McCormick Week 13

The piece of math work that I examined was of a student's pre-assessment for the upcoming unit. In particular, I looked at one question that asked the child to fill in the missing numbers in the frames-and-arrows model. The rule that was given to the student was "count back by 2s". The first frame was filled in and showed the number 32. The student was required to fill in the next 5 frames using the rule. The student labeled the arrows above each frame to show -2. She filled in "31, 30, 49, 48, 47" in the missing frames. This student clearly knows how to analyze the rule and put it in symbol form. She knows how to label each arrow to demonstrate what she will do for each frame. She does not yet understand how to fill in the frames appropriately to show what the rule is asking for. She counted back by 1s from 32 to 30 and then did the same again from 49 to 47. She did not show that she knew how to count back by 2s.

One way I may advance this student's thinking is to ask her to count back by 2s from 50 and I would record each number she says. Another way to advance her thinking is for her to circle all of the numbers she says as she counts back by 2s on the number grid. This would help the student identify what numbers she is actually counting. One question I may ask her is "What made you count back 32, 31, 30 and then 49, 48, 47?" A future math task that may be beneficial for this student is work with other skip counts and count them backwards. Eventually, she will recognize that she is saying the numbers that the frames-and-arrows task is asking for.