How do students take the spelling and grammar diagnostic tests?

Find out how students take the spelling and grammar diagnostic tests and how they work

How do the spelling and grammar diagnostics work?

During the spelling and grammar diagnostic, students will be asked between 10 to 200 questions. The number of questions will depend on their answers, accuracy, and grade level. For example, Grade 1 students will be asked fewer questions than Grade 6 students, as they would not know all the harder skills and would therefore not progress to higher level questions.

You might have students with the same class and grade who are asked a different number of questions. This will be due to their accuracy. As all students progress at different levels, Sumdog will look at the students' answers and accuracy in the diagnostic. As a result, you might see some students in your class who completed their spelling or grammar diagnostic within about 80 questions, while another student might be at 170 questions.

If your students are finding the questions too hard at the start, there is no need to worry. If they answer the questions incorrectly, our system will notice and their skill level will be brought down.

The results

As Sumdog detects the questions are becoming too challenging, based on an increased number of incorrect answers, the diagnostic test ends and places them somewhere along the curriculum. The diagnostic results correspond to grade or year group, so a result of 3.29 means that they are working at around 29% of the way through the grade or year 3 skills on Sumdog.

If you're in Scotland, 3.29 would be around 29% of the way through primary 3 skills. 

How do students take the spelling or grammar diagnostic?

By default, the activity displayed on a student’s account will be math. To start their spelling or grammar diagnostic the student will need to click on their Tasks box and select either Spelling or Grammar Training. 

When taking the spelling or grammar diagnostic students will see a message saying 'We’re finding out what you know.'

Here are the steps for students taking the spelling or grammar diagnostic:

1. Have your students log into their student account and click on 'tasks' on the left
   
   
   
   
2. Select either Spelling Training or Grammar Training to work on the diagnostic questions on that subject
   
   
   
   
3. Click 'start'
   
   
   
   
4. Select a game to play. The questions asked in the game will adjust according to the student’s accuracy as they continue to answer questions
5. The spelling and grammar diagnostic can take up to 200 questions and might take a few games to complete. Once the student has completed either the spelling or grammar diagnostic they will be given a focus skill