The Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) assesses all students in two different grades: grade 3 and grade 6. Both tests measure a student’s reading, writing and math skills at the end of the year. The test is scored out of 4, with a score of 3 indicating that the student meets all of the criteria and skills required for that particular grade. The testing takes place at the end of the school-year during a two-week period at the end of May or the beginning of June.
While the EQAO website states that no preparation is necessary, it is always helpful to monitor your child’s performance in school and provide extra support if he or she is struggling to reach the province-wide standards. Talk to your child’s teacher about his or her progress and ask what you can do to support your child. If you would like to learn more about what grade 3 and grade 6 students are expected to know, you can visit the Ministry of Education’s website here: http://bit.ly/eis1Xf.
Once the tests have been marked, you will receive a letter in the mail with your child’s scores as well as the provincial results for Ontario. The first page will have the student’s school information and then you will see the official scores. Even though the scale is from one to four, there is a range between each number. For example, a student could get a high 3 or a low 4. All of that information will be available to you. The second page details the province-wide scores for all of the students who took the test. You can see the percentage of students who scored a one, two, three or four. You can find a sample of the score sheet here: http://bit.ly/i4LwK8.
In our next blog, we are going to break down what the EQAO test will look like for grade 3 and grade 6 students.
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