Kindergarten - Gateway 1

In the Kindergarten instructional materials for Math in Focus, the assessment book is not included with the main materials. The assessment book would be an additional purchase. In looking at the student workbooks, if those were used to assess, the materials assess future grade level work.

For Kindergarten Math in Focus there are no probability, statistical distribution, or similarity, congruence and transformations assessment items.

• Chapter 8 contains one worksheet on counting by 2’s and one worksheet on counting by 5’s, both Grade 2 expectations.
• Chapter 13 contains three worksheets on patterns, which is a Grade 4 expectation.
• Chapter 19 contains two worksheets on time, which is a Grade 1 expectation.
• Chapter 20 contains several worksheets on money, closely aligned with 2.MD.C.8.

*Evidence updated 10/27/15

The Kindergarten materials do not spend the majority of class time on the major clusters of the grade. More time should be devoted to the major clusters of the grade.

• Kindergarten has 20 units of study and 9 units (chapters 1, 2, 6, 8, 9, 12, 14, 17 and 18) focus on major work of the grade or about 49%.
• An additional four units or about 20% of the time is spent on the supporting/additional clusters. However, these chapters are treated separately from the major work of the grade.
• About five units or about 26% of the time is spent on either topics not in the CCSSM or on off-grade level material. For example, Chapter 10 deals with ordinal numbers and Chapter 11 deals with calendar patterns. Chapter 19 contains content about volume and time; volume expectations begin in Grade 3 and time begins in Grade 1. Chapter 20 includes standards addressing money, which are Grade 2 standards.
• When looking at the lesson level, there are 78 lessons. Of these lessons, 58 (approximately 65%) are spent on major work and 24 lessons (approximately 34%) are spent on additional or off-grade level clusters.

For this indicator, all grade level work that is not major work was considered supporting work. The supporting content does not enhance the focus and coherence by engaging students in the major work of the grade.

• Chapters 3, 7 and 16 focus on supporting work of the grade and are treated it separately from the major work of the grade.
• Chapters 5, 15 and 19 focus on the supporting work of the grade, though only connect to the major work of the grade in one lesson each. For example, chapter 5 focuses on size and position of shape and in teacher edition lesson 1, page 117, the activity has students also counting and adding. Chapter 15 focuses on length and height, and teacher edition lesson 2, page 171 also has students counting. Chapter 19 focuses on measurement, and teacher edition lesson 1, page 225 also has students counting. The other lessons in chapters 5, 15 and 19 treat the material separately and are meant to be taught and assessed independently.

Kindergarten Math in Focus materials are not consistent with the progressions in the standards. Content is not clearly identified, there are not extensive grade-level problems and concepts are not explicitly related to prior knowledge.

Kindergarten does not develop according to grade-by-grade progressions in the standards as future grade-level content is found throughout the materials.

• Future grade-level content is found in chapters 3, 5, 7, 8 and 20, and the work is not clearly identified as future grade-level work.
• In the student edition and teacher edition text, it does not state that the chapters mentioned above are future grade-level work.
• The chapter-planning guide includes alignment information showing where each lesson aligns to the CCSSM. However, the alignment descriptions are sometimes inaccurate, as the material noted as aligned includes off-grade materials that may go beyond the full intent of the Kindergarten standard.
• An example of misalignment is found in chapter 8, lesson 1. It focuses on skip counting by 2s and is labeled as aligned to K.CC.B.4.A. The intent of this standard is for students to demonstrate one-to-one correspondence, not skip counting.
• Another example of misalignment is found in chapter 20, lesson 2. It focuses on counting coins and is aligned to K.0A.A.2. While many manipulatives can be used for this standard, money should not be used as it is not developmentally appropriate at this level. In the CCSSM, money is introduced in Grade 2.
• Chapter 3 focuses on ordering by length or weight. Ordering by length is a Grade 1 standard.
• Chapter 19 addresses measurement focusing on weight, capacity and time. Time is a Grade 1 and Grade 2 standard in CCSSM.
• Forty instructional days of the Kindergarten curriculum are spent on off-grade level topics.

Materials do not give all students extensive work with grade level problems.

• The materials consist of 73 lessons over a suggested 175 days.
• Forty-nine lessons or about 67% of the time is spent on grade-level problems.
• Twenty-four lessons or about 33% of the time is spent on off grade-level problems or problems which do not address the CCSSM.
• Forty days of instructional time spent on skills that are not Kindergarten skills.
• Only 114 instructional days focus on the major work of the grade.
• Some problems seem text-heavy, which may not be appropriate for Kindergarten students.

Materials do not relate grade-level concepts explicitly to prior knowledge from prior grades.

• There is no mention of prior knowledge in Kindergarten materials

Note: Attention should be paid to always using correct mathematical vocabulary.

Kindergarten materials do not foster coherence through connections at a single grade level. Overall, the materials do not include learning objectives that are visibly shaped by the CCSSM cluster headings, and the materials rarely connect two or more clusters in a domain or two or more domains in a grade when appropriate.

The learning objectives are not visibly shaped by CCSSM cluster headings and are instead organized by program objective.

• The teacher guide contains a CCSSM correlation. This has the lessons broken down by CCSSM cluster headings and has lesson citations attached; however, the scope and sequence is not organized by CCSSM cluster headings but rather by the program objectives.
• Chapter 10 objectives for the chapter are sequence events; understand first, next and last to sequence events. Ordinal numbers (first, second, third) are not a part of the CCSSM.

Materials rarely contain problems and activities connecting two or more clusters in a domain or two or more domains.

• For example, in chapter 9 students are comparing sets of numbers, which provides opportunities for cardinal counting.
• In the chapter planning guide, each lesson contains references to two or more clusters and/or two or more domains; however, a closer look at the activities shows the activities do not align to the stated standards.
• For example, in chapter 1, lesson 3 of the chapter planning guide states it aligns to both counting and cardinality and measurement and data; however, when looking at the lesson it does not ask students to describe measurable attributes of objects or have students directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common.