5+ Quick and Easy Ways to Test Your Child (Without a Test)

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Formal assessments can be painfully stressful for students. Try these practical, quick, and easy ways to test your child without formal tests. 

I spoke to my best friend last week. As we caught up on life, she told me that she might need to jump off the phone because her daughter was having a tough time.

When I asked why, her answer surprised me. “She has an important math test tomorrow, and she’s worried she doesn’t know the concepts.”

Her sweet little girl is in the first grade.

My friend handles this type of thing exceptionally well. Although her children are in an extremely competitive public school district, she consistently reinforces to them that she is not worried about test scores. She values their hearts above all else and seeks to cultivate their strengths.

She realizes – and tries to express to her children – that testing is just part of education these days.

When my oldest son was in public school many years ago, we experienced the same stress regarding tests. In second grade, he once came home worried because he had state testing the next day. His teacher had told the class they needed to eat eggs for breakfast the next day, so they had the protein to fuel their brains for the test period.

He started to sob as he relayed this to me. “I don’t like eggs. I don’t want to eat eggs, but I need to do well on this test.”

Eggs, y’all.

The truth is that tests can be stressful even for the best, most confident students.

Ways to Test Your Child (Without Tests)

Both of my children are naturally prone to anxiety in general and test anxiety, specifically. Over the past eight years, I have sought ways to assess how they are doing academically without ever even uttering the “T” word. 

Try some of my favorite quick and easy test-free ways to test your child.

1. Discuss the Material

A discussion is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive way to assess my children’s comprehension and understanding. Unlike multiple-choice questions, having a dialog with my child about what he has learned requires a level of mastery that a scantron form can’t duplicate.

If I am curious about how well my children are progressing through a particular unit of study, I ask them to tell me what they’ve learned so far. 

I ask questions such as:

• Who is your favorite character and why?
• What surprised you most about our history lesson?
• Why do you think that happened?
• How did you do that?

These open-ended questions spur conversation and allow me to get a firm grasp of what my kids have learned as well as areas that may still be unclear.

Keep the discussion method in mind for the family dinner table, too. Talking over dinner is low-key and a fun way to get the whole family involved with what each child is learning – or what the whole family is learning together!

2. Play Games

I love this option! Turning the test into a game is fun, stress-free, and much more effective for all of us. For example, I often put up two pieces of paper in our backyard, one labeled true and the other false. Then, I ask my son the true or false questions in his textbook, and he fires a Nerf dart at the right answer.

It works, and we get a little fresh air while he has fun showing me what he knows.

There are lots of other ways to use games for homeschool assessments and skills practice depending on the ages and interests of your students. We’ve used BINGO for all sorts of learning fun, and setting up a Jeopardy board is a great way to engage older students. 

3. Give a Presentation

The dollar store is my favorite for presentations. We head in, and my son picks up a posterboard (50 cents!) and anything else that catches his eye. When we get home, he puts together a poster board presentation to show everything he learned in a particular book or unit.

Not only is this a useful, practical “test,” but it’s also hands-on and creative.

Presentations are also a fun way to get the non-teaching parent and grandparents involved. Letting your kids give their presentation to an audience not only allows you to assess their level of understanding, but it also provides them valuable public speaking practice. 

Besides creating the presentation board, students may also want to include related artwork, snacks, or hands-on projects, books they enjoyed, or speeches or poems they may have memorized. Adding a question-and-answer session for guests provides another element for gauging their level of comprehension of the subject. 

4. Let Them Teach It

Similar to the poster board presentation, I will also often ask my boys to teach me or each other what they’ve learned. My oldest has taught my youngest everything there is to know about The Cold War (a particular interest of his) and my youngest re-told the entire Percy Jackson book series to his older brother.

Both proved proficiency and were more effective than any test.

Younger siblings make great students for older siblings, and this is another great way to involve Dad or the grandparents. You can also let your kids walk their siblings or a parent through a science experiment or hands-on project to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter. 

5. Keep Notes

This one has nothing to do with my kids and everything to do with me. I have gotten into the habit of regularly recording our activities as well as any new learning in a simple weekly planner. For example, I may jot down the new math concepts introduced this week, who and what we’re studying in history, and the science topics we covered.

One of the easiest ways for me to assess my boys’ progress is to simply look back over the year and see how much we have accomplished and how much they’ve learned.

It’s not a standard test, but it achieves the same result. I have an effective measure of progress, learning, and retention.

It’s also handy to keep samples of your child’s work from the beginning, middle, and end of the year, or add photos of projects, science experiments, and field trips, along with a list of books they’ve read independently or those you’ve read aloud as a family.

6. Give Them a Journal

A similar assessment tool to note-keeping is to provide my children with a progress journal. At the end of each day, ask them to jot down one or two key points from the day such as:

• The most interesting fact they learned
• Their favorite part of the book they’re reading
• A list of fun facts about their favorite topic that day
• Something they thought was easier than it seemed at first
• Something that was harder or more confusing than they expected
• A new word they learned and its definition
• An illustration of something they learned

Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be. It should just be a fun, easy way to kids to recap each day and for you to get an overall picture of their understanding and areas where they may be struggling. 

Not having to test all the things formally is an excellent benefit of homeschooling our kids and one that I am grateful to employ. Not only does homeschooling allow us to help our children learn in the ways that work best for their learning styles and needs, but it also means we can find alternatives to stressful, often ineffective testing practices, as well.

Do you have anything you would add to this list? How do you assess your child’s progress without a test?

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