Formative Assessments Teaching Resources
Make formative assessment easy this school year with printable exit tickets, self-assessment cards and more teacher-created resources for your elementary or middle school classroom.
Each formative assessment printable or digital resource in this collection has undergone a careful review by one of the expert teachers on the Teach Starter team to ensure it's ready for your classroom and your students!
Curious about how to make formative assessments effective in your classroom? Read on for a primer from our teacher team!
What Is a Formative Assessment?
Formative assessment is a method of monitoring your students’ learning in the midst of your lessons. Because the goal is simply to assess if your students understood the lesson — and if you need to make adjustments in your teaching — there's no grading required.
This assessment type stands out from summative assessments, which are typically subject to grading. Summative assessments occur at the end of a learning progression and are solely focused on evaluating content mastery.
Why Are Formative Assessments Important?
When it comes to assessing students, formative assessments are a crucial tool in any teacher's toolbox because they give you a chance to provide feedback or make adjustments to your teaching quickly, and they come in handy for both you and your students.
As a teacher, a formative assessment helps you see where students might be struggling and address the problem immediately. For students, these brief knowledge checks help them identify their own weaknesses and ask for help.
Use our sticky note template to print lines on sticky notes for students to fill out a simple assessment with some details about what they've learned.
How to Make Your Formative Assessments Effective
Want to get the most out of your formative assessments? In addition to the countless assessment tools in this collection, our teacher team has created a list of ideas to help you enhance their effectiveness.
- Keep it simple. You don't have to reinvent the wheel to assess your students' basic understanding. Something as simple as just one or two questions on the main point of the lesson can be incredibly effective!
- Add these assessments to your classroom routines. In addition to being simple, these assessments should not take up a lot of classtime. Establishing a system and routine for different content will allow you to get the assessment done and move on to the next item on your classroom schedule in a timely manner.
- Don't take it personally. When students hand back an assessment that indicates your lesson did not come across the way you'd hoped, it can feel like a major letdown. It's important to allow yourself to adapt and learn from the experience, rather than taking it personally. Remember that even if one lesson worked last year, you have a whole new set of kids with their own individual needs!
- Be flexible. Nothing is more frustrating than having to revisit a lesson when you have so much to do and only so much instruction time. Remember this assessment data is simply making you a better teacher, and it's important to be flexible!
As noted before, these assessments should not be graded and should not carry any significant weight since they’re only part of the learning process! This enables students to answer without fear of penalty, making them substantially more effective.
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Mixed Operations Minute Math Booklet (Higher-Level Version)
Incorporate this mental math drills booklet into your math lesson warm-up (or assessment) routine.
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Fluency Reading Passage Pack - Grade 1
Assess student fluency with a printable pack of reading fluency passages for 1st grade.
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3-2-1 Text Reflection Template
Quickly assess your students' comprehension after reading a fictional text with this 3-2-1 reflection activity.
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Fractions and Decimals Assessment
Assess students' knowledge of various decimals and percentages concepts with this four-page worksheet.
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Phonics Assessment - Long and Short Vowel Sound
Test your students' long and short vowel sound knowledge with this phonics assessment kit.
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Parallel and Perpendicular Lines Test
Administer this parallel and perpendicular lines test to assess your students’ ability to identify types of line pairs in a variety of settings.
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Fluency Reading Passages - 5th Grade
Assess student fluency with a printable pack of reading fluency passages for 5th grade.
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Prefix and Suffix Quiz
Assess your students’ knowledge of prefixes and suffixes with a vocabulary quiz.
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5th Grade Place Value Assessment
Assess student understanding of place value, rounding, and comparing decimals with this math assessment.
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U.S. Mountain and River Exit Tickets
Assess your students’ knowledge of the major rivers and mountains in the United States with a set of exit tickets.
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Quick Phonics Screener- Single Letter Phoneme
Test your students' knowledge of single letter phonemes with this student assessment kit.
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4-Digit Place Value - Assessment
Assess your students' knowledge of place value to the thousands place with this open-ended worksheet.
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2nd Grade Fluency Reading Passages
Download a printable pack of 2nd grade reading fluency passages with a printable ORF assessment pack.
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Peer Editing Checklist Pack
Encourage thorough peer reviews by providing your students with printable a peer editing checklist for informative, opinion, argumentative, or narrative writing.
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Reading Comprehension Question Stems - Anchor Charts
Enhance instruction on the six reading comprehension strategies with our printable Reading Comprehension Question Stems Chart Pack.
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Fluency Assessment Tool
Use our fluency assessment tool to gauge your students’ oral reading fluency, speed, accuracy, and more!
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Verb Tenses Quiz Worksheet
Assess your students' knowledge of verb tenses with this 5-question quiz.
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Dolch Sight Word Tracker - Google Sheets
Track mastery of Dolch Sight Words using a digital Google Sheets Sight Word tracking spreadsheet
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Subtraction Fact Fluency Assessments
Assess and track subtraction fact fluency with a printable Math Fact Fluency program for subtraction facts.
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Sight Word Lists – Teacher Resource Binder
Use this collection of checklists, student pages and quick-check assessments when reviewing Dolch sight words spanning from pre-primer to 3rd grade.
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Main Idea Exit Tickets
Check for understanding of the main idea and supporting detail with these exit tickets.
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Subtraction Strategies – Worksheet
Assess your students’ knowledge of subtraction strategies with a subtraction assessment.
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5th Grade Decimal Operations Assessment
Assess student understanding of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals with this math assessment.
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Test Data - Student Progress Tracker Templates
Help your students track their progress throughout the school year with this set of 6 Student Progress Tracker Templates.
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Number Forms Assessment
Test your students' skills with recognizing and writing numbers in word form and expanded form with this quick formative assessment.
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Countries of North America Exit Tickets
Assess student knowledge of the features and countries in North America with quick and easy exit tickets.
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Addition and Subtraction Minute Math Booklet
Warm-up (or assess) with this 10-page booklet of addition and subtraction drills.
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Assessment Rubric - Narrative Writing
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess students' narrative writing.
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Assessment Rubric - Procedural Writing
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess students' procedural writing.
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Assessment Rubric - Informative Writing
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess students' informative writing.
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Emoji Themed Self-Assessment Desk Cards
Print these emoji themed self-assessment cards for students to reflect on their learning and display on their desk to indicate the level of teacher support they need.
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4th Grade Reading Fluency Passages
Assess student fluency with a printable pack of reading fluency passages for 4th grade.