By this point in the year, you have probably heard the terms "ERQ" and short answer thrown around some either by teachers or your children. I wanted to take minute to break down the types of questions your child practices in class and answers on tests in our classroom. Students are typically presented with two main types of questions in fourth grade: multiple choice and constructed response.
Multiple choice is usually the type of question that students assume will be the easiest to answer. However, they are probably finding that multiple choice are much harder than they appear. The trickiness lies in that multiple choice questions can sometimes be presented with more than one answer choice that SOUNDS RIGHT...and students are left ping-ponging between two answers that both sound like they could be correct. In upper elementary school and beyond, students are starting to be asked to choose the BEST ANSWER to a multiple choice question. This means that there might be two choices that sound good but one is a better answer for the question than the other. This can be tough and even sometimes discouraging to students who are used to multiple choice questions that always have a blatant obvious answer. Encourage your child to read the questions carefully and SLOW DOWN. It's the extra time taken to think about the question and answers that usually results in a correct answer chosen. The other type of question that students usually see on a test is called constructed response. This type of question asks students to "construct" (or write) their answer instead of choosing it from a list of possible answers. There are two types of constructed response in 4th grade: short answer and ERQ. Short Answer responses are scored on a scale of 0 to 2 (2 being the highest score possible). Short answer responses usually involve the students answering a comprehension question in reading that would fit the size of an index card. I tell the students that a well written short answer response should be about a paragraph. It should have the answer in their own words first, and then should be supported with text evidence. In math, it might be solving a word problem, labeling their work, and writing the answer in a sentence. ERQs are scored on a scale of 0 to 4 (4 being the highest score possible). An ERQ stands for Extended Response Question. Just like the name suggests, this type of question requires an extended (longer) response. ERQs typically require about a full page of work in either reading or math. These types of questions are higher level, critical thinking questions that often involve making inferences and drawing conclusions in reading, or solving multi-step word problems in math. It's easy to become intimidated by them, but my goal is to do so many in class that students attack them with ease on state assessments. Many students start to realize that the amount of work put in to an ERQ directly correlates with the score they receive. Extra effort put towards explaining, using academic vocabulary, showing math steps used, and pulling multiple examples from the text for support usually pays off in a high score of a 4. We weave these types of questions into our day and practice them a lot. I do a lot of modeling at the beginning of the year, and tend to start pulling away around December as students show more confidence in being able to answer these questions on their own. :) The 4th grade KRPEP test will have multiple choice, short answer, and extended response questions. The unit tests we give throughout the year have these types of questions as well. Well, that probably wasn't the most engaging blog to read about (HAHA) but hopefully it was informative. :) Until next time...enjoy your newly acquired educational jargon! :) |
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September 2018
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