The Test Lady™ Lives!
The Test Lady™
is alive! WOW! The creativity in your mini-lessons on the Test Lady™ was astounding. Some teachers submitted portraits, illustrations, and mannequin props. Others went so far as to announce the ISTEP Lady™ has disappeared, and the students needed to create “MISSING POSTERS.”
EDITING STATION Knowing students struggle to edit in general, but have major difficulty in editing for multiple skills at once, Upland Elementary (Upland, IN) teacher Colleen Yordy (left) encourages her students to edit for one convention skill at a time.
She has collected numerous plastic sunglasses and popped out the lenses. Each of the frames is within a section of a pocket chart along with a colored pen. When students are “done” writing in her classroom, they move to the Editing Station and put on the different glasses to check over their work one skill at a time. When they switch glasses and pens, they are looking for a different skill. This has students rereading their own writing multiple times looking for different errors. So creative! (Pictured with Colleen are Upland teachers Terri Brooks/middle and Debbie Small/right.)
NOTE: Glasses and pens are added to the pocket chart as she teachers the individual skills. Also, consider having students only edit for 3-4 skills, rather than all the convention skills. It can be daunting to have to edit for too many skills, especially when you’re in the primary grades. You may want to have a list of student names in each pocket, identifying which students you want editing for that particular skill. This could be a means of differentiating skills for each student.
Ever since Kristina Smekens introduced the idea of a Test Lady™, signs of that lady's true identity have been popping up all over. Visit the following links for more ideas about how to introduce the Test Lady™.
Test Lady™ Sisters at Smekens Literacy Retreat
Helping Kids Envision Their Audience
I turned my door into the ISTEP Lady™! She is larger than life with white hair, a pretty dress, a watch (since ISTEP is timed), and she is wearing a name tag that says, “Hello! My name is….ISTEP LADY™.” She is sweet looking, but she is holding the “ISTEP Scoring Guide” in her hands.
In the past, I have had students draw their own pics of the ISTEP lady™. This year, I thought I would show them my idea of what “she” looks like. I can now refer to her in writing lessons, reading lessons, and math lessons and say that we can ask her questions now, but when ISTEP gets here, we won’t be able to explain ourselves to her. I told them that after ISTEP, she will be leaving in order to grade their tests. We have to make sure we give “her” all the info needed in our ISTEP booklets. It is a great way to have students add detail to their writing–and show all work in math!
We talk about her all year, but it is nice to have a visual reference!
Resource Room Teacher
READ 180 Teacher
We REALLY talked up the “ISTEP Lady™” this fall before testing and just had a BALL doing so! The kids asked us question after question about whether or not we had met her, what she really looked like, why she is SO mean and picky…etc. The week of ISTEP can be so excruciating, and we wanted to liven the kids back up towards the end of the week. They had already drawn their pictures of the ISTEP Lady™, so we decided to draw our version on T-shirts and wear them to school. The kids LOVED it!!! One student saw our shirts and immediately said, “I KNEW she had glasses!” haha! 
The “ISTEP Lady” was just such a fun thing for our kids, and we wanted to thank you for the idea! We were BLOWN away by how they actually remembered to “trick” the ISTEP Lady™ on the test!
