Well, the annual ordeal is finally behind us, and we’re good for another year! I received the results of Haylee’s and Holden’s CAT tests, and they did pretty well, I must say!
Haylee improved 3 percentile points over last year, which did my heart good, considering that we totally revamped her curriculum
shortly after the school year began in order to accommodate her learning style. The poor girl really struggles with math, so we made a switch to a workbook based method of teaching in order to boost her enthusiasm and attention level a bit. She liked it much better, as she is drawn to colorful worksheets. I was concerned that she just might not be progressing, though, but her math concepts score was quite good. Computation was her lowest score, though, so we still have some foundational things to work through in math. To deal with that next year, I plan to use Mastering Essential Math Skills, Book 2 in order to strengthen her core math skills and ready her for pre-algebra the following year. The lessons are concise, and the mixed practice and drills last only 20 minutes a day. It also came with an instructional DVD, which I hope will help boost her confidence and understanding a bit. If that goes well for her, then I plan to stick with this series throughout middle school, completing No-Nonsense Algebra in 8th grade. Hayden and I reviewed that a few years ago, and it worked pretty well for him after a long struggle with Algebra.
In any case, Haylee scored in the 92nd percentile overall, meaning she scored better than 92% of all 5th graders based on national norms. She also scored as well as a 10th grader in the first month of school taking the same test. Pretty cool!
This was Holden’s first year taking the CAT test. He did amazingly well! He’s a pretty sharp kid. Despite his hyperactivity and high level of distractibility, he actually catches onto new things quite well. He only missed three questions on the entire test! One was in reading comprehension, and the other two were in language mechanics (darn punctuation! LOL).
Overall, he scored in the 99th percentile, meaning he scored better than 99% of all 1st graders based on national norms. He also scored as well as a 6th grader in the first month of school taking the same test. Awesome!
I got my annual Notice of Intent for Home Instruction with the attached description of curriculum and the copies of the CAT test results to show proof of progress mailed off to the School Superintendant, so we’re all set now for another year! Yay!
If you live in a state other than Virginia, what does your state require of you annually?
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