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  • Viability of a Grade Level in Math

    Viability of a Grade Level in Math

    When I am asked to consult or evaluate a student, often the student is years behind in math. As a result, I am often asked to determine the grade level of the student’s achievement. Regressing the math achievement to a single number is not viable. This post provides an explanation. Common Scenario Here is a…

  • Planning and Preparing for Math in the Fall

    Planning and Preparing for Math in the Fall

    If you are reading this post, it is likely that you have a student or you teach students who struggle with math. Here are suggestions to help your students prepare for the math they will encounter in the fall. Review the IEP math objectives. Are they written to cover the entire curriculum or just a…

  • Curriculum Based Assessments

    Most testing for IEPs involves standardized testing. As I wrote in a previous post, this is important testing but is not sufficient. A major focus of special education is to make the general education accessible as possible. Hence, curriculum based testing is an important complement to the standardized based testing. For example, the KeyMath3 assessment…

  • Problems with Determining Math Grade Level for a Student

    A common scenario involves a school official reporting out the grade level in math for a student. For example, a 7th grade student I was helping had tested at a 4th grade level. As a result, the student spent much of her 7th grade year working on 4th grade math. There are a couple problems…

  • Shopping at the Grocery Store

    There are numerous hidden tasks that we undertake while at the grocery store. We process them so quickly or subconsciously that we are not aware of these steps. As a result, we may overlook these steps while educating students on life skills such as grocery shopping. Subsequently, these steps may not be part of the…

  • Asking for Examples of Mastery for IEP Objectives

    To ensure the IEP team is on the same page as to what mastery of an objective looks like, the person writing the objective can take two steps: provide an example problem that would be used to assess mastery (and the example problem would have the same language as used in the objective) provide an…

  • Levels of Learning

    Levels of Learning

    Learning is not a singular threshold to be met. There are different levels of learning – a continuum (see photo below taken from the book Teaching Mathematics Meaningfully). A student demonstrating proficiency (fluency) is far different from a student simply showing some level of understanding (acquisition). I remember learning to drive a car with a…

  • Making Sense of Testing

    Making Sense of Testing

    Testing (results shown on the Present Levels of Performance page shown below) is often confusing for parents, especially in regards to math. The results are often reported in broad terms, e.g. computation or IQ. Here is an analogy for the testing (in terms usefulness for determining instruction, performance and achievement). We go to the DMV…

  • Cutting Up the Math Into Bite-sized Pieces

    Cutting Up the Math Into Bite-sized Pieces

    When I train new math and special education teachers I explain that teaching math should be like feeding a hot dog to a baby in a high chair. Cut up the hot dog into bite-sized pieces. The baby will still consumer the entire hot dog. Same with math. Our students can consume the entire math…

  • Performance vs Ability

    Performance vs Ability

    In the effort to assess student ability performance factors are likely present. It is incumbent upon the educators to mitigate the performance issues to assess true ability. For example, I conducted an evaluation on a student in middle school who has ADHD. All of her testing records indicated that she would lose focus during the…