Director of Middle School Blog "ERB Testing at Orchard"
Students in 4th-8th grade will take the Educational Records Bureau CTP 4Online standardized tests, also known as ERB’s. Our 5th-8th graders took these tests on September 26 and 27. Fourth-grade will take them on October 9th, 10th, 11th, and the 13th will be a make up day. This test takes two days to administer; day one is less than three hours of testing and day two is less than two hours of testing. Fourth-grade is testing for a shorter time each day, which is why they have more than two days. The tests cover selected areas of verbal aptitude such as reading comprehension, writing mechanics, and vocabulary as well as math computation and one’s conceptual understanding of math.
You will receive your child(ren)’s scores by early November. It is important to understand what the results of these tests mean and do not mean. Test results are affected by a child’s level of motivation, anxiety, concentration, energy, health, and understanding of directions. First, these scores indicate how well your child responded to the set of questions in each portion of this test on a particular day. These do not necessarily predict success in school, level of intelligence or even competency in a particular subsection. A section may have only four questions on punctuation. A student missing one, may appear to be weak, but might have answered the next thirty grammar questions correctly. Additionally, the avid reader who is capable of discussing Tuck Everlasting or The Secret Life of Bees on a deep, interpretive level may not have a chance of revealing her strengths on a test like this. We do not teach to the test at Orchard. This means that we do not let the questions and subtopics of the standardized test dictate our curriculum. Do we teach grammar, writing mechanics, spelling, reading, creative writing, fractions, decimals, probability, geometry, algebra, problem solving and estimation? Absolutely. But we may introduce a topic later in the year. We may also explore a topic in far more depth than the test requires.
It is also important that we look at these tests and try to understand what they do reveal. Schools do not operate in vacuums, and it is probably good to periodically check progress with an outside, objective instrument. Standardized tests may reveal a particular pattern we should pay attention to. For example, if every single student in sixth grade incorrectly answered the questions on order of operations, we might reexamine that set of lessons. But it is important to be cautious here, as that unit may be part of the curriculum that occurs later in the year. We do not want our curriculum to be set by the test designers and have our teachers simply prepping for the test all year.
These tests may also confirm a learning issue that we suspected. In this sense, the results are one more piece to the puzzle, one additional way to help us all understand how a child’s mind works. These results, combined with the daily observations of the classroom teachers over the course of a whole year, help us to see student progress more clearly.
When you look at the test results for your child you will see his/her scores displayed as percentile ranks and in stanines. The percentile rankings compare your child to others of the same age group, nationally, taking the test. For example, a girl scoring in the 97th percentile on math computation did as well as or better than 97% of the other students answering those questions. Another way to express her scores is to say that she scored in the top 3%. These same scores are also expressed as stanines. The stanines range from one to nine with nine being at the higher end of the scores and one at the lower. Picturing a normal distribution, you can see that many students, on a given subtest, score in the four to six range, with fewer students falling at either end of the spectrum.
A few final thoughts; as you are undoubtedly aware, there has been increased national interest in testing for accountability. In some ways, having standards and benchmarks is a good thing. But it is also difficult to measure, on any standardized test, some of the qualities many of us hold most dear in learners: curiosity, perseverance, openmindedness, flexibility, creativity, the ability to sympathize, to interpret and to generate passion. These are facets of your child as a learner that the teachers know. My plea then is for us all to look at test results, give them their due, but not more, and consider what they reveal in the richer context of what teachers see each day.
It is your choice whether you wish to share these results directly with your child. For example, “John, your reading comprehension scores were very strong but we need to work more on your vocabulary.” We tend to avoid sharing exact numbers to decrease chances of labeling or negative comparisons. If you have questions or concerns, please contact Hillary French (ext 5729), Nick Eble (ext 5738), Hal Schwartz (5710), or Jamie Napier (ext 2187). Any one of us would be happy to help you better understand and interpret your child’s test scores.
Thank you,
Jamie Napier
Read more about Orchard's middle school program.
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You will receive your child(ren)’s scores by early November. It is important to understand what the results of these tests mean and do not mean. Test results are affected by a child’s level of motivation, anxiety, concentration, energy, health, and understanding of directions. First, these scores indicate how well your child responded to the set of questions in each portion of this test on a particular day. These do not necessarily predict success in school, level of intelligence or even competency in a particular subsection. A section may have only four questions on punctuation. A student missing one, may appear to be weak, but might have answered the next thirty grammar questions correctly. Additionally, the avid reader who is capable of discussing Tuck Everlasting or The Secret Life of Bees on a deep, interpretive level may not have a chance of revealing her strengths on a test like this. We do not teach to the test at Orchard. This means that we do not let the questions and subtopics of the standardized test dictate our curriculum. Do we teach grammar, writing mechanics, spelling, reading, creative writing, fractions, decimals, probability, geometry, algebra, problem solving and estimation? Absolutely. But we may introduce a topic later in the year. We may also explore a topic in far more depth than the test requires.
It is also important that we look at these tests and try to understand what they do reveal. Schools do not operate in vacuums, and it is probably good to periodically check progress with an outside, objective instrument. Standardized tests may reveal a particular pattern we should pay attention to. For example, if every single student in sixth grade incorrectly answered the questions on order of operations, we might reexamine that set of lessons. But it is important to be cautious here, as that unit may be part of the curriculum that occurs later in the year. We do not want our curriculum to be set by the test designers and have our teachers simply prepping for the test all year.
These tests may also confirm a learning issue that we suspected. In this sense, the results are one more piece to the puzzle, one additional way to help us all understand how a child’s mind works. These results, combined with the daily observations of the classroom teachers over the course of a whole year, help us to see student progress more clearly.
When you look at the test results for your child you will see his/her scores displayed as percentile ranks and in stanines. The percentile rankings compare your child to others of the same age group, nationally, taking the test. For example, a girl scoring in the 97th percentile on math computation did as well as or better than 97% of the other students answering those questions. Another way to express her scores is to say that she scored in the top 3%. These same scores are also expressed as stanines. The stanines range from one to nine with nine being at the higher end of the scores and one at the lower. Picturing a normal distribution, you can see that many students, on a given subtest, score in the four to six range, with fewer students falling at either end of the spectrum.
A few final thoughts; as you are undoubtedly aware, there has been increased national interest in testing for accountability. In some ways, having standards and benchmarks is a good thing. But it is also difficult to measure, on any standardized test, some of the qualities many of us hold most dear in learners: curiosity, perseverance, openmindedness, flexibility, creativity, the ability to sympathize, to interpret and to generate passion. These are facets of your child as a learner that the teachers know. My plea then is for us all to look at test results, give them their due, but not more, and consider what they reveal in the richer context of what teachers see each day.
It is your choice whether you wish to share these results directly with your child. For example, “John, your reading comprehension scores were very strong but we need to work more on your vocabulary.” We tend to avoid sharing exact numbers to decrease chances of labeling or negative comparisons. If you have questions or concerns, please contact Hillary French (ext 5729), Nick Eble (ext 5738), Hal Schwartz (5710), or Jamie Napier (ext 2187). Any one of us would be happy to help you better understand and interpret your child’s test scores.
Thank you,
Jamie Napier
Read more about Orchard's middle school program.
