Third Grade
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So, I am giving the WIAT-III for the first time. I am giving it to a third and a fourth grader. I had been putting off learning how to do it because I heard how hard it was to score the writing portion. That's the truth. I practiced on my own kid and I still haven't figured out how to score it.

But my question for you all is do third and fourth graders even know what an essay is? I always hear composition, not essay in the schools today. As far as the CA standards go, third graders are only required to write a single paragraph but this prompt and scoring require multiple paragraphs with a thesis and a conclusion. The word thesis isn't even in the CA writing standards until grade six.

Aside from all of that, you only give the kid 10 minutes to write it from prewrite to finish. My gifted and high achieving 11th grader wasn't even able to finish a paragraph, much less an essasy. There is only one prompt for all grades from 3rd-12th.

I say again, do kids this ag...See More
sally I feel your pain.I think essay is not in their vocab. My kids work on a 5 sentence paragraph with a topic sentence, 3 details and a closing statement. I know in some states they go for 3 to 5 paragraphs! Pfew.

No matter what we teach, they seem to use different vocabulary in various tests. (story, passage, article for example).Poor kids ne...See More
Mar 2, 2013


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