Teachers at Treasure Mountain have been using a new way to test reading comprehension - a website called Newsela. It uses four-question tests on different lexile levels to evaluate a student’s comprehension of an article they read. Teachers seem to think the tests show an accurate description of students reading skills, but it really doesn’t.
The main problem with Newsela is that all of the answers on the quizzes are similar. For example, they ask a lot of questions about the main idea of articles, and several of the answers are identical. For example, one answer choice might say the main idea is to be nice to others, and the other may simply paraphrase the same thing and say the main idea is to have kindness! The worst part is that, if a student misses one question, it's automatically a 75% or a C on their grade. Honestly, tests on comprehension should be more about what the reader thinks. In the past, questions about the main idea of an article have been open-ended, and that approach is far more effective at judging comprehension than a poorly-made multiple-choice test, which often boils down to just guessing. Of course, there's an issue if the article is about a dog and a student says it’s about a cat, but if the student tells teacher, "Hey, I think it should be this answer, not that one," and is able to logically explain why, that should be enough regardless of what Newsela's grade says. Everyone’s interpretation of the test is different, and students should have the opportunity to show why they think they’re right instead of just being automatically graded.
This article is full of information that makes sense.
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