This is Only a Test: Teaching for Understanding in an Age of Standardized Testing, 2-5

Transform teachers’ and students’ feelings toward standardized tests from panic and anxiety to control and confidence. This book’s proven strategies help students perform well on standardized tests without compromising teachers’ basic beliefs about how children learn. Create a yearlong plan for teaching math while simultaneously ensuring state standards are met; examine the relationship between released test items and the knowledge and skills students need to respond correctly; and discover ways to handle test preparation during the weeks before a test.

Nancy Litton has been a classroom teacher in the Oakland and Piedmont school districts in California for the past thirty-three years, serving as a mentor teacher in mathematics for part of that time. She currently teaches first and second grades at Wildwood School in Piedmont, teaching the same class of children for two consecutive years. She is the author of Getting Your Math Message Out to Parents and is a Math Solutions inservice instructor.Maryann wickett, an elementary classroom teacher and a K-5 mathematics staff development coordinator in San Marcos Unified School District, is a 1996 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching. Maryann is also a workshop leader, conference speaker, and a Math Solutions Inservice instructor.