What an assessment is
An assessment is ten questions that cover one subject, math or reading. A child can take one assessment per subject every two weeks, so results and an analysis build over time.
Where the questions come from
Math. The math bank holds 307 question types across 34 topics. Each one is tied to a specific Common Core standard, 98 standards in all, and to one of 24 difficulty steps. The numbers inside a question change every time it is asked, so a child meets the skill fresh and cannot memorize an answer.
Reading. The reading bank holds 402 passages, about 50 for each grade, with 1,760 questions. Passages come from public-domain texts. Each passage is checked against readability formulas for its grade before it is used, and each question is tied to a Common Core reading standard.
Common Core is the set of grade-level standards most U.S. states teach to. School assessments such as NWEA MAP and i-Ready report against the same standards.
307
math question types
98
Common Core math standards
402
reading passages
1,760
reading questions
How an assessment adapts
Math. A first math assessment starts at the grade a child's birth month and year point to. From there each skill moves on its own: a right answer brings a harder question in that skill, a wrong answer an easier one. The next assessment builds on the last one, so it asks questions closer to the child's level.
Reading. Multiple-choice reading adapts between assessments: how a child reads on one decides the grade of the passages on the next. Open-ended reading, the default at grades 6 to 8, follows a fixed plan, because typed answers are scored after the assessment ends.
Example · one skill, fractions
- Question 1 · Grade 4, middleRight, so the next one is harder
- Question 2 · Grade 4, topNot yet, so the next one is easier
- Question 3 · Grade 4, middleRight again
How we score
Every grade has three steps, which gives 24 steps from Grade 1 to Grade 8: Approaching is the lower part of a grade, Meeting is the middle, and Exceeding is the top.
Math is scored with an item response model, the family of statistics that adaptive school assessments are built on. It looks at which questions were answered right and wrong and how hard each one was, then finds the step most consistent with those answers. Three rules keep it honest:
- No credit beyond the evidence. A result never sits above the hardest question the child answered correctly.
- No grade from too little. An assessment with zero or one right answer gives no grade. It tells us the questions were too hard, and the next assessment starts lower.
- More right answers never hurt. Answering one more question correctly can never lower the result. We test this property automatically against thousands of answer patterns every time the code changes.
Multiple-choice reading counts a child's answers at each grade across their assessments, with recent answers counting more. The step comes from the share answered right: Approaching from about 53%, Meeting from about 75% and Exceeding from about 85%.
Open-ended reading, where a child types each answer, is scored one assessment at a time, at the grade that assessment started on: Meeting from half of the answers right, Exceeding above 80%, and Approaching below half.
One grade, three steps
8 grades, 24 steps
Grades 1 to 8, each with the same three steps: approaching, meeting and exceeding.
How a child moves up a grade
Harder grades open in steps. Before a math assessment asks the next grade's questions, a child shows the current grade's skills across more than one assessment: right answers in each topic, right answers on the harder questions, and three in four of the recent ones right. One assessment alone never opens the next grade.
The Math level card on a child's page shows the current status and exactly what is left before the next grade's questions open.
Math level
Current status
Exceeding Grade 4
Next level
Grade 5
- Get 4 Grade 4 questions right in each of multiplication, division, fractions and decimalsDone
- Get 2 harder Grade 4 questions right in each topicDone
- Get 75% of the last 15 Grade 4 questions right in each topicUntil a topic has 15 answers, all of them countFractions 50%, decimals 71% so far
What one assessment can tell you
Ten questions show direction. They do not pin a level. So a child's first two math results, and their first two multiple-choice reading results, are marked Early read, with a count beside them ("Check 1 of 3", then "Check 2 of 3"). Because each assessment builds on the one before, the read gets steadier, and by the third the label comes off.
We test this by running thousands of simulated children with known levels through the same engine a real child uses, and measuring how close the result lands.
A first assessment is strongest for a child working near their grade. It is weakest for a child well above or below it, which is one more reason to look at the trend across assessments.
Example · a child's first three math results
- Approaching Grade 4Early readCheck 1 of 3
- Meeting Grade 4Early readCheck 2 of 3
- Meeting Grade 4Third result: the label comes off
How this relates to school assessments
Test My Kid is our own measurement. It is not a school's test, and it does not produce a MAP score, an i-Ready score, a percentile or a Lexile. It tells you which grade's material your child is working in, on the same standards schools teach to, in the words many state report cards use.
School assessments are given a few times a year and the results come through the school. An assessment here takes about eight minutes at home, and the full report comes straight to you. See how it works.
How we check our own work
- More than 11,000 automated tests run before any change reaches families, including the scoring rules above.
- When we find a scoring rule that misleads, we change it and say so on the results it touched.
- We show the questions and the child's answers on every report, so a parent or teacher can see what the result rests on. See a sample analysis.
What Test My Kid is not
It is not a diagnosis of any learning difference, and it is not a placement test for a school or program. It is a regular, at-home read on where a child is working, so a parent can see growth and know what to practice next.