PARENTS GUIDE: NAPLAN PREPARATION TIPS

The National Assessment Program – literacy and numeracy, or NAPLAN is a measure of testing basic skills to assess literacy and numeracy. The purpose of these tests is to evaluate progress in these areas of learning, The tests assess students in the early years of schooling for their skills based knowledge and ability to build the foundations needed in numeracy and literacy.

The nature of these tests, assessing skills, means they are not tests that require learning of facts or information. They are purely for looking at how students are acquiring skills to use to build on as they progress through the school system.

A.C.A.R.A, the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, assures parents there is no need to learn for these tests. Preparation from an academic standpoint is provided through the school curriculum and the process of the testing through understanding how the test process works.

Parents may want to add value to the experience at home, but are unsure of what to do to help prepare their children. Here is a list of do’s and try not to’s that may shed some light on a positive approach to these tests with your children.

DO, try these suggestions.

Do speak in a positive manner about the coming tests. Be supportive and ask your child just to try their best.
Do speak to the teacher if your child is experiencing some anxiety about the tests and find ways to reassure your child with the teacher’s support.
Do find out about how the test works. What style of questioning is there? Does your child know how to answer multiple choice questions and how to form a written response?
Help with literacy:
Do encourage reading books, talking about pictures, playing word games and having family quiz nights to encourage literacy and an enjoyment of books and reading.
Help numeracy: Do encourage number games, problem solving and activities like baking to use measuring and weighing and practical aspects of numeracy
Do encourage maths as a subject of exploration and practical activities like making, building, measuring and enjoying problem solving.
Do be well prepared for the day. Have everything ready for a calm start to the day and punctual arrival for the tests.
Do be positive and encouraging. Just tell your child to try their best.
Do collect your child on time and give lots of praise for doing their best and raise their confidence levels for the next set of tests.

TRY NOT, to follow these approaches.

Try not to be an alarmist and get yourself worked up about the tests. There is no pass or fail symbol attached to the results. They are for progress assessments in literacy and numeracy.
Try not to take matters into your own hands at home with pressure on your child to study and to pass the test at all costs.
Try not to prepare with your own questioning and shower your child with your own horror stories of test experiences.
Help with literacy:
Try not to rely on television and video games to build literacy skills. Literacy is about listening, speaking, writing and reading. Try to spend more time interacting and discussing different topics as a family.
Help numeracy: Try not to impose your own experiences with maths on your child especially if you did not do well at maths or did not like maths at school.
Try not to make maths about speed and flash answers. This approach causes anxiety in children who may not be able to come up with quick mental arithmetic responses but do well at thinking out a way to find an answer through understanding of the problem.
Try not to leave everything to the last minute and be rushing around in a stressful manner to get to school on time.
Try not to put extra pressure on your child about their possible results. Remember this is just a test of skills and a method of research into progress within the levels of numeracy and literacy.
Try not to bombard your child with critical questions about how much they did or did not complete. Collect them in good time to avoid sitting around worrying about being collected.

NAPLAN is not something to be studied for. This test acronym may be something to help with any negative ideas you may have with regard to testing.

T – trying to

E – examine

S – skills and

T – trust in the process.

The Bottom Line: The best way to get your child ready for NAPLAN is to continue to develop literacy and numeracy skills.

NAPLAN is not intended to intimidate or cause undue stress. It is intended to help build skills and awareness of literacy and numeracy at different levels of the scholastic system.

At Tutor2you, we help students prepare for NAPLAN with the help of our certified and trained tutors.

If your child requires some additional support may it be in-home or online, we're here to help! Book for a free consultation today.