohydrates in the afternoon and evening. The best brain foods are fish, eggs, nuts, green vegetables, chicken and fruits. Stay Hydrated: If an imbalance occurs from dehydration, the body experiences stress that impairs learning. Coffee, tea and soft drinks are POOR substitutes for water. Rest the Brain: Eight to ten hours of sleep each night is ideal for children. Be sure to do stretches or exercises that cross the arms and legs. Horizontal crossing enhances activity between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.


Visuals are part of the test! :Source: Dr. Jerrod Wheeler, Espy Elementary Visuals are part of the test! MAP test items sometimes require students to do more than just read the words in the passage. Students may need to gather information from photos, captions, drawings, charts and graphs. You can teach your students to look at all these materials as part of the total text.


It’s All About the VERBS! :Source: Dr. Jerrod Wheeler, Espy Elementary It’s All About the VERBS! Support: Give reasons or evidence to back up your answer. Explain: Give reasons, details or steps to explain why or why not. Formulate: Form a plan or put together your own ideas. Describe: Give details to tell what you see, hear, smell, taste or feel. Analyze: Look closely and consider all parts or steps. In math it means to identify the parts and how they relate to each other.


It’s All About the VERBS (cont’d) :Source: Dr. Jerrod Wheeler, Espy Elementary It’s All About the VERBS (cont’d) Infer: Read between the lines to come to a conclusion. In math it means to use what you know to find out what you don’t know. Evaluate: Tell what you think and give reasons or to identify strengths and weaknesses. In math it means to solve or work out the problem. Summarize: Recall the main points briefly or give the main points. Compare: Tell how things are alike. Contrast: Tell how things are different.


Celebrate!!! :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Celebrate!!! Celebrating evokes emotion!! High fives, party music (not during the test!), peer acknowledgements, cheers, etc. go a long way toward making learning fun and memorable! Engaging emotion is a brain-based strategy to enhance performance!


Watch Those Margins! :Source: Lori Jones, Espy Elementary Teacher Watch Those Margins! The MAP booklets are cut before being scanned in the grading machines, so the text in the right and left margins may be cut out. Teach students to write below the box, if necessary, but never past the right or left margins. Have students use scissors to cut their own sample tests.


USE DETAILS FROM THE TEXT TO . . . . . :USE DETAILS FROM THE TEXT TO . . . . . Be sure to teach students to use two or more details from the text to . . . . do just about anything on a Communication Arts test!


LABEL GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS :LABEL GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS Many of the elementary graphic organizers are already created and partially filled out. Expose your students to these types of organizers and have them LABEL them. It’s a writing point and one that’s often missed!


Teach Friendly Letters! :Teach Friendly Letters! It’s going to be on the test! Heading Greeting Body –Indent! Closing Signature


Inquiry Learning :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Inquiry Learning Use mini-lessons to present specific strategies and allow students to try them using sample released items. As students use the strategies, observe and conference with them.


Immediately after passing out the test booklets, have students familiarize themselves with the test format. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Immediately after passing out the test booklets, have students familiarize themselves with the test format. Do NOT go past the end of the current session. This practice is recommended in the Examiner’s Manual for the MAP test, which says: “Before administering the test, take a moment to have your students look through the test booklet.”


Teach students to read the test items first. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students to read the test items first. While most directions tell students to read the passage first and then answer the questions, classroom research has shown that many students do better if they read the items first, then return to the passage (Calkins, L.)


Help students find out how many test items they can hold in memory while reading a passage. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Help students find out how many test items they can hold in memory while reading a passage. If students read the items first before going back to read the passage, they are probably not going to be able to hold all the questions for a given passage in mind at once. Many elementary students will have trouble remembering more than two questions at a time.


Teach students to identify all parts of a question. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students to identify all parts of a question. Next to not supporting generalizations with specifics, not answering all parts of a multi-part question was the most common mistake on the MAP Communication Arts test in its first year.


Underlining each question word helps identify all parts of a question. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Underlining each question word helps identify all parts of a question. Who What When Where Why How


Teach students to paraphrase test items, turning questions into statements. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students to paraphrase test items, turning questions into statements. When a student first reads several items to set his purpose for reading the passage, he should underline the question words, then turn each part of the item into a statement, paraphrasing to put the item into his own words. By asking students to turn test items into statements during test preparation and then to report orally their reformulated statements, teachers can check students’ understanding.


Teach students how to mark a reading passage for easier retrieval of information. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students how to mark a reading passage for easier retrieval of information. While reading the passage to find the answers to the first set of questions, students could lightly write words in the margins of the text as reminders to themselves about the content of each paragraph. OR– students could underline key words such as dates, names, etc. that might be likely answers.


Teach students to mark where they stop reading before answering the question. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students to mark where they stop reading before answering the question. One problem students face when reading questions before the passage is finding where they left off in reading, causing them to lose valuable time rereading.


Teach students how and when to check their answers. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students how and when to check their answers. Some students think “Check Your Answers” means to take the entire test over again. Teach students to circle or check difficult items. When checking their answers, they may want to spend more time on the circled or checked questions.


Teach students how to block out distracting text. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students how to block out distracting text. Use blank index cards as reading guides.


Teach students when it is appropriate to guess. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students when it is appropriate to guess. The MAP test does not penalize students for guessing, so teachers should teach students to never leave an answer blank. Teach students how to make informed attempts at answering constructed-response items and teach them how to narrow down selected response questions.


Teach students to use the process of elimination on multiple-choice items to which they don’t know the answer. :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Teach students to use the process of elimination on multiple-choice items to which they don’t know the answer. First, eliminate the “wrong” answers. Then, look for the “small incorrect detail.”


Help students with pacing. :Modified from: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Help students with pacing. Practice giving timed portions of the TEST. -- Not a lot, just a few! Students will realize how much time they can spend on a problem – what to skip, etc.


Encourage! :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Encourage! MAP is a time for students to show what they know! Students will be able to “read right through you” so be sure to elicit a “positive” attitude! Remember the locker IQ story?? People do what’s expected of them, so expect the BEST!


Alien Song :Source: Navigating the MAP: Communication Arts Alien Song