What is a preassessment?

Let’s say you decided to strike out on your own and home-school your child for the duration.  How do you determine where to start?  What material had she completed by mid-March?  Are there weak areas?  This situation requires a pre-assessment, a test of skills sometimes called diagnostic tests.  Use standardized tests with answer keys.  North Carolina has ‘End of Grade’ tests like this one for fourth grade math with answer keys.  Here is a fourth grade reading test.  Virginia has SOL released exams (Standards of Learning) for Reading, Writing, Science, and Social Science.  Here are the links for Texas STAAR released exams.  Have your child take the test.  After you grade it, look for problems.  Which questions did he miss?  Was the test too easy?  Try the next grade’s test to see if she knows that material, too.  If your child scores well across the subjects in her grade, start lessons at the next grade level.  You can do this!