Like many of you, my students will be taking the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) for the first time this spring. In my reading and literacy instruction this year, I have really tried not to focus on the SBAC, but rather on the Common Core State Standards Assessments.
It is my hope that good instruction based on the CCSS will more than prepare my students for what seems like a VERY rigorous assessment. That being said, I have taken practice tests on the SBAC website and I have looked at SBAC test prep materials in order to understand how the two testing models vary.
My research inspired me to create SBAC Reading Practice Prompts for students grades 3–5. I have compiled a list of reading practice prompts for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry texts for each of the individual grade levels. These SBAC reading practice prompts can be used during readers workshop or your English Language Arts block.
Below is a sample of my 4th Grade SBAC Reading Practice Prompts:
FICTION
Explain the lesson the reader can learn. Use details from the story to support your answer.
Why does the author use the sentence _____ to describe how _____ feels?
Based on _____’s actions, describe _____’s personality.
Summarize the story.
NONFICTION
Explain how _____ can help people in their everyday lives. Support your answer using details from the passage.
Write a summary of key events that led to _____ becoming a famous _____. Use details from the passage in your summary to support your answer.
Explain the author’s most likely purpose for writing about _____. Use examples from the passage to support your response.
POETRY
Explain the connection between _____ and _____ in the poem.
Compare _____ from the poem and _____ from the story _____ and describe how their actions are similar.
Download the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consotrium (SBAC) Reading Practice Prompts to help students prepare for the English Language Arts/Literacy sections of the SBAC assessments.