An obvious starting point is to consult the data you have available to you already. Take some time to query your students’ NAPLAN results. Gathering further data can help, but I suggest you have a purpose in mind before you run any assessment.
Assessment Results are in
So, you’ve done your assessment, you have identified your problem area, e.g. subtraction.
Or have you?
One Last Check
The student(s) may of course have an issue with the maths of the question, or, their maths literacy may be the issue. So I always ask teachers to consider whether literacy issues might be the cause.
Improving general literacy will help but in addition there are specific literacies that will impact on reading mathematics.
Vocabulary
Improve students’ vocabulary. Identify the words related to year level and topic. Expose students to them and get your students using them. You can learn more about improving vocabulary effectively in our free Guide to Mathematics Vocabulary.
Graphics
Graphics play a major role in students reading mathematics and extracting information in order to complete a question. The number one graphic is a number line. Consider how many calibrated scales, and graphs are featured in maths word questions.
Symbols
Interpreting and understanding symbols is difficult. As children move into upper primary and lower secondary school, they confront more and more symbols.
Structure
Maths problems – particularly those focused on the four operations – are written to a structure. Letting children into the “secret” of how word questions are written will help.
The structure of how addition subtraction, multiplication and division problems are written may be found on pages 89 and 90 of First Steps in Mathematics: Understand Operations which can be freely downloaded online.
Improving Teaching
Read our free Guide to Teacher Planning for 6 research-proven High Impact Teaching Strategies you can use. The guide also includes a sample lesson structure you can implement to be efficient. Explicit teaching that targets areas of weakness identified by school assessments will improve results.
Whole School Approaches
Getting all teachers on the same page will keep progress on track year to year. See our Guide to Maths Leadership Planning for more information.
The “What to do”
Ultimately assessment is all about the “what next”. Use your data and your intuition about where attention is required.
Maybe its the perennial topic of Addition & Subtraction, which is covered from start to finish in the Bond Blocks system.
You might discover students have a vocabulary issue, so you might want to look at our Guide to Vocabulary
Or you might decide that you need warm ups at the start of a lesson. We have two video PLs on that topic: One and Two
Perhaps you could benefit from a whole school approach? Try looking at the Quick Guides and Threads downloads and the Teacher Planning Guide to help you establish a whole school approach to teaching.
