Verbal Assessments
Verbal Checkups are designed to gauge a student's mental math skills with basic arithmetic. There are two verbal assessments:
Numerical Fluency: Addition and Subtraction |
Numerical Fluency: Multiplication and Division |
| This verbal checkup covers basic addition and subtraction facts like 3+5, 13-8, and 2+9. | This verbal checkup covers basic multiplication and division facts like 2 x 5, 12 x 3, and 12 / 3 |
When to Administer a Verbal Checkup
If you are an instructor with more than two students at your table, try to look for "floating instructors" or a Lead Instructor to administer the verbal checkup. The administering instructor should not answer any other student questions during the testing period.
How to Administer a Verbal Checkup
Note: Verbal Checkups should only be administered by trained instructors who have completed the Radius training.
1. With every verbal checkup, there will be a set of "Student Pages" and a rubric. Place the "Student Pages" directly in front of the student
2. Start at the beginning of the section. Point to the question you would like the student to answer and read it out loud.
3. Grading
- Y - The student correctly answered the question in the allotted time frame
- N - The student incorrectly answered the question
- S - The student answered the question correctly but took longer than five seconds to answer.
- FC - Check this box if the student utilized finger counting.
- SC - Check this box if the student utilized skip counting.
At the end of each section, there will be a place to mark a student's total mastery with a section.
- No Knowledge - The student demonstrates zero conceptual understanding with the questions asked. In essence, they did not get a single question in that section correct
- Awareness - The student demonstrates awareness of the concepts present. Less than half of the answers are correct
- Competency - The student demonstrates competency with the concepts present. More than half of the answers are correct, but one/some of the answers were marked as S, FC, SC, or N.
- Mastery - The student demonstrates complete mastery with the concepts present. All of the questions are correct (with no S, FC, or SC markings).
4. After completing the verbal checkup, please initial and date the bottom of the first rubric sheet.
Tips
- When the Numerical Fluency results are entered into Radius, the only scores that will be entered are the N/A/C/M scores. Therefore, if a student is demonstrating "No Knowledge" on the first half of a section, you may let the student skip the rest of the questions in the section
- The student may be insistent on taking more time to answer each question. Keep the student within a reasonable time frame, for the assessment shouldn't take any longer than five minutes.
- If you are struggling to categorize a N/A/C/M for a specific section, feel free to leave it blank. The person entering the results will extrapolate based on the Y/N results.
- Try to hide the grading rubric from the student. They may be a bit timid if they can actively see that you are grading them on their performance.
- Be mindful of a student's remaining session time. If they have fewer than ten minutes remaining, I would not recommend starting the verbal checkup.