PARCC Readiness Activities - Reading and Answering Questions Online

Below are some general resources and ideas that will give students practice in reading and answering questions online. 

From Newsela.com

Answering Questions Online:

• Take quiz after reading a Tumblebooks story (K-2)
• Take Newsela quizzes. The format of quiz questions mirrors some PARCC question types such as highlighting text to prove your answer. As a teacher, you can assign articles of different Lexile levels to your students. Try searching for articles that do have quizzes (3-5)
• Use Google Forms to create questions for students with different kinds of answers, including drop down menus, radio buttons and multiple choice with more than one correct answer (checkboxes). For example, use to describe and define vocabulary or “wow” words. For a finished example of a student practice, see this created by River Bend Schools: https://docs.google.com/a/riverbendschools.net/presentation/d/1SNBvN-Q6jAzMZO9OZaSpFfl3niqTygpeH5 hJh9-BcWE/present?slide=id.p13   (2-5)
• Using BrainPop, students can watch videos and fill out graphic organizers under the activities tab. They can open two different windows to watch a video and fill out the graphic organizer/worksheet at the same time, pausing and restarting the video as needed. (3-5)

Highlighting

• Have students highlight text they’ve written in Pages (or Google Docs) to find different kinds of words (adjectives, long o words, etc.) (1-5)
• Type a response to a text they’ve read in Pages or Google Docs and highlight the sentences that show support from the text (3-5)
• Share with students a PDF text to open in Preview. Highlight texts in different colors for different purposes (3-5)

• Read articles from “Constructed Response Items and Student Responses.” The articles open up in a smaller window. Students can read the article and recognize that they need to scroll down to see the whole article. Teacher could assign them to write a response in another window (in Google Docs, Google Classroom, or Pages) http://mdk12.org/assessments/k_8/index_d.html (3-5)
• Use Sample Assessments from the "Next Generation Assessments" to practice reading a longer passage online (including scrolling down to read the whole passage) and answering a question in the other column. http://nextgen.apps.sparcc.org/la/3-5.

Reading and Responding:

• Read articles from “Constructed Response Items and Student Responses” on this School Improvement in MD site. The articles open up in a smaller window. Students can read the article and recognize that they need to scroll down to see the whole article. Teacher could assign them to write a response in another window (in Google Docs, Google Classroom, or Pages) http://mdk12.org/assessments/k_8/index_d.html (3-5)
• Use Sample Assessments from the "Next Generation Assessments" to practice reading a longer passage online (including scrolling down to read the whole passage) and answering a question in the other column. http://nextgen.apps.sparcc.org/la/3-5.

Toggling Between Different Tabs

• Students will need to be able toggle between tabs on the test. Make sure they understand how multiple tabs work using Safari (1-5)