Selecting Math Progress Measures

FastBridge has many math assessments that teachers can use to monitor student progress. In order for such monitoring to be effective, the progress measure must match the skill that the student is learning in the selected intervention. FastBridge math progress measures include tools that evaluate students’ knowledge of counting and cardinality, mastery of math fact fluency, applied problem solving, and the processes that students use to solve problems.

Available Measures

The following table provides a summary of the available math progress measures, the levels available, and the skills covered.

The listed grades match the skills included in the measures based on the Common Core State Standards. The measures can be used with students in higher grades whose interventions include content reflected in the skills covered. The single-skill versions of the progress measures are recommended when a student's intervention is highly focused on a specific skill that needs to be mastered before the student moves on to other skills.

Mixed Skill formats are assessments that include a combination of problems reflecting the skill level. These are also called general outcome measures (GOM). For example, a CBMmath Automaticity mixed skill measure could include addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems as well as problems with different numbers of digits in each part of the problem (e.g., 3-digit by 2-digit, etc.). Mixed skill measures provide a way for teachers to learn how well students can switch between problems requiring different operations and skills. Mixed skill formats are the type used for universal screening, but can also be used for progress monitoring when a teacher would like to know if a student can switch between problem types.

Single Skill formats include only one or two problem types on each form. These are also known as mastery measures. For example, a grade 1 CBMmath Automaticity single skill measure might include all addition facts to 18. Single-skill measures are not used for screening (i.e., progress monitoring only) and provide a way for teachers to know if a student has mastered a specific skill being taught. Once mastered, both the instruction and progress measure are then adjusted to the next skill.

Selecting a Math Progress Measure

The first step in selecting the best progress measure is to know what skill(s) a student needs to learn. The best way to identify students’ math instruction needs is to use FASTtrack math. The assessments included in FASTtrack math assessment will show the students’ skills in the areas of Number, Operations, and General Math. Teachers can view students' FASTtrack Math scores on the Screening to Intervention report for math (s2i-M). Scores that indicate that a student might not reach learning goals are highlighted. Students whose score indicates some risk of not reaching the end-of-year learning goal are indicated with one exclamation mark (!) and those at high risk are indicated with two marks (!!). These indicators are designed to help teachers know which students might benefit from additional instruction or intervention. All screening scores should be compared to other sources of information about a student’s current skills in order to validate score accuracy.

The s2i-M also provides recommended math instruction and intervention guidance for the whole class and for small groups as well as the recommended progress measure for students needing intervention. More information about the s2i-M can be found here. Other reports that can provide information to help teachers select the best math progress measures are the Individual Skills Report and the Group Skills Report.

Recommended Progress Measures

Teachers will need to make the decision about which progress measure is best for an individual student.  Here are the math progress measures that FastBridge most often recommends.

Instructional Hierarchy

An additional step to help teachers identify the best math progress measure involves considering the hierarchy of math skills the student knows and needs to learn.  All FastBridge math progress measures reflect a skills hierarchy such that beginning skills are included at the lower levels and more advanced skills at the higher levels. This is done because certain basic math skills must be mastered in order for students to move on to math proficiency. The skills hierarchy included in FastBridge math assessments comes from two main sources: (a) National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and (b) Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The NCTM first published an instructional hierarchy and guidelines for math instruction in 1989. More recently, the CCSS were published by the National Governor’s Association to provide states and school districts with more uniform learning targets at each grade level. There are many similarities between these guidelines, including an emphasis on student mastery of all basic math facts across the four basic operations (i.e., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). Importantly, students need to achieve automaticity with math facts so that they can use them while completing other math problems. Such automaticity was identified as a cornerstone skill for later math proficiency in the 2008 National Math Advisory Panel Report (NMAP). Once students have mastered basic facts, they are ready to use these facts to solve other types of math problems, including multi-step and story problems as well as solving for a variable.

Matching Skills to Progress Measures

The skill hierarchies reflected in the NCTM and CCSS guidelines, and emphasized in the NMAP, are the basis for how the FastBridge math progress measures are organized. These skills were consolidated into 7 core skill areas. The following table shows the skills and which FastBridge math assessments can be used for progress monitoring those skills.

Once a student’s specific math skill instruction need has been identified, teachers can select the appropriate progress measure from the Table above. The skills are listed from easier to more difficult. In the early primary grades (e.g., K and 1) the instructional focus is usually on learning numerals, the quantities they represent and base 10 place value.

With these skills, students can move on to learning the single-digit (or up to 12) math facts for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Automaticity of math facts is essential for later math proficiency because such automaticity will determine how quickly a student can recall and use these facts to solve more complex math problems. When a student does not have the basic operation facts memorized, trying to complete more difficult problems will be frustrating or impossible. The best progress measure for students working toward fact fluency is CBMmath Automaticity. This measure has both GOM and SSM and the specific form to use depends on what skill the student needs to learn next. It is important when using CBMmath Automaticity to review the student data often and have the student move up to the next skill once each one is mastered. Although schools might have local criteria for mastery, a general guideline is for the student to reach the low-risk benchmark score within the time limit. Although it consists of only 3-grade levels, CBMmath Automaticity can be used with students in the upper elementary, middle, and high school grades who have not yet mastered all basic math facts.

After students have developed automaticity with basic facts, they can be monitored with either CBMmath CAP or CBMmath Process. The decision of which to use should reflect the local curriculum and learning goals. CBMmath CAP includes applied math skills that require using basic facts to solve applied problems. CBMmath Process focuses exclusively on the individual steps that a student uses to solve a multi-step basic operation (e.g., 304 + 67 + 2598). This measure is best for students who have difficulty applying the right steps needed to solve such problems and are participating in interventions to build these skills.