5 Math Routines That Help With Test Prep

As the math coach at an urban elementary school in the South Bronx, I am often asked: Why does your school do so little test prep for math?

It’s because we developed a school-wide approach to math learning that engages students in routines year-round. We began this five years ago, and have seen significant increases in student achievement on state tests and higher overall success rates in math.

With these routines, students get opportunities to make sense of the math they are learning and apply it in various ways. This means they’re ready for state tests without having to do too much formal test prep. Here’s how we do it. 

A few times a week, we begin class with a number talk. These whole-class activities help address knowledge gaps for foundational math skills. They encourage students to explain their thinking, justify their reasoning, and make sense of each other’s strategies.

Not only that, number talks help students build flexibility, accuracy, and efficiency with numbers so that they are able to approach math problems on state tests with confidence.

Every day, we assign students a complex, multistep math task that takes students anywhere from ten to twelve minutes to complete. Each task gives students a chance to exercise real-world critical thinking and solve word problems.

First, students work on this problem individually, while our classroom teachers observe and silently notice misconceptions and gaps in understanding. Then, teachers focus their math mini-lessons to purposefully address these misconceptions. This helps ensure that students learn the grade-level math skills they need for future tests and become familiarized with complex problems.

Every math lesson at our school includes opportunities for student discussion with their peers. It’s at the core of our teaching approach and is similar to how students might dissect a reading passage in an ELA class. We start doing this in kindergarten. By 5th grade, the students are experts.

During math discussions, students think deeply about their own work and the work of their peers. Then, they construct thoughtful arguments that critique the reasoning of others. This often leads to new conclusions about their own math learning in the process.

Teachers are active members of the discussion who circulate throughout the classroom. They prompt with deep questions, but never give answers. This allows students to apply their own understanding to the problem at hand—a critical component of state math tests.