Ordering -
I chose the Terra Nova complete Battery Plus because Austin has the patience to take lengthy tests. Otherwise, I would've opted for the survey, which is said to be much shorter.
Administering -
Once it arrived, I took Austin to the library for testing. It is recommended (but not required) that a non-family member that lives outside of the household administer the test. I didn't know anyone outside of my family and I felt funny asking a complete stranger, so I felt that administering it in a public place was sufficient.
I sat Austin at a table within my sight, but not with me. We quietly went over the samples together, I started the timer, and walked away. I kept his start and end times on my own page. When he had completed his test, I copied the bubble sheet and sent the originals, with the test materials, back to Bayside School Services.
Results -
I found a very good video of a teacher explaining how to read the Terra Nova results. She also explains grades 3 & 9.
https://vimeo.com/71537495
Our test results show that Austin needs more study in Language Arts. He received a 68 percentile in Spelling, which was only a 15 minute section (Language mechanics 74, Reading 76).
We had been using an SAT-level vocabulary list and LifePac Language Arts. I LOVE LifePac, but we found it to be very...draggy, wordy, and unnecessarily lengthy for our personal needs. I'm not blaming the curriculum. Language Arts is consistently Austin's least favorite subject. He goes through phases of disliking other subjects, but his feelings towards writing in general are very negative.
On the performance objective page, I can see where Austin only had a difference of 15 for identifying reading strategies, 16 for analyzing text, and 17 for basic understanding. He scored a difference of 21 for evaluating extended meanings, which is his high point. For spelling, he scored a difference of only 4 for consonants, 7 for vowels, and 12 for structural units.
My conclusion -
I certainly do want to strengthen Austin's spelling and language arts skills. I believe this will be best handled through an English program that is specifically tailored for him. After all, the goal is to master skills that will guarantee us a high ACT and SAT score; not to master 15 minutes worth of spelling questions.
I will continue to impliment McGraw-Hill workbooks. He did two this year, but I wasn't aware of the many other free options among their workbooks and I didn't really know how to instruct materials in-depth back then. I know that we can get more out of these worksheets if I fully instruct them instead of blindly administering them.
I will select a list of literature for Austin and myself to read, hopefully things that neither of us have previously read. Austin will have a choice of several books, but he will not exclude himself to only novels. Also, manga is not an acceptable academic reading choice. He will take hand-written short notes in his composition book, with page numbers, and use those notes to type an essay on the book that addresses the highlights, conflicts, comparisons...and so forth.
I will also be teaching Austin cursive writing on the 12th week of school next year. We have 11 more weeks of the SAT book that he must complete this August before we begin cursive. He will practice letters, words, and finally sentences. Most importantly, he will master his signature and numbers in word-form. Hopefully, this will strengthen his hand joints (hyper mobility) and build his confidence in me that I am not going to make him write until it hurts.
