The Universal Screeners for Number Sense are intended to be universal screeners administered by classroom teachers. The following suggested assessment windows allow teachers to conduct one assessment per day and complete the entire class over the course of 3-4 weeks. If you are an interventionist or math specialist conducting interviews, you may find it appropriate to conduct more interviews each day.

Fall USNS Assessments

Fall Screeners should be done in the first weeks of school. There should be enough days in the window so that teachers can do once student per day and complete the entire class. It varies from district to district, but in general, the goal is to finish before the end of September for schools with July/August start dates and before the end of October for districts with September start dates.

Midyear USNS Assessments

The midyear USNS assessments should be conducted starting late November / early December and conclude before the end of January.

Spring USNS Assessments

The assessment window for the spring USNS assessments is early April through the end of the school year. Early in this window is ideal. This gives teachers a chance to respond to the results, which is especially important for those students who might need additional supports at the end of the year.

How much time should be allotted for the USNS assessments?

USNS assessments are not timed assessments. For this reason, assessment time allotments for each assessment are intended to give students adequate time to respond to tasks, while providing guidance to administrators for when students are not able to complete tasks within a reasonable timeframe.

The USNS have been designed to be as efficient as possible, but teachers need to focus their efforts to keep a manageable pace. Teachers should attempt to question students as much as is necessary to score the assessment accurately. It is sometimes tempting for teachers to turn the assessment into an instructional opportunity. This can cause the assessment times to get drawn out
significantly. Teachers are advised to take note of the instructional opportunities that present themselves during the assessment and to address them later.

General guidelines for interview times follow below. Many students will move through interviews more quickly, while others will need more time. If a student is taking an inordinate amount of time and does not appear to be able to engage productively in the problem; the teacher may ask the student if they require more time or need to hear the question again. When a student is not working productively on a problem, it is appropriate to record the student answer as unsuccessful and move on. Teachers should seek to strike a balance between getting as much information as is useful for informing instruction and maintaining a manageable assessment schedule.

Fall Interviews

The USNS fall assessments are entirely interview-based. Assessment times can vary student to student, particularly those that are struggling, and teacher-by-teacher. Although it can be challenging, limit questioning beyond the scripted interview. This helps keep assessment times manageable and results more reliable, by reducing inconsistencies in interviews with students. General guidelines for expected timeframes follow below:

• Kindergarten interviews for the fall should take between 3-5 minutes per student.
• First grade fall interviews should take between 4-6 minutes per student.
• Second grade interviews should take between 5-7 minutes per student.
• Third grade interviews should take between 6-8 minutes per student.
• Fourth grade interviews should take between 7-9 minutes per student.
• Fifth grade interviews should take between 8-10 minutes per student.

Midyear Assessments

The midyear assessments have both an interview-based component and a written component. Please note that the “F Tasks” (Fluency Tasks) should be administered via pencil and paper. Interviews for the midyear and spring assessments are shorter than the fall interviews for each grade-level. You may use the same suggested times for the interview-based component as the fall interview time ranges above, targeting the lower end of the range for each of the interviews. For example, the kindergarten interviews for the midyear and spring assessments should take about 3 minutes per student, and the first grade interviews should take about 4 minutes per student.

Suggested time allotments for the written components follow below:

• For the kindergarten through third grade assessments, the written portions should take about 30 minutes. Do not provide more than 60 minutes to complete the written portions.
• For fourth grade, the written component should take about 30-60 minutes. Again, do not provide more than 60 minutes to complete the written portion. As the fourth grade midyear assessment is one of the longest in the assessment series, you may decide to administer the “D Tasks” section via pencil and paper during a separate administration period. Students should be provided 20 minutes to complete the “D Tasks” portion.
• For fifth grade, the written component should take about 30-60 minutes. Do not provide more than 60 minutes to complete the written portion. As the fifth grade midyear assessment is one of the longest in the assessment series, you may decide to administer the “D Tasks” section via pencil and paper during a separate administration period. Students should be provided 30 minutes to complete the “D Tasks” portion.

Spring Assessments

Except for fifth grade, the midyear assessments have both an interview-based component and a written component. You may use the same suggested times for the interview-based component as the fall interview time ranges above, targeting the lower end of the range for each of the interviews. For example, the kindergarten interviews for the midyear and spring assessments should take about 3 minutes per student, and the first grade interviews should take about 4 minutes per student. Note that the spring fifth grade assessments only have a written component; they do not include interviews. 

Suggested time allotments for the written components follow below:

• For the kindergarten through fourth grade assessments, the written portions should take about 30 minutes. Do not provide more than 60 minutes to complete the written portions.
• For fifth grade, the written component should take about 30-60 minutes. Do not provide more than 60 minutes to complete the written portion. As the fifth grade spring assessment is one of the longest in the assessment series, you may decide to administer the “D Tasks” section via pencil and paper during a separate administration period. Students should be provided 30 minutes to complete the “D Tasks” portion.

Who should administer the USNS assessments?

Best Practice

The USNS assessments are intended to be classroom assessments. They are meant to be administered as a universal math screener by classroom teachers.

In some school districts, however, when state or district level policies require the use of a different universal screener, the USNS assessments are used as a diagnostic assessment. For this reason, whenever possible, we suggest that the teacher who works most directly with the student administer the assessments. Although numeric data can be helpful, observing and listening to each student is where the most valuable information comes from.

Other Implementation Scenarios

If it is impossible for a classroom teacher to administer all the assessments, consider the following alternative scenarios:

• Students that you anticipate will struggle can be handed off to an interventionist. If another assessment or work in the classroom indicate that a particular student will struggle on the USNS assessment, the school interventionist is better placed to administer the assessment, as s/he will likely be working with the student.
• Have paraeducators, substitutes, or other instructional support staff administer the assessment for students that you anticipate will excel on the assessment.
• For students that are “in the middle”, it is most important for classroom teachers to conduct these assessments. These assessments can reveal surprises and important insights into these students’ thinking.

What are the USNS accessibility features and recommendations for accommodations?

The USNS assessments include interviews and paper and pencil portions. The guidance provided here is broken into two sections for each of the assessment formats.

Interviews

The interview assessments are designed to be accessible to students with diverse needs. The use of manipulatives, and contextualized tasks is especially helpful in supporting students in accessing and understanding the problems. When it is evident that the student does not understand the task, it is appropriate for the teacher to present the task again, paraphrase, or use the student’s home language (when possible.)

For all Students: Supporting students in understanding the tasks and what is being asked of them is appropriate and does not invalidate the assessments. This might include repeating the question, rephrasing the task, and/or giving a short example like, “Counting backward sounds like 3, 2, 1. Now you count back starting at 17.” Be careful not to go so far as to provide unnecessary support. Giving a student a running start, like “20, 19, 18” or “17, 16, 15,…” for this task would be too much support. Support should only be given to help the student understand, not to prompt them toward solutions.

For scoring the USNS, right answers should be counted as correct regardless of the language used. For example, if a kindergarten student is able to read all the numerals from 0-10, but knows some numbers in English and others in Spanish, it should be counted as correct. Careful notes should be taken to inform instruction and help the student achieve the goals of the instructional program.

The USNS are designed to be asset-based assessments. Some will find that it is helpful to pick and choose tasks from various assessments to determine the extent of the student’s abilities. If the district is using the USNS as a universal screener and are utilizing local norms, it is recommended to enter the data for the student’s grade level placement, even if they are unable to access the tasks, so that a true local norm can be established, but then to use the results of the chosen tasks to guide instruction and decision making.

Note: related to the finger tasks for students who are deaf: Because the sign for 3 and 5 are both also indicated by 3 and 5 fingers, this task requires special considerations to be made. If during the reading of the numerals, the teacher feels that they have enough information already collected, use that task to score the finger task. We also suggest asking the student to show 6 fingers, using the sign for 6 to gather this information.

Written Tasks

Accommodations for the administration of the written tasks of the USNS should align with modifications and accommodations that the student receives with other written tasks.

What additional supports should student receive during the USNS?

For the written components of the midyear and spring assessments, grade-level guidance is provided for when students should be provided access to manipulatives, such as counters, for students in early elementary grades, as well as those students requiring accommodations. Calculators are not allowed for the USNS assessments.

For the interview-based assessments, visual supports are included in the assessment guide for certain tasks. Do not provide additional supports beyond those written into the assessments. This includes providing students with pencil and paper to support problem-solving during the interviews. The following rationale explains the reason for this recommendation:

• The fall assessments are all written to be solved mentally. When children solve problems like this without paper and pencil, it helps to reveal how they are making sense of the problems and the numbers involved.
• Providing paper and pencil and/or manipulatives will slow down the assessments significantly.
• The rubrics are written assuming that students are solving the tasks without additional supports. Providing them will cause inconsistencies in scoring.
• If, after completing the assessments, you wish to have some or all the children try the tasks with paper and pencil and/or manipulatives to see how they would solve them,
  that might be helpful.

How should growth be understood on the USNS?

There are two ways to use the USNS assessments as measures of growth for individuals and groups of students: criterion-referenced growth and norm-referenced growth. Both methods to measure student growth on the USNS assessments are elaborated below.

Criterion-Referenced Growth

The 21 assessments of the Universal Screeners for Number Sense system become incrementally more difficult with each assessment. They are benchmarked to grade level expectations. Those expectations provide criteria against which to measure growth.

If you average the performance of each of the tasks of a series of assessments and graph those results, a student who keeps up with the expected levels of proficiency would have “flat” growth, if graphed as a trend line. And for students who are outpacing grade-level expectations for growth? Their performance trend line would go up and to the right. For students that are not keeping pace with expectations, their trend lines would go down.

Norm-Referenced Growth

Another way to consider growth is by looking at relative growth. Forefront’s USNS Global Cohort is a dataset of over 140,000 of results for peers across the United States. The Global Cohort provides a norm relative to which the growth of individuals or groups of students can be compared. Learn more about Forefront’s Global Cohorts and how to add them to your reports here.

It is important to note that the growth line of the global cohort is not flat. It drops from left to right. What this means is that, on average, students across the United States do not keep up with the expectations as measured by the assessments.

Additional Considerations

Both criterion-referenced and norm-referenced growth offer valuable perspectives when assessing student progress. Criterion-referenced growth provides a direct comparison to grade-level expectations, helping educators understand whether students are meeting, exceeding, or falling behind those benchmarks. Norm-referenced growth, on the other hand, offers a broader view, comparing individual or group performance against their peers. Both methods may be helpful, depending on your purposes. But by utilizing both methods, educators can gain a more comprehensive understanding of student growth, allowing for more informed instructional decisions.

When should students be assessed on below- or above-grade-level assessments?

The fall interviews are aligned to the previous grade-level’s expectations. They intend to show if students have mastered the major work of the previous grade level. This will help identify those students that will be successful at the beginning of the year in their current grade-level or could benefit from additional instructional supports. For example, first grade students are assessed in the fall for the critical skills of kindergarten in the first six weeks of the year.

Midyear and spring assessments are assessing students for the major work of their current grade level. Whether for the fall, midyear, or spring assessments, when students score very poorly on an assessment, a common next step is to go down a grade-level. This will provide formative information and give teachers and interventionists starting places for instruction with the student.

If a student is determined to be proficient on a USNS assessment, this evidence along is not intended to help identify students that would benefit from accelerated course work or gifted and talented programming. The primary purpose of the USNS assessment series is to inform instruction for grade-level content. For this reason, for students who are being considered for acceleration, a grade level Screener can be added to a body of evidence, but should be only an additional piece, not core to the process.

How do the USNS relate to AVMR?

Universal screening, such as the open-source Universal Screeners for Number Sense (USNS), can be the first step to help teachers understand the various learning needs within their classrooms. After a screening, teachers often ask: what next?

Add+VantageMR (AVMR) from The U.S. Math Recovery Council offers a framework for understanding student learning to help meet students where they are. AVMR’s Learning Framework in Number guides teachers in understanding how to provide the correct supports where required and how to extend the learning for those who are ready. Paired with the Universal Screeners for Number Sense, AMVR provides rich, actionable classroom data to improve student learning.

Even if your teachers are not Add+Vantage Math trained, the USNS assessments are still useful. AVMR training can amplify the impact of instruction. The associations with the AVMR assessments also to point teachers to the appropriate diagnostic assessment to help guide instructional decision-making.

Learn more about the connections between the USNS assessments and AVMR in this on-demand webinar.

Learn more about the work of The U.S. Math Recovery Council on their website here.

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