Reviewing Math Skills

In late September, students completed the first math assessment.  Normally, we strive to score these and promptly send them home for you to review, sign, and return to us.  This time, however, we have intentionally held off on doing so.  We found that there were several items on the assessment that were challenging to students, and we wanted to review many of these with the class.  For the past few weeks, we’ve been reviewing skills with the whole class that were challenging for a large group of students.  Mr. Walmer and I have also been pulling students to address skills that are best taught by repeated practice in small groups, such as rounding, multi-digit subtraction with regrouping, and standard form/word form/expanded form.  As you receive and review the assessments, please rest assured that we are working with your fourth grader on any areas that he or she struggled with.

The final question on the assessment was a particularly challenging problem, in part, because it was not written in the most clear way.  Many students lost points on this one question, and because it accounted for 9 points on the 36 point assessment.  So you can see how struggling on this one question could dramatically impact students’ individual scores.  For that reason, we strongly encourage you to look at your son or daughter’s performance on individual questions, rather than focusing on the percentage score (which, in all candor, tended to be lackluster for students throughout the class).  Additionally, Mr. Walmer taught a great lesson yesterday that reviewed that challenging final question.  After practicing the skill in class, students completed a similar problem, and we are so pleased that ALL students improved on their score from the assessment.  Those reteaching worksheets are stapled to the end of the students’ assessments.

We ask that you take time this week to review your child’s performance on the math assessment, sign it, and PLEASE SEND IT BACK TO SCHOOL.  Once again, we encourage you to examine how your child did on individual problem-sets (in rows, with the row score on the left side of the page) in order to look for strengths and weaknesses.  Please don’t dwell on the percentage score, which was (for many students) pulled down by one challenging question at the end of the assessment.

Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss