TCAP Writing Assessments Begin Next Week

DeKalb County students in grades 3-11 will be taking the TCAP Writing Assessments in February.
The MIST online testing process will be administered throughout the month of February. According to Michelle Burklow, Supervisor of Instruction for Pre-K through 6th grade, this year’s testing is different in that it is on-line and students will read two informational texts and complete a writing task in response to a prompt/or prompts as part of the assessments. “Our new TCAP test is not going to be just multiple choice. It’s going to involve writing. The state is preparing our students for next year’s testing through different components this year. As in the past, we will still have the writing assessment for this year but it has expanded and changed dramatically. Every student in grades 3-11 will be taking the writing assessment which is now a computerized test. Dates for the testing have also been spread throughout the month because of so many students having to take the writing assessment. Different grade levels are going to be taking a week at a time to take this test. This does not mean that it will take an entire week for an individual child to take this test. We just had to set grade level windows so the school could set classroom schedules,” said Burklow.
Grade level testing windows will begin next week, February 2-6 for students in grades 3, 6, & 9. “These students will be participating in the writing assessment. This means those students will go into the computer lab or they may have the mobile lab brought to their classroom and they will be reading two texts and writing based upon a prompt from those texts,” said Burklow.
Other grade level testing windows are as follows:
February 9-13th grades 4, 7, and 10th
February 16-20th grades 5 and 11
February 23-27th grade 8.
“These are grade level schedules. The classroom schedules are being developed at the school level but we want to encourage all students to make sure to get to school on time because we’re not sure which classes will be starting first thing in the mornings. We will be testing early and it may go through most of the day so please parents have students in class in order for them to participate in the writing assessment,” said Burklow.
“Grades 3-5 will only have to write one text while grades 6-11 will have to write two different texts. Grades 3-5 will write and read for 90 minutes while grades 6-11 will have 120 minutes for writing and reading with the stimulus the state has provided,” she said
“We also have a Wida test where we test students with a second language and that window is very similar to the writing assessment window so students with a second language will be tested that week as well,” Burklow concluded.