STAAR testing is a time of the year where many students develop higher levels of anxiety. Although they have been practicing and are fully prepared to do their personal best, the looming accountability is scary. With my fifth graders I started by giving them a Test Anxiety Questionnaire I found on Marissa's Elementary School Counseling Blog. There are 10 statements that students rank on a scale of 1-5, never-always. Afterward they add up their scores to see their level of anxiety. Most students ranked low to medium levels, but there were a few students that had an unhealthy level of test anxiety that I met with privately later in the week.
We then created acrostics using the letters in our first names to describe testing strategies that we found successful to use. I saw this idea on Working 4 the Classroom blog and adapted it for our needs. I provided students with construction paper and foam letters to be creative. Here is my example:
Here are excerpts from students (to keep their names confidential):
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