It is spring!
And you know what that means….
The sun is out in all her glory. The flowers are bursting and….testing season is here.
Yes, state testing is coming for many of us no matter how we may feel about it.
So I thought this blog post would be the perfect way to share some of my top ways to weave in test prep without making it overbearing and exhausting.
I remember when I was in my Teaching Methods class while student teaching about 10 years ago. We all agreed that standardized testing for the most part is just… awful and pointless.
However, here in Georgia, the Milestone’s score accounted for 20% of the student’s total average for that semester. So, it was also something that we truly had to prep our kids for as much as we could.
My professor (and former English teacher) said he approached it as building the skills all year and then doing a a test prep “bootcamp” the weeks prior to the test. This, honestly, made a lot of sense to me. All year I am doing the real work to build those skills, so the bootcamp is really just a review and a reminder that they have got this. But, I also like to make my test prep a little more fun.
Yes, I know when they sit down for the SATs, ACTs, Milestones, and whatever testing conglomeration sent their way, that it will be dull, long, and tedious.
That’s why I think making the prep more engaging is all the more necessary. We don’t want them glazed over weeks before they even take the test!
So, my test prep bootcamp looks a little more like…
A day working with a high-interest informational text. Like this 5-minute NPR podcast about the hit new video game Avowed. Another day of reading and analyzing a short, but impactful story. A day (or 2) of an interactive story escape room. Like the one I just finished creating where they enter a haunted house and gather clues to break a curse using their ELA skills!
Of course, I throw in some grammar practice, vocabulary fun, and writing prompts.
But, the point is, I try to make sure that this sneakily prepares them by reviewing all those skills in a way that is more engaging than most test prep.
And let me tell you, it works! I was recognized for my test scores several times. So, let me share some of my top tips!
Fun Writing Prompts For Test Prep
First, I want to talk about quick writes!
The quick write process allows us the opportunity to increase students’ understanding of a topic through writing while becoming more aware of students’ gaps in comprehension or misconceptions about content.
Quick writes are a powerful instructional practice to embed into every grade level and content area. They allow students to write about content at any point in time during the teaching and learning cycle in a low-stakes way.
Here are 3 writing strategies that can also help with test prep:
- Task cards: Have students complete a very short and targeted writing prompt. For example, these 12 task cards are for narrative writing asking students to target 1 example and a sample. There’s also these Gothic writing ones!
- 2. Quote Analysis: Use quotes from literature or informational texts for students to agree or disagree with, analyze for validity, or connect to content being learned. Because quotes are often rich in abstract thinking, scaffolding this option with a thinking prompt, word bank, and response frame is essential. For example, these that I created for Transcendentalism literature!
- 3. Prove Its: This is where I give students a statement of some kind and they have to prove it with textual evidence. You could also do the opposite and tell them to pull evidence that disproves what you have stated. You can also make it even more exciting by gamifying these strategies by adding in time constraints, teams, top 3 examples get a special prize, etc.
Speaking of games, here is another test prep thing that I LOVE doing where I turn guessing the Mood of a passage into a team competition!
Download this engaging test prep game for free HERE!
Use this podcast to make test prep FUN while sharpening their inferencing skills!
If you don’t know it already, let me introduce you to the SOLVE podcast!
1 murder, 4 suspects. You are the investigator trying to figure out who the killer is.
I cannot even begin to tell you how much this gets the kids riled up!
Instead, let me show you…
Check out this IG video of my students while they are actively working in small groups, gathering evidence, and debated with each other who the killer is any why.
But, then, check out THIS video to see their reaction when I finally revel who the murder is!
Sadly, there are only a couple of episodes that are clean enough to use in the classroom: The Old Hollywood Hotel and Admissions.
While, I am sharing this as engaging test prep, it truly can be used for so many things!
For example, Amy shared this just a few weeks ago:
“My students loved this resource!!!! I teach high school seniors and we are starting the novel And Then There Were None. Coming off of poetry, I wanted to get them thinking differently. I had 100% involvement. Students that never speak in class were finally talking. One actually did not let me play the end and wanted to present the ending to the class. He never does anything remotely like this. Thank you so much for this lesson.”
And, as we all know, if you can get 2nd semester SENIORS this pumped up….it’s GOOD STUFF! lol
Escape Room for ELA test prep and review!
Challenges, games, and puzzles are great ways to sharpen your students’ ELA skills, review ELA skills and terms, and even test prep! Escape rooms are a fantastic way to make test prep engaging and interactive. Students do not just answer practice questions on a worksheet. They become part of a story. They must use their ELA skills to solve puzzles and unlock the next challenge.
This turns test review into an immersive experience, reinforcing key concepts like inferencing, foreshadowing, and mood in a way that feels exciting rather than tedious. When students are actively solving a mystery, they retain information better. They make deeper connections to the material.
This escape room puts students inside a haunted manor, where they must break a centuries-old curse using their knowledge of literary elements. As they read diary entries, decipher riddles, and analyze key passages, they practice critical skills like identifying inner and outer conflict, interpreting figurative language, and making inferences. Because every clue builds on the last, students stay engaged while naturally reviewing for their exam.
If you would like a free product that checks your students’ understanding of Point of View, Symbolism, and Conflict in a fun way… This zero prep escape room will do just that! Travel with Kiera on her Hero’s Journey to find the enchanted amulet that will bring balance to Eldoria!
Your students can work together in small groups or individually to solve 5 challenges. Use this for review, test prep, a sub activity, or for a creative assessment at the end of a unit focusing on these skills!
Try “In a Grove” for engaging test prep!
Need something that is more text-based? I highly suggest “In a Grove”!
“In a Grove” is a riveting short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa that presents conflicting testimonies from 7 characters about a murder, leaving readers to decipher the truth and determine the identity of the killer.
Just like the solve podcasts, you can group your students up for collecting evidence and debating on who the killer it.
Sincere there is no resolution to this mystery, you could even try holding a mock trial and let the class decide on the outcome!
This resource makes for another EASY, NO-PREP option!
I hope that you have some great ideas flowing to make testing season a little more fun this year!
Vocabulary Games
One of my favorite ways to make grammar and vocabulary highly engaging so that students actually want to do them and learn are through games. I recently found this fun, FREE, and no-prep vocabulary resource I have started using in my classroom- Merriam- Webster’s games and quizzes.
I find which game or quiz I want to use, copy the URL for it, head over to classroomscreen.com, past it into my QR code generator, add a timer, and directions along with the day’s agenda.
If you want to see a tutorial video, you can check out this Tik Tok video I made!
These are random vocabulary and spelling activities and students can keep playing until they reach the desired level of accuracy. What I extra love about these is that is exposing them to lots of different vocabulary and they are fun. The spelling challenge was extra great for my ESOL students who often know the words when they hear them, but may now know how to spell them yet.
One more FANTASTIC way to access lots of great vocabulary games is at vocabularygames.com! I personally love Outspell as it is similar to Scrabble which challenges them with both vocabulary and spelling.
Vocabulary.com
Vocabulary.com has lots of premade lists for SAT, ACT, words in context for different books, root words, etc.
With vocabulary.com you can create or use pre-made vocabulary lists that students can learn and practice vocabulary with flashcards. But, the really FUN practice comes with the Vocabulary Jams!
With these, you have students join a competition that you can set the controls on as far as difficulty, speed, and number of questions. Students are broken up into teams and work quickly to gain as many points as possible. This simple act of making it a competition takes it to a whole other level with my students and I usually see fantastic results!
While it no longer offers as much for free, my favorite way to still use this tech tool in my classroom is by utilizing the Jams! These are fun competitions that will help your students in groups and they compete against each other. It’s similar to Kahoot.
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