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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

This verbal checkup covers basic addition and subtraction facts like 3+5, 13-8, and 2+9.

Numerical Fluency: Multiplication and Division

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


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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.

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  • 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 SS, FC, or FCSC markings).

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.
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