moves on a worksheet and made sure that her numbers added up to 20 at the end
of the game. Once she was familiar with the routine, she played Get to 30. She
used interlocking cubes in towers of 5 to build the numbers on her worksheet.
When the class played Collect $1.00 (Russell et al. 2008g), Kristen played
Collect 25¢. She was able to work on some of these games independently, and
some with a partner.
I was able to find some time to work with Kristen one-on-one, playing
Compare Dots. I asked her to tell me how she decided which card had more dots
(see Figure 10–1). I was heartened listening to her thinking. Rather than count-
ing individual dots, she looked for familiar chunks and combinations. She regu-
larly used combinations of 3 3, then counted on any additional dots to find the
dot totals. I was so pleased that the sequence of first-grade activities I provided
had helped her solidify her understanding of some basic number concepts.
Evidence of Kristen’s Mathematical Thinking
When the class studied categorical data midway through the year, I was pleased
to see that Kristen was more successful with these ideas. She was able to sort ob-
jects by their attributes and was noticeably more engaged in these activities.
Counting was an integral part of the work. The numbers were relatively small,
usually less than 20. She was able to participate without accommodations and
worked successfully with a partner to generate survey questions about her class-
mates’ favorite things (Russell et al. 2008j). She created a representation of her
LINKINGASSESSMENT ANDTEACHINGABFigure 10–1.