University of Kwazulu-Natal

Helpful Tools For Math And Literacy Assessment And Skill Building

Bonisiwe Shabane
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helpful tools for math and literacy assessment and skill building

Math, reading, and writing are historically areas we use to measure student progress. In recent years, learning disruptions have set this progress back a bit. While we can and should acknowledge these challenges, framing them as "learning loss" can put undue stress on you and your students. Instead, let's honor students' commitment to learning, no matter where they are in their lives or academic development. Let's offer the support they need to build confidence and stay in school. We think the resources we've curated below can help you in this process.

These (mostly) free tools can help you assess how students are doing -- and feeling -- alongside other resources for building up their skills and confidence. We've divided this list into three parts -- you can jump to any section below using these links: These tools will help you get a sense of where students are, and which skills they still need to develop. Many of these tools also offer follow-up exercises and activities that target students' specific areas of need. Explore resources and tools to help your students grow and thrive! Our tailor-made toolkits and techniques are just a few of the resources available to help support you in unlocking every student’s learning potential.

From the latest achievement assessments (and the best ways to use them) to a full suite of training and support, we have what you need to help your students get from where they are... Math and reading are essential to a student’s educational development. In recent years, we’ve observed significant learning loss in the aftermath of the pandemic. With so much already on educators’ plates, accelerating learning recovery can feeling overwhelming. Pearson is here to help! We’ve worked with educational experts to help curate new math and literacy toolkits that highlight assessments focused on helping your students with these specific topics.

Proper assessment is essential to learning. Teachers plan their lessons and activities around learning objectives, and they need ways to check that students have accomplished those goals. Assessment is more than just quizzes and tests as any teacher knows, and these days, there are more options than ever. Using digital assessment tools for teachers saves time, engages your audience, and makes life easier. No matter what type of assessment you need, there’s a tool to help you out. And to make it easier to choose the right tool, we’ve organized our favorites by goal.

Use our bundle of free printable exit tickets for quick and easy formative assessments on any topic. Just fill out the form on this page to get them. Before we share the best digital assessment tools for teachers, let’s talk about the difference between formative and summative assessment. Teachers use formative assessments more than any other type, checking for understanding throughout the learning process. This allows them to adjust their teaching and learning activities to better meet student needs and find out which students need a little extra assistance. Summative assessments are the formal tests and final projects that assess student learning at the end of a unit or course.

Exit tickets are a fantastic way to find out what students gained from today’s lesson. If you want to replace the sticky note method with a digital version, try Google Forms. They’re so easy to use, and they give you an easy way to access student responses anywhere, anytime. And to make it even easier, download our free exit ticket templates. Learn more: Google Forms for Exit Tickets Effective assessment tools for teachers are vital in understanding students’ progress, allowing teachers to tailor instruction for better learning outcomes.

These tools can help teachers to gauge comprehension, identify learning gaps, and offer personalized support. Watch your kids fall in love with math & reading through our scientifically designed curriculum. In this blog, we’ll cover some of the best assessment tools that help you diversify their strategies and create a more engaging and impactful classroom experience. Objective: Utilize a gamified platform for adaptive learning, track student progress, and share detailed reports with parents. SplashLearn is one of the best free assessment tools for teachers, offering a gamified platform that blends learning and assessment seamlessly. Its math and reading exercises engage students, automatically tracking their progress.

Teachers receive in-depth analytics that highlight each student’s strengths and weaknesses, enabling them to close learning gaps with targeted instruction. The Mathematics Assessment Project is part of the Math Design Collaborative initiated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project set out to design and develop well-engineered tools for formative and summative assessment that expose students’ mathematical knowledge and reasoning, helping teachers guide them towards improvement and monitor progress. The tools are relevant to any curriculum that seeks to deepen students' understanding of mathematical concepts and develop their ability to apply that knowledge to non-routine problems. 100 lessons for formative assessment, some focused on developing math concepts, others on solving non-routine problems. A Brief Guide for teachers and administrators (PDF) is recommended reading before using these lessons for the first time.

A set of 94 exemplar summative assessment tasks to illustrate the range of performance goals required by CCSSM. The tasks come with scoring rubrics and examples of scored student work. Complete summative test forms and rubrics designed to help teachers and students monitor their progress using a range of task types similar to the 'Tasks' section. 5 Prototype modules that encourage groups of teachers to explore the practical and pedagogical concepts behind the materials, such as formative assessment, collaborative learning and the use of unstructured problems. Record sheets, forms, and checklists, as well as teacher tools, lessons and rubrics for assessing student achievement and understanding. Printables for math and language arts, and resouces for activating prior knowledge, differentiation, conferences, and reports.

Scholastic Teachables offers printable activities for every subject and any grade. We use cookies, pixels, and session replay technology when you navigate our site. Manage your cookie preferences here. Are you looking for literacy apps, tools, and resources that you can use with your students? If so, we have you covered. Check out our list below.

Let us know if there are any that we missed. Whooo’s Reading – The goal of Whooo’s Reading is accelerated reading comprehension and improved writing skills. By using open-ended questions instead of the standard true/false and multiple-choice style, students are required to think independently about texts. The Whooo’s Reading program automatically reminds students to improve their writing by asking them to cite evidence or answer all the parts of a question. Teachers can monitor student’s reading with automatic quiz results, graded by the Whooo’s Reading app, available in the teacher dashboard. To increase student motivation, students earn Wisdom Coins for reading and writing.

These can be spent on accessories and items for their Owlvatars (owl avatars). BiblioNasium– A website exclusively for children between the ages of 6 and 13. It aims to promote the reading habit among children. Equipped with peer and parental controls, it presents an effective and stimulating program for the user. Using this app, you can adapt reading to fit the child’s needs, monitor his/her reading log, and help the child explore a variety of reading genres. Reading data is saved online and is always accessible.

Curriculet– This reading platform aims at overhauling and changing the way children study and the way teachers teach. Programmed questions and instructions pop up while a child is reading a text from the class. Using this tool, teachers can personalize the reading experience for their students; it also helps them to create and share the contents of their study digitally. Kids A-Z– Children can select from a library of eQuizzes, eBooks, and hundreds of developmentally appropriate eResources by using the Kids A-Z mobile app. Students can complete corresponding quizzes to improve their comprehension skills and use interactive annotation tools that aid in the development of close reading skills. Kids A-Z mobile app is a must-have for kids that have access to Raz-Kids, Science A-Z, Headsprout, or Raz-plus.

Middle and high school math teachers can use these ideas to build students’ reading comprehension and reasoning skills using real tasks like budgeting. While a lot has changed in math instruction over the years, the idea that students need to be math literate has been constant. Being math literate means much more than calculations. Life events such as buying a home, paying taxes, or even estimating how much you’ll spend on groceries require modeling and reasoning skills. State and district tests often include problems that are real-world based, and that means that students will need to use reading comprehension, along with math skills, in order to show proficiency. This can be particularly difficult for students with learning disabilities, those who have had interrupted schooling, and/or emergent multilingual learners.

It’s imperative that math teachers develop a tool kit to help students decipher the math moves needed for such problems. Through my dissertation research and my many years of teaching mathematics with great math teachers, I have found simple ways to help students become more math literate. Here are some practical ideas on how teachers can help students become math literate, from the perspective of Algebra 1 teachers from various backgrounds. 1. Use sentence frames. Sentence frames are a simple way to help students of all backgrounds learn how to state their answers and ask any questions they have about a word problem.

Teachers can post sentence frames on a board or even on students’ desks for easy access. Here are some examples: Finding the right math intervention resources for students who find math challenging can sometimes feel overwhelming. It often seems like fewer math resources are out there than reading. But don’t worry, I’ve got you covered! I’ve spent a lot of time searching online for the best math intervention websites.

These sites are packed with helpful MTSS math interventions and resources, perfect for supporting your Math RTI strategies. They’re all about boosting math skills and giving focused help, making sure your students get the support they need to succeed. These amazing math intervention websites all contain helpful resources to support students in building essential skills for success across several math topics, including number sense, building fluency, problem-solving, and more! Targeting precise skill gaps is crucial for effective intervention planning. This post will share some amazing math intervention websites, but starting with high-quality data from a formative assessment tool is the only way to target gaps. While it can be a challenge to find quality math diagnostics, here are a few options:

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