Verbal Subtraction Overview
The Verbal Subtraction test assesses the student's ability and automaticity in responding to basic subtraction facts. The test is completely verbal, and no student stimulus materials are used. As the student responds to each item, the examiner marks any errors on his/her score form. The resulting score is the number of items responded to correctly
This measure is only designed for screening. Progress monitoring is not available.
This measure is available in Braille.
Test Construction
The test consists of 14 items in which students are asked to solve basic subtraction problems (e.g., 8 minus 2?). First, students are provided with an example item which gives them the opportunity to practice responding to the item type. Students are then instructed to, “Listen carefully, and try to answer as many problems as you can." Similar to Verbal Addition, seven categories of subtraction tasks were used to develop the progression of the 14 subtraction items. Two items were created for each of the seven categories: combinations up to 5 (e.g., 5 - 2), partitions of numbers to 10 (e.g., 8 - 2), doubles (e.g., 6 - 3), subtracting through 10 (e.g., 12 - 4), combinations of 10 (e.g., 12 -10), partitions of numbers to 20 (e.g., 18 - 3), and partitions of 20 (e.g., 20 - 5).
To administer this assessment for the purpose of universal screening:
- Log in to the FastBridge system as a teacher.
- Go to the Screening tab.
- Select the earlyMath English assessment.
- Select the VS column from the earlyMath English Screening page.
Here is what the teacher sees when administering the earlyMath English - Verbal Subtraction subtest.
For more information about the earlyMath English - Verbal Subtraction subtest complete the online earlyMath English course found in the Training & Resources section of the FastBridge system.
To do so, navigate to the Training & Resources tab, and click on the earlyMath English course tile.
Then select the Verbal Subtraction option on the vertical menu. Complete Lessons 1 through 8 in order to certify in the earlyMath English Verbal Subtraction subtest.