Tips for Fourth and Fifth Grade Social Studies Test Prep

Students with special needs, who have difficulty understanding fifth grade social studies test concepts, should not wait until a night or two before the social studies test to study. These students should take about fifteen minutes each night at home to go over new material introduced daily in class. Teachers can make this easier for parents and students by either sending home an assignment each night or a unit outline at the beginning of each unit.

When students are involved in social studies test practice every night, this can become boring and result in poor attitudes. It is up to the teachers and parents to make it more fun. If the new social studies concepts are branches of government, then one night students could read their social studies book; and the next few nights, students could draw a diagram--maybe even making it the shape of a tree. Students, parents, and teachers could create games to make nightly studying more fun and rewarding for students with special needs.

It is crucial for students with special needs to have specific study guides for fifth grade social studies test preparation. The wealth of information that teachers must relay with fourth and fifth grade social studies curriculums can be extremely overwhelming for students. For example, many fourth grade curriculums focus on the regions in the United States. Students must learn capital cities, industries, famous landmarks, rivers, history, and so on of each of the regions. Students with special needs should have a highlighted study guide that shows them exactly what information they need to know for each social studies test. This way they can focus on one or two important facts about the region being tested instead of several pieces of general information.

It is also important for students to have this study guide several days if not weeks before the fourth or fifth grade social studies test. It would also be useful for students to have a practice test that they could take at home to get used to the type of questions that they will need to answer. Many teachers will make up their own social studies test based on the textbook example. It would be helpful to the students with special needs and their parents if teachers made a copy of the textbook test and sent it home with students for practice. Also, some teachers write a new test every year; perhaps, an earlier version of the test can be sent home with students with special needs for extra fifth grade social studies test practice.

To help students succeed on a fourth or fifth grade social studies test:

• Make models whenever possible. It helps students to see concrete examples

• Tie concepts to the student's real world experiences.
• Involve students in making the study guides.
• Ask students to summarize what they learned each day.