Easy Tips to Sneak in Test Prep Activities

Test prep activities are easy to sneak into your classroom without boring your students with test prep review. Learn some effective ways to sneak in test prep any time of year.

1. Sneak test prep review into classroom activities

Shhhhhh… don’t tell the students. You can use engaging material that holds their interests and still practice testing skills. Keeping it simple, you can take a few of your assessments and incorporate test-like questions. For example, on many state tests there are questions that have students reading two different passages and then showing their understanding by checking specific boxes next to statements about each reading selection.

But here’s the deal: Keep the content interesting. One of my biggest pet peeves about state testing is that the reading passages are most often BORING! Why is this even a thing?

Seriously, my state has a practice test for the performance task that has reading passages on the benefits of multivitamins!! Yes, you heard me right: MULTIVITAMINS!

I’ve been teaching 6th grade for 25 years, and I have yet to meet a student who’s excited to debate the advantages and disadvantages of taking multivitamins!

Use reading passages on interesting topics:

• Should extreme sports be banned due to injuries?
• Should we consider adding bugs to our diet, like many other countries?
• The horrific history of eating mummies
• Animals that help humans
• Animals that show compassion/altruism
• Strange moments in history
• Bizarre locations
• and SOOOOO many other topics that don’t include the benefits of multivitamins!

Here’s a link to a paired passage resource that I LOVE using about two different creatures who have mutually beneficial working relationships with humans.

Find a few engaging resources to use for test practice here.

Find practice tests and model your questions and answer options after this format. Read this great blog post on 10 Essential ELA Test Prep Skills

2. Literature Circles make great classroom test prep review

If you have a 3-week session span without a break, book clubs are perfect test prep activity.

Book clubs allow you to easily differentiate independent reading. You can also assess the listening and speaking skills that can sometimes be challenging to fit in. Book clubs offer higher level thinking skills like analyzing literature and engaging in discussion. Book clubs are unique, so students often feel like they are participating in a special activity. Read this blog post on how to set up book clubs in your classroom.

You can also sneak in test prep skills, and students will never know it. Writing about literature is a common task in state testing. What better way to practice this skill than with a book your student has read and discussed? When you run book clubs, kids are held accountable for their reading because peers expect others to do their part. Plus, it’s fun to talk, agree, disagree, and ask clarifying questions about a shared reading experience.

As a teacher, you can ask reading response prompts that apply to any of the novels students are reading. Make sure you teach students how to cite the text as evidence (a big test skill).

3. Review figurative language

It’s spring (or just about). April is generally poetry month, so front load some of that with figurative language fun! A bonus is that you can do double duty by asking your book club groups to identify figurative language in their novels.

Figurative language is engaging and can be done in short spurts, so the lessons don’t need to take an entire class period. After introducing and practicing a type of figurative language, your activities can include exit tickets and start-up activities. Friday poems are a great way to start a class. Project a poem and ask students to identify the figurative language. I’ve got a few great ideas for other figurative language activities:

• Draw pictures of a figurative statement and have students guess which type of figurative language is being represented.
• Do figurative and literal sort activities so that students are sure to know the difference between the two.
• Write a sentence on the board and have the class create a sentence on the same topic using figurative language.
• Tape up figurative language task cards around the room and have students partner up to answer the questions.
• Use popular songs to teach figurative language.
• Pull out some children’s picture books that use figurative language and read them aloud. Books like Owl Moon, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Pigsty, Snow, Twice Comes Twilight, and so many more. I know my 6th grade kiddos love it when I read aloud picture books.

4. Add grammar fun to your classroom testing skills

I know!!!……I used the words grammar and fun in the same sentence! You can make grammar fun with some simple changes. First, avoid starting with worksheets or a dry lesson on the part of speech you are introducing. Instead, write sentences on the board that show the same rule or emphasize the same part of speech. Have students guess what each sentence has in common.

Be sure to know your state standards, and focus on that part of speech. Then develop activities around that standard.

Play grammar games. There are so many options. Charades is one of my favorites when teaching adverbs and verbs. You can also add color by code activities that tie in grammar review with seasonal themes. Find some here. Check out this blog post that’s specific to making grammar fun.

I’d love to hear about some of the great test prep activities you do in your classroom.

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