Curriculum Based Measurement Tool

Description of student:
Bob is a 10 year old male with an intellectual disability. He is currently in a
resource classroom for English and math and is in a fourth grade general education
classroom with his peers for the rest of the day. He comes to resource in the mornings for
English and math along with six other peers from fourth grade.
Socially, Bob is able to adequately communicate with his same-age peers and
adults. He will come in the classroom talking with his friends in the class and will engage
in conversation with them during breaks. Last week, he was spending time laughing with
his peers in a tent that was set up for a writing workshop. When the teacher addresses
him, he responds quickly unless he is distracted or asked a question he does not know the
answer to. A weakness in this area is that small percentage of the time when he does not
respond to the teacher. The teacher will be trying to help him or ask him a probing
question, and he will stare at his paper and play with the supplies at his desk by moving
them around or twirling them. He will also lay his head down or start doodling during
group work when he is supposed to be helping his peers. Last class, he was lying on a
bean bag chair and doodling on his whiteboard while he was supposed to be helping his
group come up with an answer to a writing question.
With his learning, he needs constant redirection to make sure he is staying on task
and following along with the lesson instead of staring at blank space or doodling. He
often engages in this off-task behavior when the lesson becomes long or he has a hard
time understanding the topic. It also takes him longer than his peers to understand a new
topic being introduced. He tries calling out answers but often gets them wrong. He has
preferential seating next to the paraprofessionals desk, so she can help him during the

lessons and independent work. He is able to learn the material quicker with that one-onone help. He is also able to answer questions correctly with more wait time from the
teacher and when he is prompted to keep working on a problem.
Academically, he is able to use the tools in his math binder, like a multiplication
chart or a mnemonic for division, in order to help him complete problems. He also knows
to look in his binder for helpful writing charts to assist him when he is writing a personal
narrative or expository text. Furthermore, he understands how to use an electronic
dictionary that will read the words in a story aloud to him when needed. Bob utilizes the
tools around him to help him succeed in academic tasks. Another strength he has is that
he is able to read through a passage and accurately answer questions. He understands
how to look through a passage for answers or infer the answers to questions. He just
needs certain words and questions read aloud for him to understand what he needs to do.
Bob has a weakness in math with making simple mistakes like lining up the decimals in
an addition or subtraction problem or dividing or multiplying longer numbers. He forgets
the process he is supposed to use for mathematical equations with multiple steps, but he
is able to look at the mnemonics and tips in his binder for support. He also struggles with
filling out an outline and writing a story. He spells phonetically and has a hard time
coming up with ideas to write a story. He has grammatical errors throughout his story like
run-on sentences, capitalization errors, and comma errors. Overall, he is making progress
in all academic, social, and learning areas, especially with one-on-one attention from
teachers.

Objective:

Given written numbers with decimals to the hundredths and a place value chart
for assistance, the student will be able to represent the value of the digit to the hundredths
using expanded form, getting five out of five of the numbers correct with one or less
prompt/redirection, in five minutes or less, for two consecutive trials.
Measurement tool:
Oral directions: Tell the student, You will be given five written numbers with decimals.
You will write each number in expanded form to the hundredths place. Model an
example problem of writing a number in expanded form to the hundredths place. Then,
give the student the five numbers for the assessment and a place-value chart. Say, Now
it is your turn. Write the expanded form of the number on the line next to it. I will say
each number aloud when you get to it. You can use your place-value chart for support. Do
the best you can. Before the student gets to each number, say the number aloud and ask
them to write it in expanded form.
Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Trial Total #
1
st

Correc

t
3/6

5/6

4/6

4/6

4/6

Numbe
r
2nd
Numbe
r
3rd
Numbe
r
4th
Numbe
r
5th

Numbe
r
Total #

1/5

2/5

3/5

4/5

5/5

5/5

20/30

Correct
+ = Yes, correct
~ = Yes, correct with one verbal or gestural prompt
X = No, took over five minutes, more than one prompt

Administration Discussion:
On two different days, I pulled Bob aside during math warm-up to administer the
CBM. I had a list of five numbers that went to the hundredths place and a place-value
chart from his math binder. I explained to him that he would be using expanded form to
represent the value of each number and writing his answer next to each corresponding
number. He has been working on the skill of writing numbers in expanded form to the
hundredths place-value with the support of a place-value chart in class, so he understood
what he needed to do quickly. I used a think-aloud to model an example problem in order
to remind him of how to use the place-value chart to find the answer and show him how I
wanted his written answer to look. After explaining the directions and modeling an
example problem, I started administering the CBM. I would read the number aloud to
him and ask him to write this number in expanded form. Near the end of the CBM, he
was able to begin writing the number in expanded form without my direction. When Bob
was visibly struggling to start or was starting to do the wrong thing, I would give him
verbal or gestural prompts to remind him to use his chart, write a number in the correct

place, write the correct amount of zeros, use addition signs between each place-value, or
remember his decimal.
In the beginning, I had to do a lot more prompting than I thought I would.
However, throughout the trials, Bob became more fluent in figuring out and writing the
answers with less teacher prompting. The CBM went fairly close to how I thought it
would. I knew it would be harder for him to start and that he would need prompting
throughout the process, but he was able to meet the objective after six trials. He
understood this skill and was able to do it more independently and fluently after more
practice.
One strength of this tool is that he is able to use a place-value chart for support.
Having this support made him feel more comfortable and helped him organize his
thoughts. Also, the key helped distinguish when he needed prompting to get his answer.
This information is beneficial to know, so the teacher can tell whether or not he can do
the skill independently. Modeling an example problem also helped Bob understand what
he was supposed to do.
A weakness of this tool is that it took a long time to administer. Each problem
took a couple of minutes for him to find and write down the answer. More time could
have been set aside for him to do the test, so he would not feel pressured to work too fast.
He also got tired after doing the test for a while, so the amount of numbers on each test
could have been reduced to three instead of five. Also, the directions could have been
more specific over what prompting could be used, so any teacher could pick up the same
test and administer it correctly.
Discussion with Mentor:

My mentor teacher agreed that the results were similar to what we expected. Bob
often needs teacher prompting in every task he does and struggles doing skills quickly
and accurately. However, he has been working on this skill in class and should be able to
know how to use his place-value chart and complete each step in the process to find the
answer. She expected him to be able to accomplish his goal after a couple of trials and
with teacher support. We could use this measure again to work on this skill, because it
was clearly able to show us how well he understood this math concept and how
independently he could do it. It would also be a good assessment to use to test his
maintenance of this skill over time. He will be able to do this skill more fluently the more
he is able to practice it. If we conducted this assessment again, we would decrease the
number of problems he needed to do and make sure the directions and modeling made
what he needed to do clear. We would also make sure that we spaced out the time
between trials, so the task would not become as tiring for Bob.
Future Teaching:
In the future, we will need to work with the student more on doing his work
independently. We will need to try and fade prompts more quickly, so he does not become
dependent on them. We can use positive reinforcement to reward him when he works
through a problem on his own without teacher assistance. Also, we can provide a time for
the students to have more independent practice when working on a skill. We will also
need to help him write numbers in expanded form with speed and accuracy. He will gain
more fluency the more he practices, so we will use time for guided practice of the skill to
encourage him to move through the steps at a perky pace. Also, we will continue to use

the place-value chart to help him organize his work. We will also provide graph paper so
he can organize writing his numbers and commas in the spaces if he wants.