Testing Anxiety- How concerned should you be as a parent?
Last week a reporter from WUNC radio came out to visit with me about testing in North Carolina and one of the questions was about test anxiety for students. It really got me thinking about perception versus reality. In today’s “Breaking News” “This just In” and “Instant Tweet” society sometimes we bring on our own anxiety by worrying too much about what is going to happen rather than what actually occurs.
At Lockhart you can ask every staff member and they will tell you the students do fine and it is an essential component that drives our daily instruction. Lots of time testing is built up for a make or break one day event like our news outlets like to promote. At Lockhart, we look at the student as a whole child. We have all different types of measures to figure out how our students are growing on a regular basis. Although there is two or three days that our End of Grade Testing is conducted it is just another piece of a student’s portfolio of success.
We encourage all parents to build a strong partnership with their child’s teacher. On a weekly basis all teachers review student data during their professional learning team meetings as well as each quarter every student’s data is triangulated to show a true picture of each student’s performance.
So what can a parent do to support their child?
1. Build a strong supportive relationship with your child’s teacher(s).
2. Be connected with their assignments, homework, and general areas of study.
3. Be positive, build their self-esteem, and model what a “student” looks like daily.
Although many, if not all, students absolutely deal with a level of test anxiety (think back when you went to school) it can always be greatly reduced by a supportive family and school. Usually parents have more test anxiety than their child.
When a test day does arrive encourage your child that this is just another time that they can prove how hard they have worked all year. Remind them that giving 100% effort every day and behaving in class will always produce positive results.