Testing for Intelligence?

Testing young children with a commitment to viewing them holistically can be a bit of a slippery slope; maintaining the focus for which the test is necessary, is key.  In a case where a child may exhibit deficits attributed to a learning disability such as, dyslexia, testing is necessary to arrive at such a conclusion.  However, regarding annual standardized testing, there is no proven value in the process.  (Khan, 2012, p. 94).

Test results  are often times not much more than a "snapshot" of what the student has recalled at a given time.  It is difficult to determine what the student has truly comprehended, since the tests do not indicate if a wrong answer was simply a careless mistake, or a "missed concept".  (Khan, 2012, p. 92).  Likewise, it is not possible to know if a child's correct answer to a test is due to their perfect guess, mastery of the subject, or rote memorization.

In Australia, the National Assessment Program:  Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is administered every year to students ages three, five, seven and nine.  The NAPLAN is designed to measure a students literacy and numeracy.  Unlike in the United States, test preparation is discouraged; it is believed preparing students for the test will not provide an accurate indication of what the student, the school, or the curriculum needs in order to improve.  Results of the NAPLAN are provided to parents as a print-out which indicates where their child placed on the national scale; the average score; and, the where the child's school placed in comparison to the national average.

Since tests tend not to be perfect in design, and are largely developed by humans as an esteemed tool to pin-point areas of concern in learning, it would be smart to cast doubt when trying to understand results, regardless of how widely used, or respected it is. n♥


Kahn, S.  (2012).  The one world school house.  New York, New York:  Grand Central Publishing.

Understanding NAPLAN