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Online STAAR Testing

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Seven Ways TeacherMade Can Help You Prepare for STAAR Testing

by Laura Bresko April 4, 2023

written by Laura Bresko

Teaching has peaks and valleys, and the end-of-year standardized test review time is a slog. But you don’t have to put yourself or your students through it when you incorporate STAAR test prep activities throughout the year.

You can welcome the arrival of spring once again when you:

integrate STAAR question types into your class routine throughout the year.
pinpoint problem areas daily/weekly to remediate when it matters most.
use auto-grading features so you have more time and data to do what you love.

What will be different about STAAR for Spring 2023?

As we all know too well, Texas students will experience a newly redesigned STAAR 2.0 test next month. There will be key changes that students need to be familiar with before taking the test:

New question types
Cross-curricular reading passages
Evidence-based writing
Tests administered online

The Texas STAAR will differ from a traditional standardized paper and pencil test. Students will face questions that require them to think differently than multiple choice: multi-select, hot spot, drag and drop, free response questions, and more.

Integrating STAAR Test Prep More Frequently for Shorter Periods

Educators have been running drill camps before the big test for years now. How do you feel about that approach and its effectiveness? If you’re like most of us, you probably don’t feel great about it. Instead, consider incorporating a few of these tips into your normal week so that students familiarize themselves with the test format before the big day.

Tip 1: Incorporate STAAR review into your daily routine.

The biggest takeaway for planning test prep is to do smaller amounts of it for longer periods. You can achieve this by incorporating it into your daily class routine. Here are two practical places to include a STAAR activity each day in class:

Bell work: You can incorporate review questions in your daily assignments. It’s a great time to focus on 1-2 questions and really dive into how to solve them.
Formative assessment: If you’re already planning a formative assessment each day, why not format questions just like the STAAR 2.0 test?

Tip 2: Ask questions in the same format as STAAR.

Formatting questions you ask in class to be like the ones in STAAR is easier said than done. The STAAR test is online, and many question formats (multi-select, hot spot, dropdowns, etc.) are not always easy to replicate.

Using a tool like TeacherMade can simplify the process. TeacherMade converts any PDF to an online assignment, and you can add a variety of question types to any assignment. Check out TeacherMade’s toolbar to see some of the question formats you can create for your assignments:

These question formats mirror what your students will see on STAAR.

Tip 3: Use resources that already exist.

If you incorporate STAAR-like materials throughout the year, you’re going to need a lot of content. But there’s no good reason to reinvent the wheel – not anymore!

TEA has all the practice tests you need on its STAAR website.
TeacherMade has taken the released STAARs from prior years and turned them into STAAR 2.0 tests with 25-30% technology-enhanced item types on every form. Check out our STAAR resources here.
You have loads of PDFs in your file cabinet that you can easily repurpose into STAAR 2.0 using TeacherMade.

Tip 4: Save time with auto-grading.

Your students need quick feedback to gain the most meaning from their STAAR review. But more frequent and smaller review activities can lead to a lot of grading. That’s a big burden for classroom teachers who are already overloaded!

Automate your grading using TeacherMade and ease your workload. You can upload any PDF and add an answer key, and you’ll never have to grade another worksheet, formative assessment, or practice test.

Tip 5: Show progress over time and increase student buy-in.

As students receive quick feedback in TeacherMade, they can see their progress while working on STAAR review. This increases student buy-in to the review process and keeps engagement higher for your reviews.

You can also create review activities that students can repeat if they need extra review for the test. Use TeacherMade’s reports to assist with this.

Tip 6: Pinpoint STAAR problem areas to save time and save student engagement.

Another way you can increase student motivation and improve your review outcomes is by focusing on areas that need the most help. Stop reviewing everything. This wastes time and causes students to check out mentally. Instead, focus on areas where your students struggle the most.

When you use TeacherMade data to target your focus, you instantly know the most missed questions on assignments and can easily see if students mastered a concept. Then, you can target what needs to be addressed.

Tip 7: Build test-taking confidence.

Doing smaller reviews over longer periods builds test-taking confidence. Students will feel more engaged with the review material, pay attention to feedback, and become more familiar with the test format.

This results in students who don’t get distracted by the testing format of STAAR and only focus on the content tasks and doing their best.

You can create authentic STAAR test prep with TeacherMade.

TeacherMade transforms your Google Slides and PDFs into interactive activities in minutes.

Use what you have. Transform your existing Google Slides, Docs, and other PDFs into interactive activities in minutes. Or construct digital activities from scratch. The choice is yours.
Prevent teacher burnout with auto-grading. Regain your nights and weekends. 20+ question types are auto-graded for you. Scores flow straight into your Google Classroom grade book, Canvas, or Schoology! Even student-constructed responses are graded more easily in TeacherMade.
Measure what your students know. Students engage more deeply with the curriculum when they get instant feedback via the “Check My Answers” button. Turn learning loss into gains.

April 4, 2023 0 comment

STAAR Prep: A K-5 Argumentative/Opinion Writing Strategy

by Emily Horn February 8, 2023

written by Emily Horn

As we all know here in Texas, every grade level will have an “extended constructed response” on the STAAR test this school year. This response will either be informational or argumentative and will be an “essay.” Let’s take a look at exemplars and rubrics before we dive into an argumentative/opinion writing strategy for the elementary grades.

STAAR Test Example Responses

Here are some exemplars for grades 3 and 5 (for both short and extended constructed responses) provided by TEA (Texas Education Agency). These prompts and exemplars come from the field test, and this document walks you through the scoring. I go over more information about the constructed responses, STAAR test tools, and provide a few resources in Reading Language Arts STAAR Test Resources.

STAAR Argumentative Writing Rubrics

RLA Grades 3-5 Argumentative/Opinion Writing Rubric (10/18/22)
RLA Grades 3-5 Argumentative/Opinion Writing Rubric-Spanish (10/18/22)
RLA Grades 3-5 Informational Writing Rubric (10/18/22)
RLA Grades 3-5 Informational Writing Rubric-Spanish (10/18/22)

What’s the Difference Between Short and Extended Constructive Responses?

Here are exemplars from the stand-alone field test. The 5th grade prompts and responses are for the same passage, “Steam and Sail”. The responses on the left are short constructed responses (SCR), and the one on the right is an extended constructive response (ECR). The grade 3 response is within the writing domain, not the reading domain. There are no exemplars for grades 3 and 4 to reference for ECR in the scoring guide.

**Source: Grades 3–5 Reading Language Arts Constructed Response Scoring Guide**

How to Teach Argumentative/Opinion Writing

So, of course, there are lots of ways to teach opinion writing to elementary students. But I’m a huge fan of the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR), and I’m also a huge fan of discussion and verbal practice before beginning the writing process. That said, I’m going to walk through using GRR with some resources for teaching opinion/argumentative writing at the elementary level. This strategy is adaptable and meant to be built on over time, so the example given isn’t necessarily 5th grade, score point 5 level, but it can get students there with practice and some adapting!

Review: Fact vs. Opinion

Whether you’re teaching first grade or fifth grade, it’s always good to start with a review of the difference between fact and opinion. Here are a few resources for this.

Florida Center for Reading Research Fact or Opinion Game
Factile Fact vs. Opinion Game
Teaching with a Mountain View: Four Activities to Teach Fact vs. Opinion in Upper Elementary

Talk Before You Write!

This is what I like to call, the “Speak Cycle.” Students may need to practice one or more of these steps, or the whole cycle, multiple times before moving on to writing. Speaking before writing helps students learn to organize their thoughts, look for text evidence, and also familiarizes them with proper sentence structures for opinion writing before they actually start writing. You might think, “Ok, maybe for lower elementary.” Sure, but even older students benefit from verbal practice before writing! It’s a form of rehearsal and planning.

1. Whole Group: Read the text. Discuss opinions as a class. Highlight the evidence.

Before broaching the topic of supporting evidence for an opinion, read the text and discuss opinions. Then ask students for supporting evidence. It’s much easier to talk about supporting evidence than it is to start writing about it from the get go! Here is an example text that works well for third and fourth grade from Education.com. I recommend starting with short texts and then, as stamina improves, introducing longer texts over time.

Education.com Argumentative/Opinion writing — **Article from Education.com**

“Today, we’re going to read a text together about ___________. We’re going to discuss our opinions on ___________ based on what we read, and I’m going to highlight facts from the text to help support our opinion.”

[Read the text] [Read the question]

“So, what are our opinions?”

[Student one offers an opinion.]

“Thanks for sharing your opinion! What information in this text led you to think that?”

[Highlight what the student references in the text. Repeat this with other examples.]

“Ok! So, from our reading today, we formed the opinion ______. And we formed that opinion because [read off highlights of the text].”

In this practice, you are showing the students how to identify and highlight supporting evidence in the text, but this is first a verbal exercise. Start with easier texts and move to more difficult texts as students become more autonomous.

You can create your own questions, but here are a few resources that offer texts with questions for opinion writing.

Education.com
Ereadingworksheets.com
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

2. Small Group: Read the text. Discuss opinions with a small group. Highlight the evidence together.

This works best if you group students on similar reading levels. Give each student in the group the same short text that’s on their reading level. Read it together, discuss an opinion, and have students highlight the supporting facts with your guidance. Then, have students verbalize their opinions and reference the highlighted text evidence. Students should speak using the same sentence structures you want them to use when writing. Having these up as a visual is great for practice! This is all to get students ready to write.

“I think…”
“In my opinion,…”
“I believe that…”
“This is my opinion because…”
“According to the text,…”
“First, the author states…”
“Second, I read that…”
Etc.

3. Independently: Students read the text, highlight evidence, and discuss their opinion and supporting evidence with a partner or group.

Have students read a short text, think about their opinion, and highlight facts to support their opinion on their own. Students can discuss an explanation of their opinion and text evidence with a partner, or they can explain it in a small group setting. Students should still be speaking using the same sentence structures you would like them to write with.

It’s Time to Write!

Now that students are familiar with reading, forming an opinion, highlighting evidence to support their opinion, and using sentence structures verbally, it’s time to start writing. But it’s not quite time for them to write independently. First, we will model good writing for them, following a similar process to the speaking cycle.

1. Whole Group: Read the text. Highlight the evidence. Model the writing for the class.

So this step is similar to step one of the speak cycle, but instead of just discussing, you are going to be modeling the writing. Here’s one formula I like to use called, “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!,” and I’ve included an example using the video game article from the beginning of this post.

The Bread: The Introduction (2-3 sentences)

Write one sentence to state your opinion.
Write a second sentence introducing two main facts from the text that support your opinion.

“In my opinion, video games are harmful to kids. Video games can be unhealthy. They can also be too violent.” (Just an example! This is not necessarily reflective of my actual opinion on video games.)

The Peanut Butter: Paragraph 2 (2-3 sentences)

Write a few sentences to support the first fact.

“According to the text, video games can be unhealthy if children play them for too long and don’t move around or exercise. This can make kids overweight and have health issue.”

The Jelly: Paragraph 3 (2-3 sentences)

Write a few sentences to support the second fact.

“Sometimes, violence can make kids fight, and this can be harmful to friendships. Violence isn’t good for kids’ brains and can lead them to become bullies.”

The Bread: The Conclusion (2-3 sentences)

Say your opinion – again.
Say why your opinion is true – again.

“I believe that video games can be harmful to kids. Sitting for too long in front of the game can cause health problems and violence can lead to aggressive behavior. It’s better for kids to be active and be more positive and less violent.”

How to Create a Deliciously Argumentative Constructive Response

2. Partnered Writing: Students read the text together, highlight the evidence, and write with a partner.

It’s similar to the whole group exercise, except that students are practicing writing more independently with a writing partner/buddy. In this step, you can offer students graphic organizers or an outline template to help them remember all the elements of their argumentative writing. They can work together to write one essay or they can each write an essay and then review each other’s writing.

3. Independently: Read the text. Highlight the evidence. Write the essay.

At this stage, students are practicing writing on their own. They may or may not need supports like sentence starters, graphic organizers, checklists, and visuals to reference in the room. But the goal is for students to be able to produce writing that expresses their opinion in response to a text and provide text evidence to support that opinion.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

It takes a lot of time and a lot of repetitive practice. As Miguel Guhlin references in his article, Writing Strategies: Insights from a Twitter Chat, discussing, teaching sentence structures/vocabulary, and showing examples isn’t enough. Deliberate, repetitive practice, and time, are key to teaching writing.

Do you have other ideas, strategies, or resources that have worked well for you and your K-5 students when it comes to argumentative/opinion writing? Please share them with us in the chat! We’d love to hear what’s worked in your classroom.

Additional STAAR and TEKS Articles You May Find Useful

Reading Language Arts STAAR Test Resources

STAAR Prep: A K-5 Argumentative/Opinion Writing Strategy

The K-5 ELAR TEKS and Free, Editable Spreadsheets

The K-5 Math TEKS and Free, Editable Spreadsheets

A Practical Strategy for Teaching Editing Skills

A Powerful and Easy Strategy for Teaching Text Evidence

February 8, 2023 1 comment

Reading STAAR Testing Writing

Reading Language Arts STAAR Test Resources

by Emily Horn November 10, 2022

written by Emily Horn

As Texas teachers are well aware, the Reading Language Arts (RLA) STAAR test has new items for writing on this year’s 2022-2023 test including editing, revising, and constructed response. I highly recommend logging in to the practice test (if you’ve not already) and working through some of these. You can log in as a guest and access many different practice tests at every grade level just by clicking “Sign In.” Also, you may have seen some of the new STAAR resources I’m sharing already, but I’m going to share them here for context. And here is the Accompanying Guide to New Question Type Samples for RLA. All that said, let’s get going!

Click Sign In to log in as a guest for STAAR practice tests.

Student Typing: Stop the Pecking

Ok, so maybe we can’t actually teach typing. But if students can start off the year in a typing program that increases their speed, accuracy, and efficiency (in hopes of forever bidding adieu to the one-finger keyboard pecking) it will inevitably help them on the online STAAR. Learning to type will be beneficial when it comes to completing the new written response answers. Also, students can’t copy and paste text to revise it. They will have to retype it. Here are Seven Keyboarding Tutorials from Miguel Guhlin with some suggestions for typing programs, and here are 25+ Typing Apps from We Are Teachers for you to check out.

The Highlighter: Your Students’ Best Friend

I will tell you, and this is my personal opinion, that the tools on the online STAAR test are not great for elementary students. They are clunky and don’t make it easy for them to annotate text or take notes. And there is no pencil/annotation tool outside of sticky notes to type on. So, there’s that. The easiest tool for them will likely be the highlighter. You can practice using other digital tools with highlighters, like Edji, outside the test to help students prepare to use it on the test itself. I’d also recommend using the practice test with students to familiarize them with tools.

To use the highlighter on the test, students will need to first select all the text they want to be highlighted with their mouse, right-click on top of the text, and choose a highlighter color. Once they click the color, the text will highlight. To reset the text, they can right-click on the highlighted text and choose “Reset Highlighting.”

The Highlighter for Editing and Revision Questions

When STAAR test questions refer to specific sentences that have errors, when students are asked to rewrite a specific sentence or sentences, and when they are asked to change a word in a sentence, the highlighter can help them see the sentence as a whole. As you can see, the questions break up sentences with a drop-down menu and don’t restate the sentence(s) for students.

STAAR test sample question for grade 3 — *Grade 3 example of highlighting text that needs a word replaced.*

STAAR test sample question for grade 4 — *Grade 4 example of highlighting text to correct an error.*

STAAR test sample question for grade 5 — *Grade 5 example of highlighting text that needs to be rewritten.*

STAAR Written Response Resources

Short Constructed Response – Reading

Scoring Guides with Exemplar Texts for Responses to Reading

*Updated October 7, 2022

In grades 3-8, students will be asked to write short responses to reading (worth two points) to demonstrate understanding of the content. I’d recommend taking a look at the rubrics and the scoring guides with exemplar texts to see exactly what they are looking for in these responses.

For these questions, I really like the RACES and RAPP strategies which can be applied to shorter or longer writing assignments. They will work well for any grade level and can be adapted! Use color coding when you’re practicing with students to help them recognize and check the different parts of their responses. For example, have students highlight the section restating the question in green, the answer in yellow, the text evidence in orange, etc. Here are some templates for you to download and/or edit to your heart’s content!

Short Constructed Response – Writing

Editing and Revising Sample Items

Also in grades 3-8, will be short and extended constructed responses for writing. Short responses (worth one point) are meant to assess specific skills in editing and revision. Students may be asked to write a new sentence, rewrite a sentence, or make an inline choice (choose a correct response from a drop-down style menu).

Extended Constructed Response – Writing

STAAR Writing Rubrics

*Updated October 18, 2022.

Extended responses (worth up to ten points; five-point rubric scored by two scorers) are more complex and are meant to assess a student’s ability to analyze, explain, and evaluate the information given to them in a text. For the extended response, you can use and/or adapt the RAPP or RACE checklists above to help students practice. But here is a RACERR checklist that I created which has been adapted for extended writing based on the writing rubric:

Get All the Templates!

Additional STAAR Test Redesign Resources

I hope you find this information and these resources helpful. What do you want to know about STAAR testing? What would be helpful to you? Let us know in the comments or send me an email!

Additional STAAR and TEKS Articles You May Find Useful

STAAR Prep: A K-5 Argumentative/Opinion Writing Strategy

STAAR Prep: Spelling Strategies, Resources, and Downloadable Posters

The K-5 ELAR TEKS and Free, Editable Spreadsheets

The K-5 Math TEKS and Free, Editable Spreadsheets

A Practical Strategy for Teaching Editing Skills

A Powerful and Easy Strategy for Teaching Text Evidence

November 10, 2022 19 comments

Common Core State Standards Curricular Standards English Language Arts STAAR TEKS Testing Writing

A Practical Strategy for Teaching Editing Skills

by Emily Horn January 21, 2022

written by Emily Horn

How many times as a teacher, in any grade level, have you received a proofread writing assignment back from a student with, wait for it…errors? The horror! I think we’ve all been there. A student might spend a lot of time on their writing, but when it comes to proofreading, many will rush, barely take a look, and then hand it in. I’ll admit it, proofreading and editing is probably not the most fun part of the writing process. And I’m an educator turned editor! (Don’t tell my boss.) All kidding aside, it is truly a skill that takes guidance, starting with our youngest learners.

Today I’ll introduce an idea based loosely on something I learned at a Texas Second Grade Teacher Conference. But with all the Googling in the world, I’ve not been able to find the presenter. If it was you, please claim credit in the comments. We will also look at a creative solution for applying this strategy to the online STAAR test (and other online tests).

Adaptability of the Strategy

While I present a basic procedure for using editing marks with elementary students, this strategy can be adapted for any grade level. It can also be used as a support for students who need extra help. Depending on student progress and needs, aspects of the strategy can be dropped or added for students at any time.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

The end goal, of course, is for students to become independent, authentic, and accurate writers. So let’s take a look at a strategy that can support students in learning to edit with a gradual release of responsibility (GRR). With GRR, you start first by modeling. Then, students practice with teacher guidance. Next, they work with each other collaboratively to practice. And finally, they practice independently.

The Instructional Process

Step 1: Model the basic editing procedure in a five to 10-minute mini-lesson.

To start with, in second grade, we only checked for beginning capitals, ending punctuation, and did what we called “dot and say.” These are the foundations of this elementary editing process. It is important for students to understand that they are completing this process to find and correct errors. With that in mind, here is the basic procedure to teach students in the very beginning:

Put a blue dot under each word as you read it aloud (dot and say).
As you read, underline the beginning capitals in green three times, and
Circle the ending punctuation in red.

Using an interactive projector, you can model these three steps for the whole class with a few pre-selected sentences. After students have practiced this with guidance, together, and then on their own, you can restart this process and introduce a new mark based on whatever grammar and language mechanics concept you’re working on.

A Note about “Dot and Say”

“Dot and say” really helps students slow down and re-read their writing to check for errors. If something is incorrect or missing, they will start to notice and draw the appropriate editing mark to correct it. I observed a massive improvement in student attention to editing with just this one step. We started with everyone reading aloud (TIP: noise-canceling headphones are amazing!), and then students moved to silent reading when they were ready.

*Example Full-Year Progression for Grade 2 based on the TEKS* *(**download**)*

Step 2: Provide guided practice in small groups using pre-selected texts with errors.

Once you’ve introduced a new editing mark, it’s time to practice using it together in a small group. During small group, you can do a quick review of the newly introduced mark and provide students with a pre-selected text to practice on. An example that includes the errors you’d like students to find will ensure they can practice exactly what you need them to.

Step 3: Partner or pair students for collaborative practice using pre-selected texts with errors.

Once they’ve practiced enough in their small group, they can be strategically paired with other students to practice together. Pre-selecting the text to ensure they look for errors you’ve previously introduced is still best. Once students have practiced, coming back together to check their work is a great way to wrap up their collaborative practice time.

Step 4: Students practice independently, applying marks and editing to their own writing, or a peer’s writing, during writing workshop, and/or at an independent writing center.

I love writing stations. So I incorporated editing practice into my class writing station by providing practice texts for students at various levels, pre-selected by error type. Students also worked independently on editing their own writing or a peer’s writing during our writing workshop. They practiced on their own writing once they were far enough in the writing process to begin editing.

Step 5: Repeat the process by modeling a new editing mark based on a recently introduced grammar or language mechanic concept.

Whether you are teaching the English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR) TEKS, Common Core State Standards, or another set of standards, it adds meaning when editing is connected to the grammar and language mechanics concepts you are teaching. As you move through the year, students can learn new editing marks and look for more types of errors based on their growing knowledge of grammar and mechanics.

Editing Marks

Speaking of editing marks, this is an oldie, but it’s my favorite list for editing. Depending on the grade level standards you teach, you can adjust the list and determine which marks you’ll introduce and which marks you won’t.

Preparing for Online STAAR Testing

Since the STAAR test will be online for everyone in Texas in 2022, and writing will be incorporated for grades 3-8, I explored the available annotation tools. There will not be a pencil tool available for students to use for annotating text on the STAAR. Students will have access to a highlighter tool that enables them to highlight selected text, a note pad for note-taking, and an answer eliminator (strikethrough). You can look at training and practice tests to get familiarized with the online test and how these tools will work. But due to the limited annotation features in the online STAAR, transferring some strategies from paper to online will require some creativity.

How to Use This Strategy for Online STAAR Testing

I recently had my eyes on a thread in the Texas ELA Teachers Facebook group. Teachers were discussing strategies for the online STAAR test. In the thread, Lorin Roberts, a fifth grade teacher, proposed an idea that she and her grade level team came up with while brainstorming ways to help students with upcoming online testing. It’s simple! They cut sheet protectors to slide over the students’ Chromebook screens. Then, students annotate “on top of” the text using skinny dry erase markers. “It doesn’t work for everything, but for those students who need to physically work through the text, it is helpful. Then they erase their markings and move to the next question, “ Lorin said. She and her team have students practice with the sheet protectors during MAP testing and benchmark tests.

Do you have other strategies that work well for editing and proofreading in class and on the STAAR? Share them in the comments below, and thank you for reading.