I hate standardized testing. I loathe, loathe, loathe it. But GA requirements are that beginning with the 3rd year you must subject your child to a standardized test.
Being eclectic homeschoolers (tossing in a good portion of unschooling philosophy) we do our homeschooling year round here, going at a rate that’s comfortable for H.o.p. Each year is a bit different. Geez, each few months is a bit different. We don’t teach by the book or curriculum, diving into a variety of ideas and subjects from this, that and the other platform that avails itself at the moment.
Because of natural interests, our focuses end up being animation (duh), film (duh), science, history, folk tales and (weirdly) psychology. Because H.o.p., like me, is dyslexic, I’ve gone slow on the reading and even more slowly on the math, not wanting to panic him and waiting until he’s ready. Especially with the reading it’s one of those things where I’ve taken advantage of his interests and his need to learn in relation to those interests. I’ve kept it low key because he gets embarrassed about not getting things right and I don’t want to panic him. Throughout the year we’ve periodically done spelling lessons developed for dyslexics. I won’t go into all the different ways of how I’ve tried to help him without pushing him throughout the year, and trying to do so in as inconspicuous and natural a manner as possible. It’s easy on him. It’s rough on me. I worry endlessly and struggle endlessly, conflicted about schooling philosophies
It’s coming along. He now reads to us as many nights as we read to him.
As for math, I tried for a couple of years to push him on it as he has no interest in math at all. I ended up contenting myself this year with working with geometric figures as that was about all he was open to…plus, at some point along the way he naturally started multiplying some numbers without knowing really what he was doing. I could have drilled him forever on this and he wouldn’t have gotten it. There are days he still can barely add 2 plus 2 and the next day he has no problem with performing an easy six digit computation in his head (he hates working things out on paper). So when one day he was suddenly multiplying in his head on his own, I figured all right, don’t push it, wait until he’s really ready to work on these things, it’s gonna come, I just have to wait.
Ah. But here’s a kid who has storyboarded the entire “Redwall” book. While Marty was reading it to him, night after night H.o.p. sat with his paper and did quick rapid sketches, eagerly storyboarding every damn page. To me that’s amazing. He storyboarded 351 pages of “Redwall”, aside from the storyboards he does for his own stories.
His piano teacher says he has the best ear she’s met thus far. He hates to practice but she says he has an amazing ear. Rather than practice he daily picks out sounds on the keyboard. And rhythms. One day suddenly there was H.o.p. playing this beautifully textured samba, his current favorite music. He played it once then moved on to something else. The kid could make a living creating beats right now if he was interested.
“He really has a great ear?” I asked Marty.
“She says he has an amazing ear. She plays something and he plays it right back.”
He won’t do this for mom or his musician dad but he does it for his piano teacher (who he adores). One week he surprised me with, out of the blue, perfectly playing part of a Bach minuet. Turns out his teacher had played it and he’d promptly copied it. I played him the rest of the minuet. He said well he couldn’t do it right now as his piano teacher hadn’t given that part to him yet, and off he went.
Anyway. Damn standardized testing. I’ve been freaking out over it all year long, knowing at the end of the third year I’d have to do it. As we do a year long year I’ve figured we’ll most likely wait until June to do the test. Which one to do?
In the meanwhile, early in May I somehow convinced H.o.p. that he should take a few experimental tests so he could get a little used to the idea and not freak over it. So I dug up the Texas site where they have the Texas tests online and one morning we did the reading portion for exercise and so he could get the feel of taking such a test and not be freaked by the CAT test.
H.o.p. sits still for many things (well, drawing and science) but not things like this. I sat there while he did the test online, he sharing my seat as he wanted to sit with me. It was like sharing a seat with a bucking mule. Constant kick kick kick bounce bounce swivel swivel kick kick kick kick. Drove me nuts. Every so often he’d ask if I could help and I’d remind him I couldn’t. A couple of times he exclaimed, “I can’t do it!” and bolted but I miraculously got him back to it fairly easily. A number of times he was completely perpendicular and I’d say, “C’mon, sit up,” and he’d say, “I’m having trouble with that word I have to see it from a different angle” and then he’d turn nearly upside down.
He got nearly 96% correct.
“See, you can do it,” I said to him.
He wasn’t convinced.
We’ve arranged our CAT test to be later this month, so to try to prepare him again I pulled out another Texas reading test. Finally he sat down to do it. I sat at my desk. He sat on the floor. He went through the whole thing in one sitting, going on like a magpie the entire time. Every so often he’d ask a question and I’d tell him that I couldn’t help him with it and he’d reply he was just talking to himself. And this time he got 96% correct (and I could understand well why he got one of the ones wrong that he did). And he decided it wasn’t all bad because he liked one of the stories he’d read, which was factual, and he wanted to learn more about it.
Ah, but the math. I didn’t do the math with him.
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