How Can I Assess My Child's Growth?
Assessments can get a bad rap in homeschool spaces. It makes sense since so many families leave traditional models of education to get away from the pressure of high-stakes testing and the idea that standardized test should be the defining factor of a child's education. But it also makes sense for parents to want to know their child is progressing forward.
Assessing your child doesn't have to equal tests.
Assessments are merely tools for evaluating your child's abilities, understanding, and/or progress in a given area. There are lots of ways for a homeschooling parent to do that without testing. Even if you ever do decide to give a test, it doesn't have to be in a stressful, overwhelming way.
Assessments usually fall under one of two categories: Informal and Formal.
Formal assessments are those that use standardized benchmarks and markers for progress that usually result in a quanitfiable score for your child. Some formal assessments can also allow you to measure your child against a standard scale to see how your child compares to others in similar situations.
Formal assessments include:
Subject, Unit or Cumulative Tests
Grading Rubrics
Standardized Tests
Formal Report Cards
Informal Assessments use more relaxed, creative, non-standard methods for evaluation. These kinds of assessments don't usually rely on comparitive benchmarks and can focus more on evaluating the child as an individual rather than against their peers. These are great options for homeschooling parents where individualized education and progress is a priority.
Informal Assessments can be:
Work Samples that show where your child is with a specific skill and what they are able to do real-time. Collected over time, you can also see how your child improves and levels up with that skill.
Portfolios which are an extension of work samples but in multiple areas so you can get a more wholesome picture of your child's work and efforts.
Observation. The more you pay attention to your child, the more intimate you become with their strengths, their weaknesses, and the approaches that work best for them to learn.
One-to-One Conferences and conversations with your child to learn about how they're doing and what they're experiencing along the journey. Conversations reveal the behind-the-scenes perspectives and feedback that don't show up through more surface-level assessments.
Feedback Rubrics based on specific lessons and criteria can help you see where your child is doing well and how they might be able to improve.
Self-Evaluations that encourage your child to think deeply about their own efforts and reflect on their areas of struggle as well as success.
Relevant Games and Projects that help a child show their understanding and apply it.
Narrative Progress Reports that record the notes you keep about your child in lieu of numbered scores or lettered grades. These can be a great way to acknowlegde and reflect on more subtle signs of growth that other evalution tools may miss.
Which assessment to use and when?
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to assessing your child's growth or progress. You can stick to one of the above methods or try many. You can also change your assessment style as your child ages and enters new stages of learning and development.
Personally, I like to combine assessment methods. Since each assessment can target different things, I find using a mix of tools is more helpful in gauging where my children are at any point in time.
For example, I love the unit and cumulative tests that come with my child's math curriculum. These show me how my child is doing at retaining and applying the math lessons they've learned over time.
I also make frequent use of one-to-one conferencing about homeschool life in general. This lets my children tell me how they're doing instead of me always being the one to judge from the outside. It also lets us touch on important areas of growth outside of academics.
Both games and work samples have been staples in our homeschool life for a variety of subjects. The work samples especially, while definitely being a wonderful tool to show growth and progress, have also become beloved trips down memory lane as the kids get older and move onto different interests and studies.
Begin by getting clear on what specific qualities of growth you are looking for and then start with an assessment that will help you reveal that.