Assessment
Students at Annunciation Catholic School participate in a testing program each year to describe each student’s developmental level, to identify areas of relative strength and weakness, and to monitor growth from year to year. This testing program consists of the following assessments:
iReady Inform (Literacy & Mathematics) Grades K-8
Vocabulary
The Vocabulary test assesses students' breadth of vocabulary and is a useful indicator of overall verbal ability.
Reading Comprehension
iReady Inform assesses students' capabilities at all stages of their development as readers.
Math (Concepts & Estimation, Prob. Solving & Data Interp.)
The Math tests at all levels do much more than assess skill in solving numerical problems in single and multiple steps. The tests emphasize the ability to do quantitative reasoning and to think mathematically in a wide variety of contexts. Students use them to obtain information, compare quantities, and determine trends or relationships.
Science
Annunciation began the STEM initiative in 2011. Note that the Science scores support our initiative. The Science tests at all levels assess not only students' knowledge of scientific principles and information but also the methods and processes of scientific inquiry, in accordance with the recommendations of The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). At Levels 7 and 8, all questions are presented orally and response choices are pictures. Included in Levels 9 through 14 are scenarios presenting real-life science investigations with questions emphasizing the thought processes used in designing and conducting research and in analyzing data. The four major content areas covered in the Science tests are:
- Scientific inquiry — Methods of science; analysis and interpretation of data
- Life science — Structures and life cycles of living things; environmental interactions
- Earth and space science — Earth's composition and structure and its changes; the universe
- Physical science — Forces and motion; energy; properties of and changes in matter. Sources of Information
These tests measure students' abilities to use information resources and to judge their usefulness.
