New this year at LAU, we’re offering skill reviews in reading and math to help your student succeed. Reviews are easy to complete from home and will help us see if your student has any learning gaps or is missing foundational concepts. If so, we will share the results with mentors to make tutoring-time more effective and help your student as needed.

Our first skill reviews will be happening from September 16th-19th. To start, reviews are available for LAU middle school students only. Read below for full details on this new option or click to reserve a timeslot for reading or math now.

• Please prepare your student by explaining to them the difference between these skill reviews and a test: while students would ideally get 100% on a test, it’s not possible to get 100% on a skill review. Our intention is to learn not only what a student knows but also what they don’t (and what they are best prepared to learn next). Because of this, most students will reach a point where they have to guess one or more answers. 
• Please let your student know that it is okay to guess on this, so they will not be frustrated. Let them know that the way that they guess on the question will help us to know what they are ready to learn next. 
• Skill reviews will be proctored remotely by Tamara Atkin, our new Student Support Specialist. Shortly before your student’s scheduled review, parents will receive an email with details on how to access the online review system.
• Each skill review will be slightly different depending on your student’s answers. Expect around 40-50 questions for each review. 
• Each time slot is one hour long, but there is technically no time limit. Feel free to choose one or two time slots for each review. If your student chooses one and later realizes that they need more time, they can just go back into the sign-up to select another slot. 
• Typically, a student can finish each review in about an hour. However, it’s important that they avoid fatigue. We want to know each student’s true academic level, so if a student gets tired, they should take a short break or even wait to finish the review another day. 
• If your student answers too quickly (indicating they are not actually reading the question) the system will lock up until the proctor thinks the student is ready to re-engage. Feel free to contact Tamara Atkin (see contact info below) if your student wants a short break in the middle or to continue on another day between September 16th-19th.
• We recommend signing up for at least one time slot for each subject (reading and math). Please write your student’s name in the comment space when you sign up. 
• Parents are welcome to see every question, but please refrain from using this time to teach your student new information (this could skew the results and render the review useless).
• These reviews are for our school purposes only. They are not required by law or shared with anyone outside our school.
• Other than the test score, no data is saved from skill reviews.
• Our plan is to offer skill reviews at both the beginning and end of the school year to see how far each student progresses. Stay tuned for more details later about end-of-year reviews.

If you have any questions about skill reviews, please contact Tamara Atkin at tamara@williamsburglearning.com or (435) 359-2855.