Iowa Tests of Basic Skills® (ITBS®) Test Preparation

The Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS)® is a nationally standardized achievement test for K-12 students. What that means is that you can compare your child’s scores to children across the country in Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Science.

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills offer parents and educators a diagnostic look at how their students are progressing in the following key academic areas: Vocabulary, Word Analysis, Listening, Reading Comprehension, Language, Math, Social Studies, and Science.

The ITBS® (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) is published by Riverside Publishing, a Houghton Mifflin Company.  

The test is used by some states and a large number of private schools to measure grade-level performance and is often paired with an IQ instrument such as WISC-IV or the CogAT for entrance into gifted and talented programs.

The test is also being used by a growing number of homeschool families since the test is sufficient for state homeschool requirements. The Iowa can also confirm both a child’s learning progress and the teaching ability of the growing number of parents who choose to homeschool their children.

ITBS scores are even accepted for eligibility into the National Honor Society. Students can practice for a test like the Iowa and when they do, the material they work with should reflect the format of the ITBS.

It is important that students have exposure to, and experience with, questions in the formats they will encounter on ITBS and other assessments. Of course, endless drill and practice, especially when practice items are not connected to day-to-day work, can be counterproductive. Our products provide high-quality material, without being an actual practice test or pushing toward a drill-and-practice approach.