I’m Ready to be Done with the iReady
November 17, 2021
By Sophie Bright
Feature Page and Copy Editor
iReady tests, made to torture students. Here we have yet another Math and Reading assessment that is to be conducted every single quarter.
Approximately 83% of students have voiced that they dislike these exams. Personally I dislike these exams, but I feel that these tests are better than any other benchmark test that have been conducted in the past, like the SBAC and PSAT.
I have always dreaded SBAC week and it just overall insured a lot of stress and anxiety.
Intervention Coordinator and part of the iReady team here at Millikan, Dithmar Rualo stated that the reason for these exams was essentially because it is a district mandate.
“We need a baseline and we are very concerned about how people are doing with their Math and English proficiencies.” He stated.
The iReady exams were not necessarily helpful at least to me, and were honestly a waste of time and unuseful, but they were more relaxed and easygoing than other benchmark exams.
11th grade COMPASS English teacher, Jason Wilson shared his opinions on the iReady exams. He states, “Initially, bad idea.” He then continued, “After going through it I thought, it’s probably the most useful of all the tests that we force [students] to take because knowing what grade level you’re reading at seems to me very important.”
Wilson followed this statement by saying how it was beneficial for him as a teacher to know what level his students were reading. He said that now he can then relay that information back into how he operates class.
This exam is easier and less intense than the SBAC or other previous benchmark exams that we take, but they also are more focused on students just doing their best and not getting stressed over the questions.
For example, the browser automatically takes test takers to videos entitled “Brain Breaks” at certain checkpoints of the test. This is a huge step in these test taking browsers and it’s incredible that this test saw that it was important to add this to their browser.
An example of brain breaks that take place periodically during the iReady exams.
To others the iReady tests were not their favorite to say the least. Yael Karni, an Algebra 1 and FST teacher stated her opinion on these tests, “I get the need to have something that is a really good measure of where our students are at, I just think the timing was not right, and I think it just added a lot of stress in an already stressful situation [the beginning of the school year].”
Other students seemed to agree with Karni’s statement and how it just wasn’t a good time for this test to be held.
In a poll conducted about students’ feelings on these Math and Reading exams 345 students out of 413 said that they did not like these exams and felt as if they were “boring” and “took too long.” Many other students said that it made them feel down and upset when they didn’t score high.
To summarize, the iReady Math and English exams are honestly just a waste of time and unbeneficial for teachers’ lessons and curriculum, as well as students’ well-being.
Ella Goeku • Jan 4, 2022 at 12:19 pm
In Issue 2/2021 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article titled “I’m Ready to be Done with the iReady”. This article talks about how the iready testing is not as useful as it is said to be. All this testing actually puts students through more stress than it should be. iready testing is also a waste of time that could be used to learn more. Overall I agree with this article and its claim.
Vanessa Lawrence • Dec 12, 2021 at 4:06 pm
In Issue 2 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article entitled “I’m Ready to be Done with iReady. This article speaks on the recent Math and Reading assessments we have been taking. A lot of us don’t like this test. Most of my friends and the people I’ve talked to thought there was no point in this since most people just guessed on it anyway. Like Algebra 2 and FST teacher Yael Karni said it was just adding more stress to what we already had going on with assignments. People said it was “boring” and “a waste of time” which many people I know would agree with. Taking these tests were not helpful for anyone I know. I think most of us believe that this test was less stressful than the SBAC or PSAT but as a bad test taker I believe all tests are stressful. I did enjoy the little “brain breaks” that they had between the tests. They did help me take time to take a breath and just relax for a second. Many people were saying how they weren’t happy when they didn’t score high. We all have a lot of stress even at the beginning of the school year.
satya • Dec 9, 2021 at 2:15 pm
In Issue 17/2021 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article titled “I’m Ready to be Done with iReady” The article explains how the %83 of the students in Millikan spoke out that they disliked these exams, and they were better exams like the SBAC and PSAT. From what I have read in the Article, I didn’t have any thoughts that many people would dislike such an easy exam. Since I’m not very familiar with how exams are prepared for the students, I have a few questions. According to my understanding, Mr. Wilson mentioned to know what level his students were reading, he also mentioned that now he can then relay that information back into how he operates class by understanding the level of his student’s reading. But Yael Karni, who is also a teacher mentioned, “I get the need to have something that is a really good measure of where our students are at, I just think the timing was not right, and I think it just added a lot of stress in an already stressful situation (in the beginning of the school year) which shows that the test was useful, but the timing that was given for us was not the right time after the Pandemic we went through. Will the iReady test help all the teachers connect with their class by seeing their student’s skills? How come this exam led so many people to dislike it but not for the SBAC and PSAT? Will they continue the iReady test after it has been disliked by so many students? When I think of the iReady test, I think it’s very similar to the SBAC and the PSAT exams. I don’t think this test should be disliked by so many students, but the timing for the test wasn’t the right time for us. After all, Thank you for informing us about what Millikan thinks about the iReady exam as an society
Cristin Duncan • Nov 30, 2021 at 11:52 am
In issue 2 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article entitled “I’m Ready to be DOne with the iReady”. This article mentions that 83% of students have voiced that they dislike iReady exams. I personally also dislike iReady because it takes too much to complete the course. They are also very boring. I believe that the longer the exams are, the less interested the student will be while taking the exams. When you are done taking the exam it doesn’t tell you how you did and it doesn’t affect your grade. So if it doesn’t affect your grade then students won’t take the exam seriously. I have heard from different students that they were really stressed about taking the exams and that they had no motivation to even complete it. One of the positive things about iReady was the little breaks that they gave you. Even Though it wasn’t much time to take a break, it was enough to clear your mind. I think it should be a choice for students to take any iReady exams. I feel as if it’s already too much to take these exams on top of other work and homework that may be given in the class.
Kayla webb • Nov 30, 2021 at 9:56 am
In the Issue 2/2021 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article called, “I’m ready to be done with the iReady” This article hits every concern and thought I had about the iReady test. It brings to light not only the teachers’ view on this test but students as well. Sophie states how stressful these tests can be and how much students dislike them, but she circles back to how indeed they are useful. Knowing my reading level is a nice self-check and seeing where I need to be academically. Although, I wish the iready test were given more of a warning and then at the end it told us what the scores meant. The article could have also focused on the math iReady as well. Mr. Wilson gave us a meaning behind our score and what it meant, but with the math one it was just three numbers at the end of a confusing test. As Sophie said these are better than the SBAC but still most students agreed that it was a waste of time. I truly love that those brain breaks were incorporated into this test, it does actually help when testing to have a few breaks. Thank you Sophie for showing the teachers and the students’ view on this test perfectly.
Samantha Dills • Nov 28, 2021 at 9:38 pm
In issue 2/2021 (published November 17, 2021), Sofia Bright wrote an article titled “ I’m Ready to be Done with the iReady. This talks about the new Math and English assessment that students had to take last month and how the majority of the students did not like the test and it stressed them out. I agree with the other students when they say it was stressful because it felt really long and even though there was no grade for doing it I still felt like I needed to do a good job on it. I also think that the results of the test could cause students to feel down or upset if they didn’t get the score they wanted. I do somewhat agree that it is helpful in showing what level someone is at but at the same time just because you get one bad score of something one time it doesn’t mean that you don’t know the material correctly. I also feel like after the past school year being online lots of students including myself got behind in their school work because of school being online. So having this kind of assessment especially in the beginning of the school year after a hard one just doesn’t seem like a good idea.
Eliz Barsikhian • Nov 24, 2021 at 5:32 pm
Issue 2 (published November 17, 2021) Sophie Bright wrote an article titled, “I’m Ready to be Done with the iReady”. This article was written about the recent math and english iReady exams students took this recent school year. The editor also provided many different perspectives from students as well as teachers on how they felt about these exams. I really liked how we got to hear from many different voices and got to listen to negative and positive opinions on the iReady exams. I heard that these tests don’t affect our grades but rather just a way to see where we are knowledge wise. Since most of the students taking this test knew this, did they really try on the exams? Are the exam results even accurate? And how are the results of the iReady tests acknowledged in our future lessons? I agree with you with the fact that these exams are a waste of time because if the results aren’t accurate, then what’s the point? It was unnecessary stress added onto the students and I feel like we could have used that time we wasted on the iReady exam for something much more important. Thank you for this article, it for sure made me think more about the iReady exam.
M. Chambers • Nov 19, 2021 at 2:14 pm
In Issue 2/2021 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article titled “I’m Ready to be Done with the iReady”. The article was written about the new and recent English and Math iReady exams students were made to take. I like how you get multiple perspectives on this issue, from teachers to the Intervention coordinator. I like how when you complain about the exams, you have evidence to justify it- Such as how the low score you can get at the end of the test, without knowing whether it’s good or bad, adds to the stress of taking the exam in the first place. On that same note, it was nice you included the fact that these exams did take place during other one’s, and as Ms. Karni said, at the beginning of the school year. Overall, I agree that these exams are boring. I kind of thought the brain breaks were unnecessary, as at the point I got them I was just ready to get it over with, and the breaks are unskippable. But even though I didn’t like the breaks, I agree with you that more test taking browsers should have something like it- just executed better.
Hannah Swank • Nov 19, 2021 at 11:31 am
In issue 2 published november 17/2021 by Sophie bright, I found that it was very interesting to see how many students did not like the iReady exams, while looking at the pie chart almost 83% said that they did not like the exam, but also in the pie chart it shows that there was a small percentage that said they liked the iReady exam. In one of the paragraphs I found out why everyone took the exams for english and math and it turns out it was the district’s idea from the growing concern of where a student’s reading level is and this maybe from the result of a year and a half of online school. In the article I also heard two quotes from two different teachers and both said different things about the iReady test. Instead of listing some of the cons of the iReady try to list some of the pros of the exam, In my opinion when taking the test it was much easier than the PSAT and the SBAC test and the iReady was not graded and adapted to the skill level if I got something wrong. Another thing to do is ask a student who liked the test and get their opinion on the iReady, because there are always two sides of a story.
Cydney Flores • Nov 19, 2021 at 12:53 am
In issue 2 (published November 17, 2021), Sophie Bright wrote an article entitled “I’m Ready to be Done with the iReady”. This article mentions the newly conducted iReady test which will now appear every quarter to torture students. Personally, I dislike these exams, they’re long and boring where you can’t help but fall asleep after a while. After dealing with such a chaotic year, this test is not as stressful as SBAC or a PSAT, but I don’t need another type of testing to remind me how far I’ve sunk. Especially following last school year, with the challenges and online learning, I’m not sure these results accurately portray students. For teachers, however, I can understand where the English and math iReady benefit and how it allows them to know where the students stand. But at the end of the day, the students take the iReady, and this whole test just shows where the individual stands, no teacher will act on the feedback of the iReady. Where did this idea of the iReady come from? The whole concept seems nice, but I am not a fan, there’s just so much to catch up on, just to be reminded of what I missed.
Mareli • Nov 18, 2021 at 8:43 pm
In Issue 2/2021 (published November 17, 2021) Sophie Bright wrote an article titled “ I’m Ready to be Done With iReady” This article mentions the benefits of iReady but also the truth behind it and how students feel. She states in the article that approximately eighty-three percent of students do not like the iReady testing. The whole reason for the iReady testing is to see where students are in their math and english classes but are the results accurate? If students know it doesn’t affect their grades are they really going to give honest thorough answers? Students already have enough tests and exams in highschools especially the district exams and the PSAT and SAT. The benefit of iReady is it can help inform teachers about the pace the class should be going at but again, if the results aren’t accurate wouldn’t it just be a waste of time. To add on to the waste of time, the assessment took so long to do. It had so many questions I felt like I was in SBAC again, and trust me I know I speak for the majority when I say we all hated those. The breaks were nice I’ll agree, but I felt like I was pressured into following more instructions. In my honest opinion, I think iReady was more stress added onto me and my fellow classmates, I did not like it, I felt unmotivated to do it, and I was just really bored answering that many questions in such a short amount of time.
Riley Sawyer • Nov 18, 2021 at 12:13 pm
Riley Sawyer,
2021 Issue 1 (published November 17, 2021) you wrote an article titled “I’m Ready to be Done with IReady”. The article talks about how the IReady test is unhelpful and puts too much stress on students. I personally agree with you because I feel like it’s a waste of time, and many teachers and students agree with it. Students aren’t going to try if they know it’s not being put into the grade book, and they’re not going to want to go through all the stress when taking on a test. One thing I have a question about is, will they proceed to do this in the following years? I can see why they would want to due to the help they would get from it to learn more about their students, but it puts too much stress on kids. I agree and relate with you about dreading SBAC week and the anxiety that comes along with it, especially when you have to do many tests on different subjects. Which is why I think we should put an end to the IReady test for future years. Thank you for making me think more about this topic and that others think the same.