đź“ť Assessments and tools for tracking homeschool progress and identifying learning outcomes
Getting your child tested is a personal choice for every family and not a requirement. However, assessments can be a valuable way to put your mind at ease and identify if your child needs special services.
According to Riverside Insights, there are four primary types of tests: Diagnostic, Formative, Summative, and Norm-Referenced.
Diagnostic Tests
Diagnostic tests are generally given before a program of study to identify a student’s strengths and challenges. These tests are particularly useful for pinpointing specific learning difficulties and diagnosing giftedness.
Why Take This Test: If you suspect your child may have a learning disability such as dyslexia, ADHD, or if you believe they may be gifted, a diagnostic test can provide clarity.
Examples: Tests like the Woodcock-Johnson IV can diagnose dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, while the CoGAT can identify giftedness.
What You Might Learn: Diagnostic tests can reveal areas where your child excels or struggles, providing a detailed profile of their cognitive abilities.
How It Can Help You: Understanding your child’s learning profile allows you to tailor their education to address weaknesses and leverage strengths, ensuring they receive the support they need to succeed.
Formative Tests
Formative tests are administered during a course to help an instructor determine how well the student is mastering the material and provide feedback on how to improve the course overall.
Why Take This Test: Formative assessments are valuable for ongoing progress monitoring, allowing adjustments to teaching strategies in real time.
Examples: MobyMax’s adaptive online lessons provide continuous feedback on student performance.
What You Might Learn: These tests can highlight specific areas where a student is struggling or excelling, enabling targeted intervention.
How It Can Help You: By identifying areas of difficulty early, you can modify your teaching methods or provide additional resources to address these challenges, ultimately enhancing your child’s learning experience.
Summative Tests
Summative tests measure how well students have mastered a specific set of standards at the end of the learning process.
Why Take This Test: These assessments are useful for evaluating overall understanding and retention of material at the end of a learning period.
Examples: The Iowa Assessments and ITBS are commonly used to evaluate student performance at the end of a school year.
What You Might Learn: Summative tests provide a comprehensive overview of your child’s knowledge and skills in a particular subject area.
How It Can Help You: The results can inform decisions about advancing to the next grade level, areas that need review, and readiness for standardized tests or future coursework.
Norm-Referenced Tests
Norm-referenced tests help instructors understand how students are performing relative to their peers.
Why Take This Test: If you want to see how your child compares to others nationally or within their peer group, norm-referenced tests are ideal.
Examples: The MAP Growth test offered by Homeschool Boss is a norm-referenced assessment that provides comparative data.
What You Might Learn: These tests show where your child stands in relation to a larger group, offering insights into their academic standing.
How It Can Help You: Understanding your child’s relative performance can highlight areas where they may need additional support or advanced opportunities, and it can help in planning their academic trajectory.
Five Popular Assessments and Tools
Homeschool Boss
Homeschool Boss provides nationally-normed, standardized testing for homeschool families and microschools through the MAP Growth test. They have excellent customer service and offer the MAP Growth test online, available on the same day as requested. To learn more about Homeschool Boss and how it works, see our interview with Ellen Crain, homeschool mom and entrepreneur.
MobyMax
MobyMax is educational software designed to help identify student strengths and challenges and to close learning gaps. It’s especially helpful for determining academic readiness, though it also covers social-emotional learning. It is the most accessible exam for parents to see how their children perform relative to their peers. It costs $9.99/month and is available online without needing a testing center or proctor. It even offers adaptive online lessons to help kids target weak areas.
Iowa Assessments and ITBS
The Iowa Assessments and ITBS are summative and norm-referenced assessments with diagnostic components that can help show student growth relative to 21st-century skills. They include norm-referenced and criterion-referenced scales. They’re valuable for assessing student performance relative to peers, year-over-year growth, and college and career readiness. BJU is one company that offers online options for homeschoolers to take the Iowa Assessments.
CoGAT
The CoGAT is a diagnostic exam most often used to identify students as gifted for placement in gifted programs. The CoGAT offers information on Verbal, Quantitative, and Figural (Nonverbal) reasoning skills. The CoGAT can be ordered through a testing agency but must have a proctor to evaluate answers. Often local schools will administer this test to homeschoolers.
Woodcock-Johnson IV
The Woodcock-Johnson IV is a diagnostic exam that can help families identify learning challenges such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. It can help families get an IEP that offers them access to special services, even as homeschoolers.
When and Where to Get Tested
Both Homeschool Boss and MobyMax offer their tests online and can be ordered directly by parents, making these extremely convenient. However, their tests will not diagnose giftedness, autism, dyslexia, or other learning considerations.
Families can often request to get tested at their local public or private school or through independent testing companies.
Riverside Insights, which publishes the ITBS, CoGAT, Woodcock-Johnson IV, and other major assessments, recommends the following approved vendors to individual homeschooling families:
A Beka (FL) - ph: 888-722-0044
BJU Press (Bob Jones University) (SC) - ph: 800-845-5731
Brewer Testing (NC) - ph: 336-699-3997
Seton Testing (VA) - ph: 800-542-1066
Triangle Education (NC) - ph: 877-843-8837
Seton Testing and BJU are the two companies most frequently recommended by homeschool families.
Small groups and homeschool groups can often make a group purchase directly through Riverside Insights for ITBS, CoGAT, or Woodcock-Johnson IV.
Sometimes pediatric psychiatrists or learning specialists can offer the test directly or refer parents to how to take the test. You can search for child psychiatrists in your area and ask them to advise you on where to go if your school district is not being helpful.
For more on diagnosing learning differences, see our post on cognitive diversity by Jade Ann Rivera, Ed.D.
If you feel like testing isn’t for you, relying on a portfolio and/or mastery-based curricula is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
Remember, even if your state has a requirement that your student takes standardized exams, it is often possible to opt out. Always ask your homeschool rep and other parents if there are options for choosing an alternative route.
A digital portfolio can be a great alternative or supplement to testing that can serve your family in measuring progress and also be shown to the state and to K-12 schools and colleges to document your child’s learning.
