Preparing for NAPLAN

1
Preparing for NAPLAN
2

• Content
• Information
• Knowledge
• Subject matter
• Topic

• Genre
• Form
• Style
• Category

3
Content Is the WHAT we teach

• Deep knowledge
• general awareness or possession of information,
  facts, ideas, truths, or principles
• Knowledge of core content covering a range of
  years
• VELS - responsibility of all teachers (P to 12)
• To support teachers we have
• Progression points
• Continua
• Teaching Strategies
• Evidence based assessment for teaching

4
How do we teach?

• Through Key Strategies for developing
  understanding of the content
• Remembering what is known
• Activating prior knowledge
• Getting knowledge ready
• Synthesising the unknown to become the known
• Making connections
• Applying what is known through
• Predicting
• Questioning
• Visualising
• Summarising and paraphrasing
• Using vocabulary

5
What do we need to know

• Teachers need to know
• The test content
• Testing strategies
• Time required on task
• Benefits and implications of testing

• Students need to know
• The test content
• Testing strategies
• Time required on task
• Benefits and implications of testing

6
Knowing the Components of the test

• Multiple choice questions
• Montage
• Poems / Short stories / dialogue
• Write short answer responses
• Number problems embedded in words
• Pictorial representations

7
Knowing the Time

• Time on task up to 45 minutes
• It is not a race or competition
• Pace
• Build up stamina
• Build up skills
• Practise timed reading and writing

8
Knowing how to integrate into instructional
practice

• PLAN the TIME FOR STUDENTS TO PRACTISE
• Independent reading with a focus
• Listening and responding to readings
• Discussing the focus
• Responding in writing
• Short responses to extended responses
• Build up TIMED READING , WRITING, MATHS
  RESPONSES
• Actual test taking focusing on the components of
  the test

9
Knowing the Test Strategies

• Skimming and scanning
• Identifying key words
• Use picture clues
• Using artefacts
• Practise
• Moving on to known questions
• Rereading questions

10
Montage

• -

artefact
11
Key activities to be embedded into teaching
practise

• PLAN the TIME FOR
• Independent reading/writing
• Reading to students
• Discussions with students
• Questioning and questions

• Guiding the reading/writing
• Sharing the reading/writing
• Able to quickly switch between genres

12
Why prepare for tests

• Enable students to do their best under test
  conditions
• Prevent students from being confused or
  intimidated by a strange format or the
  requirements of tests
• Assist teachers to have accurate information to
  inform their teaching
• Set students up for success not failure

13
What can be done before May?

• Plan for test taking STRATEGIES
• Learning the Structure of the Testing Genre
• Learning Time Management in the Testing Genre
• Reading
• Sustained, independent reading
• Writing break down the 30 min.
• Pre-writing/planning train for 5 min.
• Writing train for 20 minutes
• Re-reading/editing/proofreading train for 5 min
• Maths
• Understanding the question
• How to represent the answer
• Opportunity to practise and build stamina
• Provide parents with information

14
14
15

• . . .if we think about the test as a sort of
  genre, we could teach kids how to negotiate it
  in much the same way that we teach them how to
  negotiate any other genre.
• Donna Santman

16
Resources

• Websites
• AiZ www.aiz.vic.edu.au
• VELS http//vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au
• Progression points, continua, teaching strategies
• NMR www.nmr.vic.edu.au
• HRLTP
• A Teachers Guide to Standardized Reading Tests -
  Knowledge Is Power Calkins, Montgomery and
  Santman
• What Really Matters for Struggling Readers
  Designing Research-Based Programs Richard L.
  Allington