Our benchmark assessments give us a snapshot of how well a student has mastered skills that have been taught so far this year. The tests are ungraded and usually have much lower scores than normal tests. This is because they are tied in difficulty to SOL assessments rather than to a grading scale and because the learning process is still ongoing.
This year, students in grades 2-5 will take 2 benchmarks in reading and 2 benchmarks in math When you have your child's score you can open the link above and see how it compares to other students who took the same test using the percentile bands provided.
For example, a score that fell in the 90th percentile band would, at a minimum, be higher than 90% of the students in the entire county who took that test. A score that fell in the 26th to 50th percentile band would be slighly below the average score, but the student is likely on track to pass their end-of-year SOL test because our SOL pass rates are rarely below 75%. Keep in mind that half of all students will be between the 25th and 75th percentiles, so a score at the 39th percentile doesn't mean the student failed, it just means they were on the lower end of normal.
Teachers will analyze your child's benchmark results as well as all of their other work to determine if additional assistance is necessary.
