Welcome to Part 2 of my RTI series. In Part 1 I told you all about RTI: what it is, how it works and why we use it. Now, let’s get down to business. Here’s some hands-on talk about the materials you need to implement RTI in your math classroom.
Maybe you’re one of those uber lucky teachers who works in a school that gives you a full suite of practice materials and assessments for every skill level. If you exist, enjoy your good fortune and know that we’re all insanely jealous of you.
For the rest of us, we often have to come up with math RTI materials on our own. You can read all about my journey to create the materials I needed for my students.
Based on solid research and what I’ve learned the hard way, here are the three main types of materials that you need for math RTI.
Beginning of the Year and End of the Year RTI Math Assessments
This is where it all begins. The starting point of any RTI is an initial screening. This screening gives you a benchmark of the students’ skills as a class. It uncovers students with weak points and gaps in their knowledge. Every child should receive this test. You’d be surprised how even the strongest student may have a gap somewhere that could haunt him later in his math career. Once you have that data, you can begin appropriate interventions.
The partner of the initial screening is the end of year screening. Again, every student should take this assessment. You’ll have a clear picture of your students’ progress over the past year. The information you glean will help your students’ teachers the following year. It will also help you discover the strong and weak points of your own interventions.
How do you choose your pre/post year assessments? You need a test that:
- Is on grade level
- Aligns with state standards
- Clearly defines the skill that each question targets
Without those qualities, the test results are meaningless.
Our Math Screeners
Our Math benchmark screeners include everything you need to benchmark testing throughout the year. CLICK HERE to grab your screeners, available for grades K-8.
With this resource you get the following benchmark assessments:
1. Beginning of the year screener: At the start of the year the biggest question on every teacher’s mind is “what curriculum did my new students retain from last year?” Our beginning of the screener is unique because it assesses the key math skills from the previous year (it’s a prerequisite test!). No more giving your students a screener at the start of the year full of new curriculum you haven’t covered (because chances are nearly everyone will fail!), this screener shows student mastery of the previous year’s content!
2. Middle of the year screener: This screener covers the numbers and operations in base ten standards and some algebraic thinking standards for the grade level purchased. This will show you exactly what your students have retained from the current year’s instruction.
3. End of year screener: This screener covers all of the curriculum for the grade level purchased. This will provide you with data on student performance for the entire year.
4. Test breakdown sheet: for outlining each question and the standard that it reviews. This sheet also outlines if the question is procedural or conceptual based. (provided for each screener)
5. Item analysis sheet: for you to record how each student performed on the test. Use this for finding trends in your data. (provided for each screener)
6. Answer keys (provided for each screener)
We have screeners for Common Core, TEKS, and BEST! They are available for grades K-8.
Math RTI Practice Pages
You completed your beginning of the year assessment and identified which children need help. You know which skills they lack. Now what? Now come the interventions, of course. You’ll be giving individual students or small groups extra instruction and practice.
For the intervention to work, the practice needs to be:
- Laser focused on a specific skill
- Repeated and reinforced many times
- Possible for the student to complete independently.
This means that for every student and for every skill, a teacher needs multiple practice pages and worksheets.
Once again, to have what I needed for my students I had to create it myself. You can check out a FREE SAMPLER of my math intervention packs in my TpT store
Math RTI Mini-Assessments and Quick Checks
This is the third and most crucial category of RTI materials.
Throughout the year, you need monitor your students’ progress and the efficacy of your interventions. The gold standard in progress monitoring is CBM or curriculum-based measurement. This means monitoring and directly assessing specific academic skills and tracking that progress.
How do you do that? You need mini pre and post-intervention assessments that isolate and highlight specific skills. These quick checks take little time, do them a few times a week.
It’s the only way to know that your interventions are working. Additionally, with continuous progress monitoring, the data will show you when its time to move on to the next step or modify instruction. It’s the only way to gather the data you need to communicate with parents and administration. (More on that in Part 3!)
Guess what? To find appropriate checks for my students I had to make them myself. They are all included in my comprehensive Math Intervention Packs.
Our assessments do more than highlight specific skills; they also indicate whether you are testing procedural understanding or conceptual understanding. Click here to learn more. Knowing the difference is crucial to providing the targeted assistance your students need.
We’ve taken an in-depth look at RTI materials, but there’s still one piece missing from the picture: detailed data tracking. Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series. We’ll cover the hows and whys of data tracking by learning proven tips and best practices. You’ll see how to use your data to get top results for your students and collaborate with your administration and parents.
You’ll be prepared for whatever the school year brings.
