TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING T TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACH TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHIN TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACHING TIPS TEACH The Reading Teacher, 61(4), pp. 339–342 © 2007 International Reading Association DOI:10.1598/RT.61.4.7 ISSN: 0034-0561 print / 1936-2714 online 339 A fter teaching for eight years, I left the class- room to embark on a career in educational re- search. My work has led me to analyze academic content standards for individual states and then to align those standards with state assessments. I facilitate teams of teachers and school administrators, discussing test items, negotiating student performance level descriptors, and, ultimately, setting cut scores for accountability purposes with personnel from state de- partments of education. As I go about this work, I am troubled by what teachers tell me about how students are being prepared for test taking in this era of ac- countability. Many educators report feeling com- pelled to abandon what they know to be the best ways to teach reading in exchange for a test-preparation curriculum designed to raise test scores. Other schools have hired independent consulting firms, staffed by well-meaning, smart people who nevertheless have no classroom experience or educational background, to coach veteran teachers on how to teach test-taking strategies to increase reading scores. Why are educa- tors so ready to turn over their professional voices and expertise? The atmosphere the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) created in classrooms across the United States can explain this sudden lack of confidence. Many teachers find themselves judged by the test scores of their students-test scores that are affected by factors beyond their control: students’ academic histo- ry, students’ abilities, school facilities and equipment, transience of the population, socioeconomic class, and so on. It is not surprising that teachers who are threatened with pay for performance incentives or re- organization based on the student body’s annual year- ly progress (AYP) would feel compelled to change how they teach for the promise of improved test scores, even if it means giving up strategies for teach- ing reading and writing that research and experience show are effective. Five Suggestions Short of decreasing class sizes or other solutions that would require substantial changes in school finance, what can teachers do in their classrooms to help stu- dents prepare for a high-stakes, standardized, multiple- choice reading test without sacrificing what they know to be best practice? The following are five suggestions: Suggestion 1: Look at the State’s Academic Content Standards for Reading. Before the entire reading curriculum is scrapped in exchange for a full- blown test-preparation package, check to see if some smaller adjustments can be made by adding a unit or a few lessons in the areas that are going to be tested. The high-stakes reading tests that are given in each state are aligned to the state’s academic content stan- dards for language arts. Know how reading is defined. Especially in the primary grades, some states have a heavy emphasis on concepts in print while others fo- cus on vocabulary. The standards and grade-level in- dicators list the expectations at each grade level and are designed to help schools make curricular deci- sions. The reports that go to the U.S. Department of Education about student achievement in each state are based on alignment studies that are conducted us- ing these grade-by-grade performance standards. Gaps between the intended curriculum (what the state de- partment of education expects is being taught) and the enacted curriculum (what actually is taught) can sometimes explain low test scores. You can conduct your own alignment study be- tween the curriculum standards and your lesson plans to ensure everything that is expected in your state at each grade level is being taught. In short, an align- ment study requires a team of curriculum experts to Five Ways to Prepare for Standardized Tests Without Sacrificing Best Practice Liz Hollingworth