Teaching · Special Education

Find the first math skill to teach.

Count items tried and correct on each computation skill and score one timed probe in digits correct. The organizer sorts the skills, picks where to start and drafts present levels.

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Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Or get it in the New special education teacher kit, $39 for 31 items.

The math baseline

One baseline per student and date. The example is made up.

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What you get

Teaching · Special Education$12 · included with Classroom and Whole-school licenses

What you finish with
Skills sorted into secure, developing and teach next, the first skill to teach, digits correct a minute, a present-level sentence and what the error patterns point to.
Who it is for
Special education and math intervention teachers setting baselines for goals or intervention groups.
Format
Browser form. One saved baseline per student and date; printed with the summary or as a blank form; CSV; export and import a file.
Access
$12 one-time, yours on every device you sign in on; the tool opens once you are signed in with it. Included with Caveat Classroom and Whole-school licenses. Also in the New special education teacher kit ($39) and the Special Education toolkit ($99), and 2 more bundles. Everything you type stays in this browser; nothing is sent to Caveat.
Where it lives
The Special Education space in Caveat Teaching.
Support
Questions about an order, access or a correction: team@caveatacademic.com.
47tensonesfour tens and seven ones, before any steps
Drawn for this page. Regrouping errors usually trace back to place value, so the baseline checks skills in the order they build.

How to use it

  1. Give five to twenty untimed items of one skill at a time and count what the student tried and got right.
  2. Enter one row per skill.
  3. Give one timed mixed probe at grade level and count digits correct.
  4. Mark the error patterns and tools you saw.
  5. Teach the skill named first, and copy the baseline to a new date to recheck.

Start a baseline

How the sort works

Digits correct

Each correct digit in an answer counts, so partly right work earns partial credit and small growth shows. Divide by the minutes to compare probes of different lengths.

The cutoffs

90% and above as secure and under 70% as teach next are common working rules for untimed accuracy, used here so the sort is consistent. They are not norms; change your reading if your school uses other rules.

What this is not

A diagnostic math test. It tells you where to start teaching and gives a baseline to measure growth against.

Sources

  1. Hosp, M. K., Hosp, J. L., & Howell, K. W. (2016). The ABCs of CBM: A Practical Guide to Curriculum-Based Measurement (2nd ed.). Guilford Press: math computation probes and digits correct.
  2. Burns, M. K., VanDerHeyden, A. M., & Jiban, C. L. (2006). Assessing the instructional level for mathematics. School Psychology Review, 35(3), 401–418.
  3. Ashlock, R. B. (2010). Error Patterns in Computation (10th ed.). Allyn & Bacon: common computation error patterns.
  4. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act regulations, 34 CFR 300.320(a)(1)–(2): present levels and measurable annual goals.

The example student and scores are made up. Support: team@caveatacademic.com.