I observed her countless times standing at her desk rhythmically touching, tapping,
or shifting whatever it was she was working on with such force that she managed to
move her entire group of tablemates and their desks across the floor. In mathemat-
ics, I noticed that she had difficulty focusing during independent practice and often
seemed to just write down numbers or spend the time counting aloud on the class-
room number line over and over again.
Children were drawn to Tamara, and she was skillful at attracting their at-
tention. The more she struggled, the more she became a distraction to herself
and others. Her behavior seemed in large part a result of her not being able to
enter into the math. She desperately needed intervention, but first I needed to
assess Tamara’s understanding to know how make the daily lessons accessible
to her.
Finding Out What Tamara Knew
The curriculum’s end-of-unit tests and assessment checkpoints seemed like the
most obvious place to start. And so, for a few months I dutifully compiled these
data. Although the data provided me with some information, they did not give
me insight into her thinking. For example, the evaluations seemed to indicate she
could accurately compare values 0–10, but how did she do it? What strategies did
she use? Essentially, these formal assessments confirmed that Tamara was strug-
gling in math. This I already knew! It made me stop and think: How do I know
that? I realized that, through informal observation—working one-on-one with
her and watching her in small groups—I had already gathered some important
data about her strengths and needs.
Returning to my graduate school training, I reviewed what I already knew by
writing down a list of what Tamara understood and how she demonstrated that
and what she did not yet understand and how she demonstrated that. What
emerged was her ability to count verbally, use one-to-one correspondence with
objects, and recognize that the last number word in her count told “how many”
were in the set. She did not yet seem to understand that each number is a quan-
tity, not just a label. She treated each number as a separate entity in the sequence
of the number line—always counting up from 1 to get to the name of a number.
Yet, I also saw evidence of her ability to compare numbers. She could play a num-
ber comparison card game (similar to War or Battle) with number cards 0–10
quickly and accurately.
The exercise of writing down Tamara’s strengths and needs proved a valu-
able assessment tool. I was surprised at how much she understood. Plagued by
my own frustrations over how to help her, I had been fixating on what she
didn’t know and it had come to seem this was everything! Using end-of-unit
LINKINGASSESSMENT ANDTEACHING