This brochure is intended to help teachers and parents prepare students for the North Carolina Open-Ended Assessments (in reading and mathematics) given at grades 4 and 8. The brochure states that teachers in grades 2-5 can use the information to prepare students for the open-ended assessments. This particular brochure focuses primarily on the…

This document contains samples and explanations from Colorado's state reading and writing comprehension test for Grade 4, hereby released to the public (parents, teachers, and any other interested parties). It presents one reading comprehension item, the scoring guide for that item, and 6 different student responses, with the scores they received.…

Discusses the factors involved in determining text difficulty. Discusses some of the reasons children choose to read certain materials, such as personal connections, culture and language, interest, and expertise. Illustrates these factors through descriptions of work with individual students, classroom observations, and research on students'…

Discusses one fourth-grade student's attempt to write a bilingual script, based upon a story told to her by her father, within the context of a bilingual playwriting project. Concludes that bilingualism needs to be seen as part of quality education for all students, not as compensatory education only for language minority students. (SG)

The Avon Grove School District has a middle school orientation program for incoming elementary students and their parents, which consists of several visits and open houses in the Spring and at the beginning of the Fall term. (SJL)

The writing samples presented in this paper were selected from the portfolios of fourth-grade Vermont students as examples of the various points in Vermont's newly revised analytic writing assessment guide. The benchmark writing pieces in the paper, when used with the analytic assessment guide that begins the paper, are guideposts for assessing…

This document lists the test and item specifications for the Washington Assessment of Student Learning for fourth grade reading. The test section of the document explains that the purpose of this test is to measure Washington fourth grade students' level of proficiency in the Essential Academic Learning Requirements in reading. The reading test…

This booklet contains 12 lessons about the history of Ohio correlated to the proficiency outcomes of the "Grade 4 Proficiency Test Outcomes in Ohio." Lessons include: (1) "Emigrating to Ohio"; (2) "The Era of Expansion"; (3) "Finding Out about Ohio"; (4) "Emigrating to Ohio"; (5) "Settling in…

This demonstration booklet illustrates the kind of exercises, test questions, and tasks used in the 2003 assessment of student achievement in reading and mathematics by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Each student will be asked to complete the background section and the cognitive sections for one subject, and the assessment…

This demonstration booklet illustrates the kind of exercises or test questions and tasks used in the assessment of student achievement in reading and writing by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for 2002. Each student will be asked to complete the background section and the cognitive sections for one subject, and the…

This document includes both a booklet and a presentation guide. The booklet contains the anchor papers used to score the 2001 Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) in writing, grade 4. Anchor papers are concrete examples that illustrate the intent of the scoring guides. The papers in the booklet exemplify the full range of score points…

This planning grid for teaching visual arts in grade 4 in Delaware schools outlines the following six standards for students to complete: (1) students will select and use form, media, techniques, and processes to create works of art and communicate meaning; (2) students ill create ways to use visual, spatial, and temporal concepts in creating…

Describes how Michigan's English Language Arts Assessment (ELA) takes parts of the old fifth-grade writing assessment and fourth-grade reading tests, adds new elements, and wraps everything around a theme. Presents a seven-step activity to help prepare fourth graders for the ELA. Concludes that the overall impact on scores is not known. (SG)

Identifies four patterns in a fourth grader's behavior and performance that went beyond his identity as a "terror": Steve connects with others orally, returns others' acceptance, can improve his self-image, and learns in untraditional ways. Notes that his portfolio helped him to articulate a presentation of his life for himself and others,…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 1998 Writing Assessment measured student writing performance at the 4th, 8th, and 12th grades. Scoring guides for each grade allowed scorers to objectively evaluate students' work. This issue of NAEPfacts includes a 4th-grade narrative scoring guide, along with samples of student work at each…