Standardized tests: study skills

[Patricia Lee Wassink <wassinpl@UWEC.EDU>]

When I automated my library catalog 7 years ago, I ceased teaching the
traditional skills of the card catalog....subject, author, title cards,
format of cards, alphabetization rules (the nitpicky ones like Mc and
Mac).  I had not given it another thought until a recent conversation
brought me up short.....

I was complaining that our language arts books still have those old
subject, title and author card lessons and I had discovered that *some of
my teachers were still using them!!*  My colleague asked if that format
was still being tested on the standardized tests like the Iowa Basic,
California, and Stanford Achievement.  With student test scores so
important, am I doing my students a disservice?  Does anybody know??

Pat Wassink
Colfax Elementary School
601 University Ave.
Colfax, WI 54730
wassinpl@uwec.edu