End-of-Year Testing

With the launch of the Armstrong Games 2014, our end-of-year testing is thrown into sharp relief. Personally, I feel the state-required end-of-year testing is a wonderful opportunity for students to get to “show off their stuff” and demonstrate (with pride and ownership) the great strides they’ve made in their learning throughout the year. The testing also helps answer one of the fundamental questions included in Armstrong’s vision statement: How will we know our students have learned?

This year, the state of Utah has migrated to a new format for its end-of-year testing known as the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence or SAGE for short. It sounds fancier if you pronounce it SAGÉ. This new format is quite a bit more robust than previous multiple-choice-only formats and allows students to interact with questions and manipulatives like I’ve never seen before. Although I’m hopeful the new format will be more engaging than what students have used in the past, I’m aware it may take a bit of getting used to.

To help students get used to the new format, the state has provided several practice tests available online. You can access them at sageportal.org or on the Armstrong website (Look for a big banner). I strongly encourage families to “give it a whirl” at home. The state end-of-year testing is for students in 3rd-6th grades. Knowing that, be aware that many of the questions on the practice test are for a different grade than your student’s. The intent of the practice tests is to show off the test format rather than the test content.