Common Core

Assessment

Today, most end-of-year state tests are created to evaluate students' mastery of a set of new, more rigorous standards. The specific state and Common Core assessments measure both student achievement and progress on reaching a deeper understanding of the text they have read.

More about rigorous assessments

Learning A-Z Products that Support Rigorous Assessments

Reading A-Z

Reading A-Z's vast collection of resources supports a range of skills that many students are assessed on under new high-stakes standardized assessments. Every resource listed as support for a particular new standard key topic helps make students more successful.

Raz-Kids

Raz-Kids comprehension quizzes are all aligned to specific literacy and CCSS skills. Each quiz also comes with an extended response question that requires students to refer back to the text and make inferences. Teachers can easily track students' progress on various CCSS skills through the Kids A-Z teacher management portal.

Science A-Z

Each Science A-Z unit contains a comprehensive Unit Quiz to test a student's understanding of materials read and to help monitor progress being made. Each quiz offers a blend of literal, inferential, vocabulary, data analysis, and extended-response writing questions. Discussion Cards, Investigation Packs, and Focus Books provide additional opportunities for teachers to conduct informal assessments.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary A-Z provides teachers with access to more than 13,000 words organized by specific subject matter and by word types/function, and includes a comprehensive list of academic vocabulary words for grades 2-5. Using any of the words on the site, teachers can create a customized 5-day lesson plan with activities and a cumulative assessment.

More About Rigorous Standardized Assessments

Assessments, including those designed to assess state-specific and Common Core standards, are generally categorized into 4 groupings:

• Interim/benchmark assessments
• Formative assessments
• Performance assessments
• Summative assessments

Criteria for these assessments include:

• An intense focus on the close examination of text
• Mastery of complex literary and informational reading
• The ability to infer meaning from what is read
• The ability to answer text-dependent questions and to build arguments, using evidence from the text

The purpose of these rigorous assessments is to ensure that the expectations and objectives at each grade level are the same across every school, district, and state. However, the standards still allow educators the flexibility to teach in ways that meet the needs of their particular student population. The new standardized assessments require students to apply learning in more complex ways. This helps students to better prepare for attending college and for making their way in the workplace.

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