Please note that these placement tests are not infallible. They’re simply one indicator that can be used to place students. The ‘Placement Help’ section below the tests outlines what students should know prior to beginning each level. Students will have access to all of the courses, so those who have missed or struggled with math concepts previously may jump back to relearn just that specific concept, if desired.
Placement Tests
If your child has had no formal education, please start with Math K. If your child has used another math curriculum, please download and print the placement test. It consists of 4 parts: A, B C & D. Give your child JUST the test (the pages at the end are the answer key). If your child has had a year or less of math, have your child start with Part A and work as far as possible. If your child has had two years of math, have your child start with Part B and work as far as possible. If your child has had three years of math, have them start with Part C and work as far as possible.
Because we want to test your child’s math knowledge and skills (and not reading comprehension skills), please feel free to sit with your child, read the questions and explain terminology as needed, but don’t coach your child. The goal is to get an accurate understanding of your child’s familiarity with the math concepts being tested. Calculators are not allowed. Each question or portion of a question is 1 point, so if a question has several parts, each part is worth a point.
Test A: If completed with 90% or better, your child should begin with Level 1.
Test B: If completed with 90% or better, your child should begin with Level 2.
Test C: If completed with 90% or better, your child should begin with Level 3.
Test D: If completed with 90% or better, your child should begin with Level 4.
More Placement Criteria
Level K is appropriate for children who have developed enough small-motor coordination to write in the workbook. The font is large and writing is minimal. Students will learn to recognize shapes and patterns; they’ll learn to recognize, write, and compare numbers; they’ll count to 100; learn to add and subtract using pictures, numbers and operation symbols; and they will begin skip counting and measurement.
Level 1 is appropriate for children who recognize and can write numbers to 100; understand the concepts of addition and subtraction and are working toward fact fluency; and understand measurement terms (although we spend the first several lessons reviewing all of that). Students will learn to tell time; they will learn calendars, dates, seasons, days of the week and months of the year; and they will continue working toward fluency with addition and subtraction facts. Students will learn place value to the thousands place; they will work with data, learning to build and read charts and graphs; they will work with money; they will begin to recognize multiplication as repeated addition; and they will begin to recognize fractions.
Level 2 is appropriate for children who have mostly memorized their addition and subtraction facts; recognize multiplication as repeated addition; tell time to the minute and know the time nicknames; can read and write dates; recognize all US monetary denominations; and are familiar with US Customary units and measurement tools. We review all of those things in the first several lessons. Students will be quizzed for addition and subtraction fact fluency in lesson 10. Students will learn to add and subtract multi-digit numbers conceptually and then via the standard algorithm, including regrouping; they will use place value to add and subtract mentally; they’ll continue to learn multiplication and division conceptually and will practice mastering the facts; they’ll work with elapsed time and continue to work with data analysis. Students will learn about lines, angles, perimeter, area and coordinate planes.
Level 3 is appropriate for children who have completely memorized their addition and subtraction facts and nearly memorized their multiplication facts; can fluently add and subtract multi-digit numbers; are fluent with time and money; can calculate perimeter and area of rectangles and are familiar with polygons. We review all of those concepts in the first several lessons before moving on. The course begins with a timed assessment of the students multiplication facts. Students are required to complete 50 facts in 4 minutes with 80% accuracy, which is not quite fluency level. During this course students will continue to work toward multiplication and division fact fluency, learn place value to the millions, learn to rename fractions and to add and subtract, multiply and divide them, learn to find fractions of a set, become familiar with measuring in metric as well as US Customary units, rounding to the thousands place, finding the perimeter and area of composite shapes, working with exponents and radicals, they will begin learning the order of operations and they will learn to find supplementary angles.
Level 4 is appropriate for children who have completely memorized the multiplication and division facts to the point of instant, automatic recall. In the first lesson, they will take a quiz and should complete 50 multiplication and division questions in 4 minutes or less with 90% accuracy to demonstrate fluency. Students in level 4 should be familiar with the order of operations and conversion between fractions, decimals and percentages. They will use letters to represent missing information and learn long division, first conceptually and then the standard algorithm. They will work with place value to the trillions and to the thousandths; they will learn to finish long division problems as decimals; and they will continue to work on the geometry concepts begun previously. Students will continue to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions and will focus on strategies for problem solving.