Quote: "Overemphasizing the test often leads teachers to abandon a balanced approach to instruction: Sometimes students spend more time completing practice tests than reading books and writing compositions."
Comment: Students learn to read and write well by doing authentic reading and writing activities, such as free reading and journal writing, not by completing practice tests. Students do need to know how to take tests and different strategies they can use, but if they're not good readers and writers they won't do well no matter how many practice tests they take.
Question: How much time do we need to spend with our students preparing them for the standardized tests?
I think that we need to help our students prepare for standardized tests but not at the expense of their learning. I think that as we teach children the concepts they need to know, we should include a few sample test questions in each lesson so that students are slowly preparing for tests as they learn.
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