Taking the STAAR reading test can be completely overwhelming for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students. However, nerves can be soothed by teaching students STAAR reading test taking strategies.
There are a variety of STAAR reading test taking strategies that teachers all over the state use. Be sure to think about your particular group of students and what strategies would work best for them.
Teachers at the same school or even the same grade level may not even use the same strategies. For instance, if your classroom is a collaborative classroom, and your neighbor is working with GT students, different strategies will benefit each group of students.
Additionally, don’t be set on using the same strategies every year. Evaluate your group of students and then determine which STAAR reading test taking strategies will work best for them.
If you are looking for specific strategies for the different genres, check out these strategies for specific STAAR reading questions: STAAR Reading Strategies BUNDLE
Read the Questions First
This is a debatable strategy. On one hand, the benefit of reading the question ahead of time is the students will know what they should be looking for when they are reading the passage.
The downside is since the test is timed students may be short on time reading the questions twice.
Therefore, if your students seem to finish passages with lots of time to spare, this might be the perfect strategy to implement.
However, if your students are struggling to finish the passage in a timely manner, this is a strategy to skip in order to save time.
Read the Passage Carefully
It is imperative that students read the passage carefully. They will not be able to answer the questions if they don’t know the main idea of the passage.
One way to improve reading fluency is to train students to not get stuck on proper nouns. It doesn’t matter how they pronounce names.
Additionally, students should read shorter passages more than once. For example, poems should be read at least two times in order to understand them.
Take Notes
As students are reading through the selection, they should take notes.
Note taking allows students to stay focused on what they are reading and get the main ideas into their brains.
It is easier for students to take notes on a separate paper while testing online. The online sticky note tool doesn’t appear next to the paragraph, so it is not a helpful tool.
Writing notes for each paragraph can be difficult for students who have trouble writing. Therefore, they could draw a picture of what they read or write a summary of each page instead.
Or they could highlight important information in the passage as they are reading. The online test includes a highlight tool as well.
Annotating is an important life skill. Students will need to take notes as they read from now all the way through college. I wouldn’t skip this strategy!
Understand the Question
When students move on to the questions, they must remember to READ and UNDERSTAND each question.
The key is to slow down and have students underline key words in the question.
In order for students to understand the question, be sure to review the most common STAAR question stems ahead of time in class.
Check out this list of STAAR question stems that you can use with any classroom reading from novels to your science textbook:
Read Each Answer Choice
Additionally, reading the answer choices CAREFULLY is necessary.
Each choice has similar wording. Plus, there may be two choices that have only slight differences.
For instance, when asked to pick the best summary, usually two choices are very similar. I have students use the BME method on EACH choice.
They read each sentence of the summary and identify whether it is a MAIN IDEA that comes from the beginning, the middle, or the end of the passage.
Take Your Time
Why do students want to rush through their assessments?
Maybe they are anxious about the test and just want to be finished.
Remind students they will be doing nothing else after they finish.
Rushing through assignments is a habit that has to be broken during classwork. Then it will transfer to test taking.
Take Breaks
Breaks are important to keep students focused. Some students need more breaks than others.
It is important to consult with individual students if you think they need more frequent breaks than normal. For example, if you have noticed on a classroom test that a student gets the first five questions right and the last five answers wrong. This is a sign that they needed to take a break in the middle of the test.
You can instruct your student to take a break after every 5 questions or between reading selections.
Check Your Work
Last but not, it is important for students to check their work. Again, this is not just a STAAR Reading strategy, but a life strategy.
Anytime you do anything, you should check it! For instance, I reread my emails before I hit send. Or check that I filled in all boxes on an application before turning it in.
Looking for more specific reading strategies? My Strategies for answering STAAR Reading Questions blog post will help you out!
Keep in mind there are no set strategies that work for all students. Also, students have little experience with taking such long assessments, so they need to be taught STAAR test taking strategies.
