I have a small group of 3rd graders that I'm responsible for their math instruction and math grades. We've had a huge push in our district to have ESE students (what we call special ed) receive the gen ed math instruction, curriculum and assessments. Luckily, I'm also gen ed certified which means I can still pull my students into the resource room and teach the gen ed curriculum to them in a smaller group setting and at a better pacing for them. My 3rd graders are getting the gen ed math curriculum with me; however, we're not going as fast as the gen ed classes. We're 1-2 chapters behind everyone else. I've also skipped some portions of each chapter to keep my kids going, so we can cover more between now and FCAT. I also don't except my students to complete multi-step word problems independently. These types of problems we do together, and I try to talk them through the steps. For the most part, my students are learning the skills fairly well. They all do really well on their chapter tests (same one that their peers take). BUT I've noticed one area where they are really struggling and that is word problems. When I give them their chapter tests, they usually score an A. I realized they are doing so well, because they know that every problem is a division problem or whatever other operation we are covering. Most of my math IEP goals state something like this: When given a real world math problem, Student will choose the correct operation and solve (write) the problem correctly with 80% accuracy. Their short term goals are typically skills they need to be able to solve these problems and usually look like this: When given a 4-digit subtraction problem with and without regrouping, Student will solve the problem with 80% accuracy. I realized that I needed someway to track how my students are progressing on their IEP goals and a way to see how they are doing solving word problems that don't involve the chapter tests where every problem is the same operation. So I came up with this plan. Once a week (usually) I give my students a 5 question "review quiz" that has different word problems requiring different operations to solve. Now that we've learned division, I usually do a place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problem. These quizzes look like this: Not surprisingly, my students struggle with this review quiz. I usually get a lot of 60's as a grade since my students keep thinking every problem should be solved with addition no matter how many times we've gone over different types of problems! To help chart their progress and look for patterns, I made this chart for me and I quickly fill it in when I grade their quizzes. Here's what a couple of mine look like: This is the place value form. My kids usually do ok on place value up to 4-digits. Once we get to 5 & 6-digit numbers they get a little lost. This is my subtraction form. Oh my......my kids know how to subtract with regrouping. It's not the skill of subtracting that causes them to do so poorly on the subtraction problems. The problem is that they usually ADD instead of subtracting. We keep going over key words, thinking about what the problem is asking, reviewing why it can't be an addition problem, but this continues to be a problem for them. Any suggestions on how to help with this? I don't know if these forms will help anyone else, but I've uploaded them as a freebie just in case. Click on the picture to get your FREE copy! I'm on spring break right now!! Yeah!!!!! Man, did I need a break! I've spent today catching up on laundry and making a few things that I wanted to create for my classroom. I've uploaded some new games to my TPT store. Click on the pictures to check them out. I'm really excited about this one. My kids love Angry Birds and will LOVE this game to practice reading R-Controlled Vowels. I know my Kindergarten & 1st grade kiddos will love collecting these eggs as they practice their sight words. Now I'm off to enjoy more of this spring break (and fold laundry). Graphics by: KPM Doodles, Scrappin Doodles, JW Illustrations, and Revi Devi