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Report Overview
Summary of Alignment & Usability: Stepping Stones, First Edition | Math
Product Notes
The version reviewed was the first edition. ORIGO Stepping Stones 2.0 will be reviewed in the future.
Math K-2
The instructional materials reviewed for Grades K-2 vary in alignment scoring. Grades 1 and 2 assess topics that are beyond each grade level and do not spend a majority of time on the major work of the grade level. There are some examples of coherence within these two grade levels and some examples of coursework following the progressions of learning throughout the grade levels. In Grade K, the materials are found to be focused on the major work of the grade level, and they partially meet the criterion for being coherent and consistent with the standards. This grade was reviewed for rigor and MPs. The balance of the three aspects of rigor meets expectations for Grade K, but the materials only partially meet expectations for each individual aspect of rigor. Grade K materials incorporate vocabulary in a meaningful way, but MP 3 is not fully attended to for the teacher nor for the students.
Kindergarten
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
1st Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
2nd Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
Math 3-5
The instructional materials reviewed for Grades 3-5 vary in alignment scoring. All three grade levels are found to focus on the major clusters of the grade level. The materials include a few missed opportunities to make connections between supporting work and major work at each grade level, but for Grades 3 and 4, expectations are met for all other indicators in coherence. In Grade 5, however, expectations are not met overall for coherence. Grades 3-5 were reviewed for rigor and the MPs. In Grade 3, the materials meet the expectations for attending to procedural skill and fluency as well as applications, but Grades 4 and 5 partially meet the expectations for these two aspects of rigor. All three grade levels partially meet the expectations for conceptual understanding and treating the three aspects of rigor with balance. For the MPs, Grades 3-5 identified the MPs at each grade level. They did not meet expectations, though, for helping students and teachers construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others nor did the materials attend to the specialized language of mathematics.
3rd Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
4th Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
5th Grade
View Full ReportEdReports reviews determine if a program meets, partially meets, or does not meet expectations for alignment to college and career-ready standards. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Materials must meet expectations for standards alignment in order to be reviewed for usability. This rating reflects the overall series average.
Usability (Gateway 3)
Report for 2nd Grade
Alignment Summary
The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 2 do not meet the expectations for alignment to the CCSSM. In Gateway 1, the instructional materials do not meet the expectations for focus on major work because of assessing too many above grade-level topics and devoting an insufficient amount of time to the major work of the grade. The materials do not meet the expectations for coherence because all of the indicators for coherence are only partially met. Since the materials do not meet expectations for focus and coherence in Gateway 1, they were not reviewed for evidence of rigor and the mathematical practices in Gateway 2.
2nd Grade
Alignment (Gateway 1 & 2)
Usability (Gateway 3)
Overview of Gateway 1
Focus & Coherence
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 do not meet expectations for Gateway 1: Focus on Major Work and Coherence. A sizable number of lessons and assessment items focus on content from future grades. Only approximately 63 percent of lessons in the Grade 2 program are aligned to major work of the grade. This significant amount of unaligned content negatively affects the coherence of the program. While some important connections at this grade level are present, others are not fully explored. The program pays minimal attention to the cluster headings in the standards, instead teaching standards in isolation across a series of lessons. Overall, the Grade 2 Stepping Stones instructional materials do not meet expectations for focus and coherence, so no evidence for rigor and mathematical practices was collected in Gateway 2.
Gateway 1
v1.0
Criterion 1.1: Focus
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 do not meet expectations for assessing material at grade level. While the program does provide numerous and varied opportunities for assessment for each of the twelve modules, a significant amount of assessment items are not aligned to grade level. Many assessments devote time to assessing Grade 3 understandings, including multiplication and division concepts, fraction concepts, and measurement of elapsed time, weight/mass, and liquid capacity. Teachers using this program would need to make considerable modifications to accurately assess Grade 2 skills and understandings.
Indicator 1A
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 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 multiplication and division concepts, fractions of a collection, and measuring and comparing elapsed time, weight/mass, 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, as well as the Quarterly Tests included in Modules 3, 6, 9 and 12.
Module 1:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on understanding and comparing 2-digit numbers, identifying numbers as even or odd, and analyzing information presented in a bar graph.
- Performance Task 2 focuses on identifying numbers as even or odd. One part of this task asks students to generalize the result of even number + even number, even number + odd number, and odd number + odd number equations; this abstract level of understanding more closely aligns to 3.OA.D.9: identify arithmetic patterns, and explain them using properties of operations.
Module 2:
- The items on Check-Up 1, Performance Task 1, and Interview 1 align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on representing and solving addition and subtraction within 20; and solving word problems within 100 using a number line.
- Check-Up 2 (items 3-4) and Performance Task 2 assess an understanding of elapsed time (identified by publisher as >3.MD.1).
Module 3:
- The items on Check-Ups 1-2, Performance Task 1-2, and Interviews 1-2 align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on naming and representing 3-digit numbers, direct measurement, mentally adding 10/100 to a given 3-digit number, and fact fluency within 20.
- Quarterly Tests: Tests 1 and 3 appropriately assess Grade 2 skills and understandings from the first three modules of the program. Tests 2 and 4 each include two items that assess an understanding of elapsed time (identified by publisher as >3.MD.1).
Module 4:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on understanding fact families, subtraction within 100, multi-step word problems, and fact fluency within 20.
- Check-Up 2 includes an item assessing students’ ability to understand and use a calendar (identified by the publisher as DA—Developmental Activity).
Module 5:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on representing, writing, and comparing 3-digit numbers, and finding 10/100 more or less than a given number.
- Check-Up 2 includes an item assessing the definition of a polygon; exploring this definition is mathematically reasonable for students at this grade level, but assessing a formal definition of polygons is beyond the scope of 2.G.A.1. Interview 2 assesses students’ understanding of half-, quarter-, and full turns (identified by publisher as >4.MD.5).
Module 6:
- All of the assessments for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on fact families, fact fluency within 20, addition within 100, measuring and estimating lengths, and using a line plot.
- Quarterly Tests: Tests 1 and 3 appropriately assess Grade 2 skills and understandings from Modules 4-6. Tests 2 and 4 each include an item assessing students’ understanding of turns (identified by publisher as >4.MD.5); and an item assessing students’ ability to understand and use a calendar (identified by the publisher as DA—Developmental Activity).
Module 7:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on counting money and making arrays to find a total number of objects using repeated addition.
- Check-Up 1 includes a set of ten items that call for students to analyze objects in equal groups and then find the total using repeated addition. This assessment is tagged with 2.OA.4, which specifically calls for students to “use addition to find the total number of objects arranged in rectangular arrays with up to 5 rows and up to 5 columns”; only two of the ten items on Check-Up 1 fall within the standard’s prescribed parameters.
Module 8:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on place value understanding, subtraction within 100 using a number line, using an equation to represent word problems, and fact fluency within 20.
- One of the three items on Check-Up1 includes an item that assesses students’ understanding of measures of weight and mass (identified by publisher as >3.MD.2 and >4.MD.1).
Module 9:
- Items on Check-Ups 1 and 2 align to Grade 2 standards, calling for students to solve word problems with a measurement context within 100, and adding more than two addends to find a total.
- Check-Up 1 includes an item tagged with 2.G.2, which calls for students to “partition a rectangle into rows and columns of same-size squares and count to find the total number of them”; the item in question calls for students to draw polygons with given areas on a grid, which is beyond the limitations for this standard.
- Check-Up 2 and Performance Task 2 tag number of items with 2.G.3, which calls for students to “partition shapes into equal shares… and recognize that equal shares of identical wholes need not have the same shape.” Some of these items ask students to identify a fraction of a set, which more closely aligns with 4.NF. Other two items require students to shade one-fourth or one-third of a given shape, but the given shapes are partitioned into 8 and 12 equal parts respectively; this type of work assesses an understanding of equivalent fractions, which more closely aligns to 3.NF.A.3.B or 4.NF.A.1.
- Performance Task 2 includes an item that is mathematically incorrect: this item shows two rectangles partitioned into 16 parts, each showing a different orientation of eight shaded parts, and students are supposed to select the response: “Shape A and Shape C have the same amount shaded.” However, these two rectangles are not the same size; this item perpetuates a common misconception related to 3.NF.A.3.D, “Recognize that comparisons are valid only when the two fractions refer to the same whole.”
- On Performance Task 1 and Interview 1 students are given 2-digit numbers, asked to identify the “closest ten”, and estimate sums and differences for addition and subtraction within 100. This work more closely assesses an understanding of rounding (3.NBT.A.1).
- Quarterly Tests: Each of the Quarterly Tests includes some items that appropriately assess Grade 2 skills and understandings from Modules 7-9. Each Quarterly Test also includes a number of misaligned items, which assess: understanding of perimeter (3.MD.D.8) and area (3.MD.C); estimating sums and differences (3.NBT.A.1); fractions of a set (4.NF); and measures of weight/mass (identified by publisher as >3.MD.2).
Module 10:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on understanding place value with 3-digit numbers, addition within 1000, and identifying and drawing 3-D shapes.
- Check-Up 2 focuses on understanding polyhedrons; these items are tagged with 2.G.1. While “polyhedron” is not explicitly used in this standard, it is mathematically reasonable for students to explore this term. However, one of the assessment items calls for an understanding of the formal definition of a polyhedron, which is beyond the scope of 2.G.1.
Module 11:
- The majority of assessment items for this module align to Grade 2 standards, focusing on subtraction within 1,000 and fact fluency within 20.
- Check-Up 1 assesses an understanding of equal groups and arrays as multiplication (identified by publisher as 3.OA.1-2). Performance Task 2 assesses an understanding of equal shares (identified by publisher as >3.OA.2).
Module 12:
- Check-Up 1, Performance Task 1, and Interviews 1-3 are aligned to Grade 2 standards, focusing on understanding place value with 3-digit numbers, subtraction within 1000, the relationship between addition and subtraction, and fact fluency within 20.
- Check-Up 2 and Performance Task 2 call for students to explore and compare liquid capacity (identified by publisher as >3.MD.2 and >4.MD.1).
- Quarterly Tests: Each of the Quarterly Tests includes some items that appropriately assess Grade 2 skills and understandings from Modules 10-12. Each Quarterly Test also includes a number of misaligned items, which assess: multiplication and division concepts (identified by publisher as >3.OA.1-2); an understanding of polyhedrons (beyond 2.G.A.1) and measures of liquid capacity and comparing equivalent capacities (identified by publisher as >3.MD.2 and >4.MD.1).
Criterion 1.2: Coherence
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 do not meet expectations for spending the majority of class time on the major work of the grade. The program materials only allocate approximately 63 percent of lessons to clusters and standards identified as major work in Grade 2. While the program is strong in developing students’ understanding of addition and subtraction within 100 and 1000, there is a significant amount of content from future grades included in this program that unduly interferes with the work of the grade. Overall, the amount of work in this program that is not aligned to Grade 2 distracts from fully developing the skills and understandings that are necessary for success in future grades.
Indicator 1B
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 do not meet expectations for spending the majority of class time on the major work of the grade. Overall, the program materials allocate approximately 63 percent of lessons to standards identified as major work in Grade 2. The Grade 2 program includes a strong focus on using place value concepts to add and subtract within 100 and 1000; however, the program materials don’t allocate enough instructional time to other major grade-level clusters and standards, instead including a significant amount of content from future grades. In addition, a number of standards within major clusters are under-represented in the Grade 2 program materials.
To review materials for this indicator, the team used the “Grade 2 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 58 percent of the program’s modules (seven of twelve) are aligned to major work of the grade. 65 percent or more of the lessons in Modules 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 and 12 are aligned to the major work of Grade 2. Modules 5, 7, 8, 9 and 11 fall below 65 percent alignment.
- Approximately 63 percent of the program’s lessons (91 of 144) are fully aligned to major work of the grade. [The Stepping Stones Grade 2 materials include 12 modules, each comprised of a series of 12 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 4 percent of the program’s lessons (6 of 144) appropriately target 2.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 solving multi-step word problems.
- Approximately 3 percent of the program’s lessons (5 of 144) appropriately target 2.OA.B: Add and subtract within 20. Fluency with addition and subtraction facts is assessed on a number of interviews through the Grade 2 program; however, students using this program would benefit from more explicit practice opportunities with various strategies and properties in order to develop this important fluency. As stated in the K-2, Operations and Algebraic Thinking Progressions document, fluency should be “an outcome of a multi-year process that heavily involves the interplay of practice and reasoning” (page 19).
- Approximately 15 percent of the program’s lessons (22 of 144) appropriately target 2.NBT.A: Understand place value. Much of this work focuses on understanding, representing, and decomposing 2- and 3-digit numbers (2.NBT.1); less time and attention is given to counting, reading, writing, and comparing numbers within 1000.
- Approximately 32 percent of the program’s lessons (46 of 144) appropriately target 2.NBT.B: Use place value understanding and proprieties of operations to add and subtract. The Grade 2 program has a strong focus on building students’ understanding of addition and subtraction within 100 and 1000; students use concepts of place value and visual representations as they explore these operations with bigger numbers. All but seven of these lessons target 2.NBT.B.5 and 2.NBT.B.7; students using this program would benefit from more time spent working with more than two 2-digit addends (2.NBT.B.6), mentally adding or subtracting 10/100 from given numbers (2.NBT.B.8), and exploring the relationship between addition and subtraction (2.NBT.B.9).
- Approximately 7 percent of the program’s LESSONS (10 of 144) appropriately target 2.MD.A: Measure and estimate lengths in standard units. Much of this work is focused on direct measurement with standard units (2.MD.A.1). Students using this program would benefit from more experiences with measuring an object with different units (2.MD.A.2), estimating measurements (2.MD.A.3), and measuring to determine how much longer one object is than another (2.MD.A.4).
- Approximately 14 percent of the program’s LESSONS (20 of 144) appropriately target 2.MD.B: Relate addition and subtraction to length. Again, this is an area of strength for the Stepping Stones Grade 2 program; materials include a considerable number of opportunities for students to use number lines to represent addition and subtraction (although some of these opportunities extend beyond the limitation of 100 in 2.MD.B.6). The “Grade 2 and the CCSS Document” only identifies one lesson is as explicitly targeting 2.MD.B.5; students using this program would benefit from additional opportunities to solve word problems involving the context of length.
Criterion 1.3: Coherence
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 do not meet expectations for coherence and consistency with the standards. Supporting work for the grade level is connected to major work, although this work could be linked more purposefully. This program has a viable amount of content for daily instruction and assessment, and an adequate number of lessons for one school year. However, a substantial number of lessons do not target Grade 2 standards; if these lessons were removed, the amount of content would no longer be viable. Program materials include and identify a significant amount of above grade-level content that is not a plausible extension or reinforcement of grade-level standards. A notable strength of this program is the use of place value understanding to support addition and subtraction; a notable weakness is the under-emphasis on solving single- and multi-step word problems to strengthen the meaning of these operations. The Stepping Stones program pays minimal attention to cluster headings, instead teaching concepts in isolation, which does not support teachers in realizing the coherence built into the Grade 2 standards.
Indicator 1C
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 partially meet expectations for enhancing focus and coherence by engaging students in the major work of the grade. In most cases, supporting work is connected to major content at the grade level; however, some of these connections are not fully explored.
- As students explore telling time to the nearest five minutes (2.MD.C.7), there is an opportunity to practice number skip-counting by fives (2.NBT.A.2). The Grade 2 program includes four lessons that appropriately explore this connection.
- As students explore money concepts (2.MD.C.8), there is an opportunity to practice skip-counting by fives and tens with dimes and nickels (2.NBT.A.2); work with place value concepts when counting money (2.NBT.A); add and subtract within 100 (2.NBT.B.5); and solve word problems with a money context (2.OA.A). The Grade 2 program includes four lessons that explicitly target 2.MD.C.8; these lessons make connections between money and the operations of addition and subtraction. However, there are missed opportunities to connect money to skip-counting or to place value concepts. In addition, only one of the four lessons focused on money actually engages students in using money to solve word problems, as explicitly called for in 2.MD.C.8.
- As students generate data to create line plots (2.MD.D.9), they practice measurement skills (2.MD.A.1). There is only one lesson in the Grade 2 program that explicitly focuses on this standard.
- As students organize, represent and interpret data in picture and bar graphs (2.MD.D.10), there is a natural opportunity to work with single- and multi-step word problems (2.OA.A) while developing addition and subtraction fluency (2.OA.B). Two of the five lessons identified by the publisher are beyond the scope of 2.MD, involving measurement conversions (4.MD.A) and customary and metric weight (3.MD.A, 4.MD.A). Of the three remaining lessons, the focus seems to be more on making graphs than analyzing them. Students are given opportunities to analyze and interpret the graphs they create, but the questions posed are often single-step and involve simple addition and subtraction situations. Students using this program will benefit from additional experiences where they work with analyzing and interpreting picture and bar graphs and line plots.
- It should be noted that while these connections are present in modules and lessons, these connections are not made explicit for teachers in the lesson materials, neither in the lesson contents and learning targets, nor in the publisher’s “Grade 2 and the CCSS” documents.
Indicator 1D
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 partially meet expectations for designating a viable amount of grade-level content for one school year. As written, the amount of content, including lessons and assessments, is viable for one school year; however, misalignment of some content may not allow for adequate instruction at the depth required by Grade 2 standards to prepare students for learning in future grades.
- The Grade 2 program is organized into twelve modules, with twelve lessons in each module. The authors of the program recommend teaching one lesson each day for 45-60 minutes (support - slate tutorials - “Teaching a Module 1-5” video). 12 modules x 12 lessons = 144 days, which is a viable amount of instructional days for one school year.
- Each lesson includes a whole class experience, differentiation options, and ongoing practice. Each of the twelve modules also include three investigations, three problem-solving activities, and cross-curricula links (start - grade 1 - module __ - more math) that provide additional opportunities for students to engage with mathematics. The publisher states: “Browse all these activities, and choose those that best suit you and your students. While we understand that you may not do them all, we would like to think that you can find the time to do the majority of the investigations and problem solving activities (support - slate tutorials - “Teaching a Module 1-5” video).
- The program authors suggest two different options for structuring modules (support - slate tutorials - “Teaching a Module 1-5” video): Option 1—teach one lesson each day, use the provided investigations and problem solving activities for two additional days, and then designate one day for summative assessment; Option 2—teach one lesson each day, and then integrate assessment opportunities with investigations and problem solving activities for three additional days. Both of these options recommend 15 instructional days x 12 modules = 180 days, which is a viable amount of instructional days for one school year.
- 33 of the 144 lessons in the Grade 2 program are focused on work that is not part of Grade 2 CCSSM expectations. If these lessons (and related assessments) are omitted, the program would span approximately 111 days; this falls short of the expected 140-190 day range. Significant modifications would need to be made by teachers using this program to fully develop the skills and understandings required in the Grade 2 standards. It should be noted that modifying these materials would be difficult because the publisher only allows teachers to use materials as is, with no ability to modify printed student materials or assessments.
Indicator 1E
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 partially meet expectations for following the learning progressions outlined in the Standards. In some cases, non-CCSSM content and work from future grades is clearly identified; however, there are instances where content from prior or future grades is not identified, misidentified, or content is not tied to grade-level learning. In addition, some grade-level content is not fully explored and may not allow students to develop the foundational understandings necessary for future learning.
- Only four lessons in the Grade 2 program are identified as targeting Grade 1 standards (1.G.1). However, some lessons targeting Grade 1 content are identified as “building toward content in” Grade 2 standards; for example, Lesson 1.3 focuses on reading and writing 2-digit numbers (1.NBT.A-B) but is tagged as >2.NBT.3.
- Some content from future grades is clearly identified. The “Grade 2 and the CCSS” document identifies 21 lessons in the Grade 2 program as building toward future content, including lessons focused on elapsed time (>3.MD.1), working with and comparing weight and capacity (>3.MD.2, >4.MD.1), estimating sums and differences (>3.OA.8), multiplication and division concepts (>3.OA.1-2, 3.OA.6), and investigating quarter-, full-, and half-turns (>4.MD.5). The program does not explicitly connect these lessons to grade-level content.
- Some content from future grades is misidentified as Grade 2 work: comparing customary and metric weight (Lesson 8.12, 3.MD.A); identifying fractions of a set of objects (Lesson 9.7, 4.NF); exploring area (Lesson 9.12, 3.MD.C).
- Some lessons in the Stepping Stones program include content identified as a Developmental Activity (DA), “which has content that does not match any Common Core Content Standards but is considered essential for the development of certain Standards” (start - grade 2 - module 4 - mathematics - learning targets). In the Grade 2 program, this content includes using the calendar, working with dollars, and comparing customary and metric units of mass; this learning does not support grade-level CCSSM expectations.
- Each lesson includes a whole class experience, differentiation options, and ongoing practice. The differentiation tab (start - grade 2 - module __ - lessons - lesson __ - differentiation) includes differentiation ideas for extra help, extra practice, and extra challenge, all explicitly tied to the lesson’s learning target. Each of the twelve modules also include three investigations, three problem solving activities, and cross-curricula links (start - grade 2 - module __ - more math) that provide additional opportunities for students to engage with mathematics. Ongoing practice pages in each module provide opportunities for students to practice skills that have been taught in previous modules, as well as to develop important grade level computation skills and fluencies.
- Suggestions for English language learners are provided for each module. This tab (start - grade 2 - module __ - mathematics - english language learners) explains specific skills to work on throughout the module for ELL students.
- As explained in previous indicators (see 1b and 1d), the Grade 2 Stepping Stones program contains a significant amount of work not aligned to Grade 2; the inclusion of this content interferes with opportunities for students to work extensively with grade-level content.
- The Stepping Stones program materials include background information for each module, which teachers can use to further their understanding of the mathematics content in the lessons and how understanding builds from previous grades. For example, the publisher explains in detail how the purpose of module 1 is to review and build on concepts and skills that were learned in Grade 1 (start - grade 2 - module 1 - mathematics - focus). Another example occurs in module 4, where students widen their developing understanding of subtraction to include using subtraction to compare two amounts or lengths (start - grade 2 - module 4 - mathematics - research into practice). In both of these cases, lessons aren’t tagged with Grade 1 standards.
Indicator 1F
The Stepping Stones instructional materials for Grade 2 partially meet expectations for fostering coherence through connections at a single grade. The program pays minimal attention to CCSSM cluster headings, both in alignment documents and lesson content. The instructional materials make some natural connections across domains and clusters, but there are missed opportunities to make important mathematical connections at this grade-level.
- Each module includes a list of learning targets (start - grade 2 - module __ - mathematics - learning targets) that are tied to Grade 2 standards, and organized beneath the related cluster statements. Many of the learning targets are derived from individual standards, rather than cluster statements.
- The program materials don’t reference cluster headings in individual lessons or on assessments. Cluster notation is not used on either of the “Grade 2 and the CCSS” documents.
- Only 20 of the 144 lessons in the program explicitly connect related standards within clusters (“Grade 2 and the CCSS By Lesson” document). These identified connections occur around: 2.NBT.A: Understand place value (Lessons 1.1-1.2, 3.1-3.5, 5.1-5.3); 2.NBT.B: Use place value understanding and properties of operations to add and subtract (Lesson 2.5); 2.MD.A: Measure and estimate lengths in standard units (Lessons 3.8-3.12, 6.9-6.11), and 2.MD.B: Relate addition and subtraction to length (Lesson 9.6).
- A majority of the lessons (97 of 144) in the Grade 2 program are tagged with only one mathematics content standard in program materials. Teaching standards in isolation doesn’t support teachers in capitalizing on the coherence of grade-level content or making important mathematical connections with students.
- The Grade 2 instructional materials support students’ understanding of addition and subtraction within 100 and 1000 (2.NBT.B.5, 2.NBT.B.7) with measurement (2.MD.B.6) as students explore adding and subtracting 2- and 3-digit numbers using number lines (Lessons 2.7, 4.4, 6.3, 6.6-6.7, 8.3-8.4, 8.6-8.7, and 12.2).
- The instructional materials connect students’ understanding of place value (2.NBT.A) to addition and subtraction within 100 and 1000 (2.NBT.B) as students explore these operations with 2- and 3-digit numbers (Lessons 2.5-2.7, 4.3-4.4, 6.6-6.7, 8.2, 8.7, 10.2-10.3, 10.6-10.7, 11.2, 11.5-11.6, 12.4, and 12.6).
- Using word problems (2.OA.A) to support students in making sense of of addition and subtraction (2.NBT.B) is a natural connection at this grade level. Only 7 of the 144 lessons explicitly target solving word problems within 100 (2.OA.A.1, 2.MD.B.5); no lesson materials highlight a connection to 2.NBT.B.
- Solving one- and two-step word problems involving all addition and subtraction situations (2.OA.A) offers an opportunity for students to engage in experiences to help them understand the relationship between addition and subtraction (2.NBT.B.9). The Grade 2 program misses the opportunity to make this connection explicit.