The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 1 do not meet expectations for assessing material at grade level. Most of the summative assessments include items that directly relate to grade-level standards. However, a significant number of assessment items throughout the program assess content from future grade levels, including work with fractions, counting and place value beyond Grade 1 expectations, and working with weight and liquid capacity. It would be difficult for teachers using this program to modify or omit this content without affecting the structure of the grade-level program; in addition, although all materials are digital, users are not able to edit assessments.

The publisher notes that the grade-level program includes a variety of assessment options for each module; teachers are encouraged to select assessments as needed. For this indicator, the team reviewed all materials indicated as summative assessments: Check-Ups, Performance Tasks, and Interviews for each of the twelve modules, and the four Quarterly Tests included in Modules 3, 6, 9 and 12.

Module 1:

• The majority of items on assessments align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on counting and identifying teen numbers.
• Some items on Check-Up 2 and Performance Task 2 assess understanding of ordinal numbers, which is not part of CCSSM.

Module 2:

• The majority of items on assessments align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on counting, addition and measurement.
• Performance Task 2 calls for students to draw pictures to match a given length of cubes. This work more closely aligns to 2.MD.A.

Module 3:

• All module assessments align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on understanding 2-digit numbers and telling time to the hour.
• Quarterly Tests: Tests 1 and 3 are fully aligned to grade-level standards. Tests 2 and 4 include items that assess ordinal numbers (not in CCSSM).

Module 4:

• The items on Check-Up 1, Performance Task 1, and Interview 1 align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on representing and interpreting addition and subtraction situations.
• Items on Check-Up 2 and Performance Task 2 assess understanding of liquid capacity and weight (identified by publisher as >3.MD.2).

Module 5:

• All assessments align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on addition strategies and properties of 2-D shapes.

Module 6:

• Assessments are partially aligned to Grade 1 standards, with items focusing on representing and comparing 2-digit numbers and counting on and back to find sums and differences.
• Misaligned items assess understanding of skip-counting by 5s (2.NBT.A.2), skip-counting by 2s (not in CCSSM); and patterns (identified by publisher as >4.OA.5).
• Quarterly Tests: All four tests are partially aligned to grade level. Misaligned items assess understanding of: skip-counting by 5s (2.NBT.A.2), skip-counting by 2s (not in CCSSM); liquid capacity (identified by publisher as >3.MD.2); and patterns (identified by publisher as >4.OA.5).

Module 7:

• The items on Check-Up 1, Performance Task 1, and Interview 1 align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on word problems with three addends and addition within 20.
• Check-Up 2 assesses understanding of one-half of a shape, which is appropriate for 1.G.A.3, and one-half of a collection, which more closely aligns with 4.NF. Performance Task 2 calls for students to make equal shares, which more closely aligns with 3.OA.A.

Module 8:

• The majority of items on assessments align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on addition and subtraction fact families and fluency and telling time to the half-hour.
• Performance Task 2 has one item that calls for students to write times on clocks in order from earliest to latest (and vice versa). This work is not within the scope of 1.MD.B.3.

Module 9:

• The items on Check-Up 1, Performance Task 1, and Interview 1 align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on understanding the meaning of the equal sign, comparing numbers, and partitioning shapes.
• Items on Check-Up 2 and Performance Task 2 call for students to have an understanding of fractions of a set and equivalent fractions, which are Grade 4 understandings.
• Quarterly Tests: Tests 1 and 3 are fully aligned to grade-level standards. The majority of Tests 2 and 4 are aligned as well, although each includes one item that assesses an understanding of fractions of a collection, which more closely aligns with 4.NF.

Module 10:

• All assessments align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on addition within 100 and analyzing 2-D and 3-D shapes.

Module 11:

• Check-Ups 1 and 2, Performance Task 1, and Interview 2 align to Grade 1 standards, focusing on finding 10 more and 10 less, adding 2-digit numbers, and reading and interpreting a bar graph.
• Performance Task 2 calls for 2-digit – 2-digit subtraction that is beyond the scope of 1.NBT.C.6. Interview 1 calls for students to count money, and to add and subtract with dimes (2.MD.C.8).

Module 12:

• Interviews 1, 2 and 4 align with Grade standards, assessing addition and subtraction fluency within 10 and rote counting skills (although some counting goes beyond 120).
• Check-Up 1, Performance Task 1, and Interview 3 call for students to understand and represent 3-digit numbers (2.NBT.A.1). Check-Up 2 and Performance Task 2 call for students to work with money and find the value of coins (2.MD.C.8).
• Quarterly Tests: All four tests are partially aligned to grade level. Some items have students working with dimes in the context of counting or adding/subtracting tens, which is mathematically reasonable for this grade level. Misaligned items assess understanding of: 3-digit numbers (2.NBT.A.1); counting money (2.MD.C.8); and writing numbers in word form beyond 120 (2.NBT.A.3).

The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 1 do not meet expectations for spending the majority of class time on the major work of the grade. Overall, the program materials allocate approximately 58 percent of lessons to standards identified as major work in Grade 1. The program materials don’t allocate enough instructional time to major grade-level clusters and standards, instead including a significant amount of content from future grades.

To review materials for this indicator, the team used the “Grade 1 and the CCSS By Lesson” document from the publisher as a starting point, and then conducted a lesson-by-lesson analysis. Two perspectives were considered: 1) the number of modules aligned to major work by cluster and standard; and 2) the number of lessons aligned to major work by cluster and standard. The review team found the second perspective to most accurately reflect the intent of this indicator. A third perspective (minutes) was not considered, as the publisher gives multiple options for implementation that would vary across classrooms.

• Approximately 42 percent of the program’s modules (five of twelve) are aligned to major work of the grade. 65 percent or more of the lessons in Modules 2, 6, 8, 10 and 11 are aligned to major work. Modules 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 12 fall below 65 percent alignment.
• Approximately 58 percent of the program’s lessons (83 of 144) are aligned to major work of the grade. The Stepping Stones Grade 1 materials include twelve modules, each comprised of a series of twelve lessons; every lesson includes whole class, differentiation, and ongoing practice activities. Only the whole class components of lessons were considered when determining alignment to major work.
• Approximately 3 percent of the program’s lessons (4 of 144) appropriately target 1.OA.A: Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction. Students using this program will not have enough experience with understanding the various story situations outlined in the CCSSM (Table 1, page 88), nor with using addition and subtraction to solve word problems.
• Approximately 6 percent of the program’s LESSONS (8 of 144) appropriately target 1.OA.B: Understand and apply properties of operations and the relationship between addition and subtraction. Lessons have a minimal emphasis on understanding subtraction as a missing addend problem.
• Approximately 22 percent of the program’s LESSONS (31 of 144) appropriately target 1.OA.C: Add and subtract within 20. Ample time and activities are given to help students develop skill and fluency with adding and subtracting numbers within 10 and 20. However, no lessons in the Grade 1 program are identified as explicitly relating counting to addition and subtraction (1.OA.C.5).
• Approximately 3 percent of the program’s LESSONS (4 of 144) appropriately target 1.OA.D: Work with addition and subtraction equations. In these four lessons, students spend time exploring the meaning of the equal sign as a balance between two quantities; however, more time could be spent developing this important understanding. The same four lessons are tagged with 1.OA.D.8, which calls for students to use the relationship between numbers to solve addition and subtraction equations; this work could be taught in additional lessons rather than combined with the meaning of the equal sign.
• Approximately 10 percent of the program’s LESSONS (14 of 144) appropriately target 1.NBT.A: Extend the counting sequence. This is an ample amount of instructional time to build students’ counting and number recognition skills. Some of the lessons tagged with 1.NBT.A.1 by the publisher explore beyond the CCSSM limitation of 120.
• Approximately 15 percent of the program’s LESSONS (21 of 144) appropriately target 1.NBT.B: Understand place value. This is an ample amount of instructional time to build this key foundation for future learning. Some of the lessons tagged as 1.NBT.B.3 spend time ordering a set of numbers from least to greatest, which is not an expectation for Grade 1.
• Approximately 10 percent of the program’s LESSONS (15 of 144) appropriately target 1.NBT.C: Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract. The program uses visual representations (hundreds chart, base-ten blocks) to support understanding of addition and subtraction with 2-digit numbers. Most of these 15 lessons relate to 1.NBT.C.4; only three of the fifteen lessons explicitly target mentally finding 10 more/10 less (1.NBT.C.5) or subtracting with multiples of 10 (1.NBT.C.6).
• Approximately 3 percent of the program’s LESSONS (4 of 144) appropriately target 1.MD.A: Measure lengths indirectly and by iterating length units. This is not enough instructional time and attention for students to develop an understanding of measurement concepts. Teachers using this program will want to supplement instruction with additional opportunities for Grade 1 students to explore measurement.