Saturday, January 26, 2013

State Testing - STAAR-ALT (Texas alternative testing)

It's that time of year - Alternative state testing windows have opened!  If you are like me, this has consumed your life for the past couple of months.
I have now administered alternative tests in two states (Georgia and Texas).  Both have had their issues and both have had their perks.
In Texas, our assessment is called the STAAR-ALT.  The test includes a series of standardized tasks that you must perform with students and then evaluate their responses. Tasks come in 3 levels - Level 1 is for your very low functioning students.  It mostly requires experiences with test materials and simple responses to stimuli.  Level 2 is for your students who can make choices but require more extensive supports.  Level 3 is for higher functioning students who can generate their own responses and choose from an array of items.
Each task requires the teacher to make their own materials.  Some are simple, others require HOURS of work!  I have found that there are very limited places to find and share the materials that people make.

Here is a list of the locations I have found that do share materials and resources:
Boardmaker share has quite a few groups created to share STAAR alt materials. . . here are the ones I have joined:
Boardmaker Share Staar-Alt Administrators
Boardmaker Share Staar-Alt
Boardmaker Share Staar-Alt Admin

Region 14 ESC - this is a board that has "stickies" to some websites that provide activities you can perform to practice the STAAR concepts

STAAR-ALT Wikispaces - Has examples of filled out reporting documents.  No pre-made materials but does have ideas of the materials that other people have made

VI TechShare - NOT Staar-alt specific, but tons of links to places you can find accessible books, adapted materials, etc that you can use to create your own materials.

Tar Heel Reader - Again, Not staar-alt specific, but does have teacher and student created stories (can be printed in powerpoint or PDF) that you can use for informational texts, biographies, and other ELA tasks.

Chapel Hill Snippets - Not Staar-alt specific, but many adapted books you can print and use for informational texts, writing, and other tasks.

Sadly, this is it as far as I've found.   If you have any other sites (even for other state testing), please share!!!





6 comments:

  1. Thank you so much! This is a fabulous resource!

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    1. Glad this is helpful. I am trying to now upload any materials I've created onto the blog. If you teach 6-8 Reading, Writing, or Social Studies, I'll be putting up lots of materials in the next few weeks (time permitting)

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  2. I am Cindy Lovelace, a Life Skills teacher in Texas. I have developed Staar Alt Helpers that can be found at www.Staar-alt.com that have been used in many districts to help teachers with Staar-alt testing. I have materials for every task on every level.

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    1. Excellent resource! Do you have any more samples of what you get when you purchase a CD? The one sample shown is for a grade level I do not teach and therefore do not know how useful it would be. I'd love to share these resources with other teachers in my district.

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  3. Lovely blog thanks for taking the time to share this.

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