Guidance
FCAT Information
INTENSIVE READING / INTENSIVE MATH
The Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test (FCAT) is an achievement tool used by the State of Florida, Osceola County and Osceola High School. If a student is performing below grade level in reading and/or math, according to the FCAT, and falls within a pre-determined range for needing remediation in one or both areas, the student will be placed in an Intensive Reading and/or Math class. The purpose of these classes is to improve the student’s reading and/or math skills and to provide an opportunity for the student to be more successful on the FCAT, a test all students must pass in order to receive a standard high school diploma.
Reading Skills
Informative Text (90%) and Literary Text (10%)
- Selects and uses strategies to understand words and text and to make and confirm inferences from what is read
- Recognizes comparison & contrast
- Determines main idea stated in a paragraph and identifies details
- Determines the author’s purpose and point of view and their effects on the text
- Identifies devices of persuasion and methods of appeal and their effectiveness
- Locates, gathers, analyzes and evaluates information for research projects/real world tasks self improvement
- Selects research skills and tools according to the type of information being gathered or organized
- Analyzes the validity/reliability of primary information and uses it appropriately
- Synthesizes information from multiple sources and uses the information
- Recognizes cause-and-effect relationships in literary text
- Analyzes the effectiveness of complex elements of plot such as setting, major events, problems, conflicts, and resolutions
Math Skills:
Number Sense, Concepts, and Operations
- Understand and operate within the real number system
- Use estimation in problem solving and computation
Measurement
- Compares, contrasts, and converts within systems of measurements (standard/nonstandard and metric/customary)
- Estimates measurements in real world problem situations
Geometry and Spatial Sense
- Describes, draws, identifies and analyzes two and three dimensional shapes
- Coordinates Geometry/Describe objects algebraically
Algebraic Thinking
- Describes, analyzes and generalizes a wide variety of patterns, relations and functions
- Represents and interprets situations algebraically
Data Analysis and Probability
- Understands and uses the tools of data analysis (charts and graphs)
- Uses probability and combination statistics to make inferences
FCAT Writing Rubric
In order to improve statewide assessment in Florida and test higher-order skills, the 1990 Florida legislature mandated the assessment of student writing. The Florida Writing Assessment Program was established in response to the legislative action. This program assesses the writing proficiency of all fourth, eighth, and tenth graders. Student performance is measured by a rubric system that includes focus, organization, support, and conventions (grammar)