Back to School: What to expect this year (academic milestones for each grade)

It’s back to school time! Hope everyone enjoyed their summer. I am ready for the kids to go back to school and get back to a regular routine.

You will find many websites with information on physical, cognitive and social milestones for a child’s growth.  But it is not easy to find information on what to expect in each grade in school as far as academics goes. Before the kids head back to school, here is an overview of what to expect in the year ahead from what I have learned over the years.

Advertisement

Standardized tests in public schools

Many of the students who attend public schools in Iowa took Iowa Assessments (formerly known as ITBS) a couple of weeks back. If you have a third grader, this is the first time they took a standardized test administered by the state. Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers, and graded in the same manner for everyone, is a standardized test.