Diagnosing Individual Student'S Strengths and Weaknesses

Reys, Suydam and Lindquist (1995) recommend the following:

"To meet the needs of children learning mathematics, [teachers] must first determine what their strengths and weaknesses are, using one or more of the procedures mentioned here or using a specific diagnostic test. The results of such evaluation can be used to place students in instructional materials, to group students for instruction, and to decide just what needs to be taught or retaught to indivduals and to the class.

Guidelines for diagnosis in mathematics include the following (Driscoll l98l):

1. Make sure that a child's apparent mathematical deficiency is really a deficiency.

2. Remember that each child progresses through several stages of development before reaching an adult conceptual level.

3. Strengthen your diagnosis with the liberal use of manipulative materials.

4. Don't lose sight of the emotional side of students in your diagnosis.

5. Be both flexible and patient in piecing together an accurate picture of a child's thinking.

6. Maintain a climate of acceptance.

7. Distinguish between errors that are random and those that occur more systematically.

Both observations and interviews are highly effective in revealing behaviors not noticeable from paper-and-pencil tests. But tests are also useful tools in diagnosis, especially when you analyze how the child reached an answer, not merely what the final score was." (p.49)

References