Ace That Test: Effective Test-Taking Strategies for Elementary Students

Throughout their academic journey, elementary students encounter numerous tests designed to assess their understanding and mastery of various subjects. While tests are a common method of evaluation, it's crucial to recognize that students don't automatically possess the skills to navigate them successfully. Just like any other skill, effective test-taking requires explicit instruction and practice. Equipping students with purposeful test-taking strategies can build their confidence and empower them to demonstrate their knowledge accurately on standardized tests and classroom assessments.

Building a Foundation for Test-Taking Success

Before diving into specific strategies, it's essential to create a supportive and conducive environment for test-taking. This includes:

Reading Stamina: The Unsung Hero

Reading stamina plays a pivotal role in students' performance, especially on standardized tests with multiple reading passages. If students are not accustomed to sustained reading, they may experience fatigue and struggle to maintain focus.

Assessing the Starting Point: Determine students' current reading stamina by observing their independent reading habits. Note how long they remain focused, when they start to lose attention, and if they attempt to avoid reading.
Gradual Progression: Begin with short, manageable independent reading sessions and gradually increase the duration each day.
Focus Strategies: Teach students techniques for maintaining focus during independent reading.
Fluency Matters: Address fluency issues, as students who read word-by-word will tire quickly. Employ strategies like echo reading, repeated readings, readers' theater, or reading buddies to improve fluency.

Creating a Positive Mindset

Standardized tests can make even the most calm, cool, and collected students and teachers feel on edge, nervous, and anxious. So, in the weeks leading up to the big test, prioritize checking in with students, exploring their feelings and worries, and teaching them practical test-taking tips.

Challenge negative thoughts: Teach students to avoid falling into a thinking trap: an overly negative, unrealistic way of seeing things. Show them how to change their anxious, worried thoughts into positive ones.
Use your test anxiety coping skills: Teach students to identify signs of test anxiety in their bodies, and when they experience them, to take a quick brain break. Students can take a deep breath in their nose and out their mouth, count to 10, then repeat as many times as they need.

Key Test-Taking Strategies for Elementary Students

Here are several effective test-taking strategies that can be implemented in the classroom to help elementary students excel on tests:

1. Understanding the Test Format

Familiarity is an important part of test prep. Before delving into practice tests, ensure students understand the elements of the specific standardized test they will be taking. This includes:

Identifying Test Elements: Use previously released state tests to familiarize students with the types of questions, reading passages, and overall format.
Reducing Surprises: Explain what to expect on test day, emphasizing how understanding the format can aid preparation. The more students know about the test, the easier it will be for them to prepare for it in the weeks leading up to the test.

2. Pacing Strategies: Time Management is Key

Time management is key to success during state tests. One of the best ways to teach this strategy is to find a previously released state test and go through each element. Teach students to create a pacing plan to avoid running out of time or feeling rushed.

Calculating Time Allocation: Determine the total test time and the number of passages.
Review Buffer: Allocate time at the end for reviewing answers (e.g., 30 minutes).
Passage Time: Divide the remaining time by the number of passages to estimate how much time can be spent on each.
Flexibility: Emphasize that these are guidelines, and students shouldn't stress over precise timing for each question.

3. Question Types: "Right There" vs. "Thinking"

Teach students to categorize questions into two different types. Right There Questions and Thinking Questions. This strategy helps students approach each question with an appropriate plan.

Right There Questions: Answers can be found directly in the text.
Thinking Questions: Answers require combining text evidence with personal knowledge and critical thinking skills.
Efficient Searching: Knowing the difference prevents excessive searching for answers not explicitly stated in the text.

4. Decoding Questions: Unlocking the Clues

We want students to pay close attention to the words used in the multiple-choice questions. Often times there are words used that can act as a clue and direct students to a specific section of text where they could find the answer. Train students to identify keywords and phrases in test questions that provide clues to the correct answer.

Common Signal Words: Focus on words like "most," "best," "based on," "according to," "suggests," and "supports."
Test Creator Mindset: Encourage students to think like the test creator when encountering these words.

5. Predicting the Answer: "Answer First" Approach

This strategy is great and works on any type of standardized test. You want to teach your students to answer the question using their own words before they look at the multiple-choice options. This strategy helps students avoid distractions from incorrect answer choices.

Read also: Mastering the SAT

Cover Answer Options: Have students cover the multiple-choice options.
Answer in Own Words: Read the question and answer it using their own words.
Compare and Contrast: Compare their answer to the multiple-choice options.
Re-evaluate: If no match is found, students should reread the text for different evidence.

6. Process of Elimination: "Slash the Trash"

Read all answer choices and “Slash the Trash” to eliminate incorrect answers. Teach students to eliminate obviously wrong answers to narrow down the choices.

Identify Incorrect Answers: Encourage students to cross out or eliminate answer choices they know are incorrect.
Focus on Remaining Options: This strategy helps students focus on the remaining possibilities and increases their chances of selecting the correct answer.

7. Context Clues: Unlocking Unfamiliar Words

We can’t possibly expose students to all of the vocabulary words they may encounter on a test. Teach students to use context clues to decipher the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Sentence Substitution: Substitute each answer choice in the sentence to see if it makes sense.
Word Part Analysis: Break down unknown words into known word parts.
Connections: Make connections to other known words.

8. Note-Taking: The Brain Dump

The brain dump strategy encourages students to write down everything they know about a subject before taking the test. Before beginning a test, provide students with a blank piece of paper. This strategy helps activate prior knowledge and improve recall.

Pre-Test Brain Dump: When the test begins they can write down facts, vocabulary terms, tools, or other things that they want to remember.
Practice is Key: You will need to provide ample practice with this in the months leading up to the test. Students need to know your testing expectations and what to do. They should be able to write it automatically themselves, as we cannot remind them on testing day.
Reference Point: When students begin to answer the questions, they can refer back to their notes. This may help them identify which paragraph closely relates to the question. As a result, they can go directly to that specific paragraph to look for the text evidence without needing to reread everything.

9. Study Guides: Reinforcing Comprehension Skills

Eventually came up with study guides to send home with students. These forms were helpful as they read at home and allowed them to write or talk about any text they read. Study guides can reinforce comprehension skills and provide a framework for home study.

Explanation and Examples: The study guides have a brief explanation of the comprehension skill with a “Good Readers can…” statement.
Reader's Notebook Integration: Not only can you send the study guides home with students, but it’s also beneficial to add them to readers notebooks. By doing so students can refer back to it during independent reading and reading response activities.

10. Checking Your Work: Double-Check Bubbles

While this may seem like a silly strategy to spend time on, it is extremely important. And I can’t tell you the number of standardized tests I’ve proctored where I’ve seen students make mistakes bubbling on their answer sheet. Emphasize the importance of accurately filling in answer bubbles on paper tests.

Read also: Comprehensive ACT Guide

Explicit Instruction: Do at least one explicit test prep lesson on how to correctly fill in the bubbles… even fifth graders can forget how to do this part correctly.
Accuracy Matters: Explain that correct answers are worthless if not properly recorded on the answer sheet.

11. Positive Self-Talk: The Ultimate Confidence Booster

This is my favorite test-prep strategy to teach students. Ultimately we want our students to feel confident on test day. One of the best ways to do that is to teach them how to give themselves a pep-talk. Encourage students to develop positive self-talk strategies to boost confidence.

Brainstorming Positive Sayings: When you teach this lesson, you can have students brainstorm sayings, mantras, or phrases they can repeat to themselves on test day.
Anchor Charts and Reminders: You can create a giant anchor chart with all their ideas. You can even have students write a letter to themselves or put their favorite positive saying on a post-it to stick on their desk.
Personalized Affirmations: Anything that will remind students to think positively about the test. For example: I am prepared for this test. I know I am a great reader. I have worked hard and I am ready. No matter how I do, I am really proud of all my hard work this year.

Implementation Strategies: Making it Stick

We can’t just expect students to automatically know how to implement test taking strategies. You need to spend time modeling and explicitly teaching them. To effectively implement these strategies, consider the following:

Explicit Instruction: Model and explicitly teach test-taking strategies.
Question Type Exposure: Make sure to also introduce students to the various types of questions they may encounter on a test and how to approach these questions.
Guided Practice: Students will need ample opportunities for guided practice. This can be done during minilessons or small group instruction.
Authentic Context: Ideally, you’d want to teach students the test taking strategies in an authentic context, such as when they are actually taking the test.
Coaching as a Scaffold: It can be beneficial to “coach” students during a test by helping them understand what the question is asking or how to approach it. This does NOT mean giving them the answer but helping them understand how to answer the question. It also provides you more accurate information about whether the student actually knows the content versus getting a question wrong because they didn’t under the question.
Gradual Release: Begin the year by modeling the test taking strategies you expect. As the year progresses, gradually reduce the amount of coaching you provide during testing. The last few tests before standardized tests should have absolutely no coaching.
Ongoing Reinforcement: Embed the test taking strategies all year through the variety of tests given. Model how to use the test taking strategies. Explain why the test taking strategy works and how it benefits students.

A Note on Coaching

Coaching has shown to be highly effective; however, there is debate surrounding it. Some believe there should be NO student support during a test. If comparing scores among grade level teachers, you’ll want to make sure all teachers are on the same page with this strategy. If some teachers on a team coach students while others don’t, you can argue that it’s unfair to compare those results.

The Bigger Picture

Test taking is not the heart of education, despite how it may seem. I never want my instruction to be meaningless and teaching to a test. Ultimately, test-taking strategies are just one piece of the puzzle. Remember, the best preparation is a strong foundation of knowledge and skills acquired through engaging and effective instruction throughout the year.

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