Reading practices and comprehension strategies

¶ … students' socioeconomic status (SES) is accountable for the overwhelming test score discrepancies existing across Alabama's school districts. This finding was made after a comparison of fourth-graders' reading test scores on the 10th Edition Stanford Achievement Test in 2005-2006. Five of Alabama's school districts of varying socioeconomic backgrounds were chosen for comparison. These included wealthy districts like Shelby and Madison Counties, the moderately wealthy district of Jackson County, and poorer districts such as Hale and Greene Counties. Several different categories of test-takers were cited for comparison, which included level of education (special or general education), gender, race (White, Black, Hispanic), level of English proficiency (Limited or Non-limited English), and class (indicated by type of lunch served whether free, reduced, or fully paid).

Through analysis it was found that certain specific categories had the same impact upon test scores across different districts. In four out of five districts namely Shelby, Madison, Jackson, and Hale Counties, four specific categories correlated with higher test scores. These were the White, female, fully paid lunch, and general education categories. The exception to this finding was Greene County, whose categories with higher test scores were female and general education. This district had very few categories available for comparison thus it did not contain the following: special education, fully paid lunch, reduced lunch, White, Hispanic, and Limited English.

In the two wealthy districts of Shelby and Madison Counties, the same three categories correlated with the lowest scores. These included the Limited English, free lunch, and special education categories. The Black and Hispanic categories also exhibited below average scores in both Shelby and Madison Counties. In Jackson County the categories correlating with the lowest test scores were Hispanic, Black, and special education. In Hale County the Black, free lunch, and special education categories exhibited the lowest test scores. Finally in Greene County only the male category correlated with the lowest test score.

The top three categories, which had the greatest influence on percentile scores, were the fully paid lunch, general education, and White categories. These three consistently correlated with higher test scores for four out of the five school districts, which were Shelby, Madison, Jackson, and Hale Counties. In Greene County only one of these three categories was present as a great influence, and that was the general education category. The other two, which were the white and fully paid lunch categories, had a miniscule number of test takers within them, which is why their influence was not measured in Greene County.

The startling contrasts found on a standardized exam's percentile scores between Alabama's diverse school districts indicate that socioeconomic factors play a significant role in explaining such widespread discrepancies. SES can also explain how the overall percentile scores for all students within wealthier districts were higher than scores from the poorer ones. Such results reveal that students from minority and/or economically disadvantaged backgrounds are the most negatively affected by these exams. Thus it is incorrect to assume that such exams are useful towards gauging a given school's quality of teaching. Teachers should therefore realize that such exams cannot determine how good they are at their jobs, despite what educational administrators and elected officials like to believe, because the results often come out being biased towards certain groups in society.

Teachers can do a lot to prepare their students for effectively taking standardized exams. In doing so, however, teachers must not allow test prep courses to begin shaping their entire curriculum. This essentially means that preparing for such tests should not be done at the expense of real learning, which involves more effective types of instruction. Teachers should also not spend more than whatever time and energy is necessary towards test preparation. Some experts have argued that a short amount of time for test prep is just as effective in helping students achieve good scores as a whole year's worth of preparation. In preparing their students teachers should first of all make test prep sessions as interesting and worthwhile as possible so that students can be more willing to study for it. Secondly teachers should come up with creative ways towards making their students learn the skill of test taking. Finally, teachers should instill confidence in their students and make them understand that these exams are not accurate measures of a student's level of intelligence.