The Test My Kid Blog
Practical, growth-minded guidance on math, reading, grade-level expectations, and the test scores schools use, written for parents who want to know where their child really stands.
Parents worry that an audiobook is a shortcut or a form of cheating. The research says listening builds most of the same skills as reading, with one important exception. Here is what audiobooks count for, what they can't replace, and how to get the best of both.
Good readers link what they read to their own life, to other books, and to the wider world. Here's how to teach that habit at home, and how to tell if it's the real gap.
What happened first? A child who can put the events of a story in order is doing real comprehension work. Here's how to teach sequencing at the kitchen table.
Is the character brave, or just scared and doing it anyway? Here's how to help your child read a character from the inside, using what they do instead of what the book says out loud.
First person or third? Who's telling this story, and why does it change what we know? Here's how to help your child hear the narrator's voice, right at the kitchen table.
Character, setting, problem, solution: story elements are the frame that holds a book together. Here's how to help your child spot them, right at the kitchen table.
Theme is the big idea a story is really about, the lesson it leaves in your hands after the plot is over. Here's how to help your child find it, right at the kitchen table.
Every text was written for a reason, and good readers feel that reason under the words. Here's how to help your child ask why the author wrote it, right at the kitchen table.
When the book says it's raining cats and dogs, does your child picture animals falling from the sky? Figurative language is where literal readers get stuck. Here's how to teach it at the kitchen table.
How are these two things alike, and how are they different? A reader who can answer that holds a whole text in one hand. Here's how to teach compare and contrast at the kitchen table.
Why did that happen? Answering that question is how a reader turns a string of events into a story that makes sense. Here's how to teach cause and effect at the kitchen table.
A good prediction isn't a lucky guess, it's a conclusion built from clues. Here's how to teach your child to predict, confirm, and revise as they read, right at the kitchen table.
Every unknown word is a fork: guess from the sentence, or stall. Here's how to teach your child to use context clues, and how to tell if it's the real gap.
Summarizing is where kids either dump every detail or shrug. Here's how to teach the middle skill, tell it apart from a plain retell, and know if it's the real gap.
Main idea is the skill kids fake by repeating the first sentence they see. Here's how to teach the real thing at the kitchen table, and how to tell if it's the gap.
Phonics is the code that turns letters into sounds and sounds into words. Here's how to teach it at the kitchen table, and how to know if it's the real gap before you drill it.
Inference is reading between the lines, and it's the skill most kids get stuck on. Here's how to teach it at the kitchen table, and how to tell if it's really the gap.
The right book is hard enough to stretch your child but easy enough to finish. Here is the five-finger rule, how to read Lexile and guided reading levels without over-trusting them, and how to pick books your child actually wants to read.
Vocabulary isn't built from lists. It's built from a lot of reading and a lot of talking. Here's what actually grows a child's word bank, and how to find the words they're missing.
The summer slide is real, but it's not inevitable. Here's what the research says, the low-pressure routines that hold reading steady over the break, and how to find the right level to practice.
Learning to read is not one skill but five, built in a rough order over a few years. Here is what each stage is, how to work on it at home in short daily sessions, and how to tell where your child actually is.
Sight words are the high-frequency words kids learn to read on sight. Here is the full Dolch list by grade level, from pre-primer through third grade, and the plain-English version of how to practice them without the flash-card grind.
At this age reading is being built from scratch, so the right book depends on the phase, not the grade. Here is a list for kindergartners and 1st graders, from picture books you read aloud to the first books they read to you.
Middle-grade books get longer and heavier, and the grade on the cover tells you less than ever. Here is a grade-by-grade list for 5th, 6th, and 7th graders, and how to weigh reading level and content for the child in front of you.
'I hate reading' is almost never about reading. It is about the work feeling too hard, too slow, or no fun. Here is how to defuse the resistance, find the skill underneath it, and help your child want to pick up a book again.
Picking books by grade is a fine starting point, but the grade on the cover matters far less than the fit. Here is a grade-by-grade list for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders, and how to find the level that actually fits your child.
Getting your child to read more is rarely a willpower problem. It is usually a fit problem: the wrong book, the wrong level, or too much friction. Here is how to fix the fit and build a reading habit that sticks.
When a teacher says your child is behind in reading, the fix is figuring out which layer broke: decoding, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension. Here is how to find the real gap and close it with short, focused practice.
Fluency is the bridge between sounding out words and understanding them. Here are the home routines that build it, the research behind them, and how to find the right level to practice.
Comprehension is the half of reading you can't hear. Here are the home habits that build it, the research behind them, and how to find the one skill to practice first.