Of all the challenges facing educators today, perhaps, the most difficult is meeting the needs of individual learners. Within any given classroom, there is a mix of ability levels—from students who perform above grade level to those who struggle to meet grade-level expectations. The Quantile^® Framework for Mathematics measures student mathematics achievement and mathematical concepts and skills on the same Quantile^® scale. Classroom teachers can use the Quantile measures to determine which mathematical skills and concepts a student is ready to learn and those that will require additional scaffolding or enrichment, enabling them to match students with learning resources at the appropriate developmental level.

Whether or not a state adopts the Common Core State Standards, Quantile measures allow educators to:

1. Differentiate Instruction

   Every student learns at his or her own pace. However, when students are presented with mathematical tasks that are too hard or too easy, growth is limited. Quantile measures enable teachers to make informed decisions about matching students, by readiness level, with appropriate skills and instructional materials and forecast their understanding. The Quantile website offers the following free utilities to assist in differentiating instruction: Math Skills Database, which provides access to resources by searching on mathematical concepts that are aligned to a state’s curriculum and identified as the specific topic of instruction; Textbook Search, which is searchable by publisher, ISBN, author, title, or keyword to provide information about textbook lessons that have been calibrated with the Quantile scale; and the Quantile Teacher Assistant, which supports ongoing mathematics instruction based on the students’ needs.

2. Manage Understanding

   Educators can modulate understanding by choosing more or less difficult mathematical skills within the student's Quantile range. By understanding the interaction between student Quantile measures and resource Quantile measures, any level of understanding can be used as a benchmark. Educators can alter classroom instruction by lowering the difficulty (i.e., increase to 90% understanding) or increasing the difficulty (i.e., lower to 40% understanding) of the lesson depending on the demands of the situation. This flexibility allows the ultimate control to modulate the fit. Click here for more information on Quantile professional development and the Mathematics Standards.

3. Track Progress on a Day-to-Day Basis

   Quantile measures tie day-to-day work in the classroom through interim or benchmark assessments to critical high-stakes tests that also report students' scores as a Quantile measure. This commonality allows educators to provide interim assessment and feedback while using the same consistent measure. Student Quantile measures and the Quantile measures of the QTaxons inform educators and enable them to monitor student progress during the course of the academic year. A growing number of mathematics assessments and programs report students' mathematical progress as a Quantile measure. As a result, Quantile measures can be used to measure daily instruction and monitor growth.

4. Inform Classroom Assessments Regularly

   Each mathematical skill or concept aligned with the Quantile Framework has a specific knowledge cluster in the Math Skills Database. In the keyword search engine, an educator can enter a word (i.e., fraction, triangle) and find all of the skills and concepts that use the word. When a classroom teacher identifies the mathematical skill that he/she plans to teach, he/she can click on that skill or concept ID number (in the format of QT-###) and along with the description and its Quantile measure there will be a knowledge cluster that consists of the prerequisite and the supplemental skills. The prerequisite skills are those that the students must have been instructed on in order to have the necessary background to progress to the new identified lesson. The supplemental skills describe the supplementary skills or knowledge that assists and enriches the understanding of the identified skill or concept. The knowledge clusters can also be accessed from the Textbook Search engine.

• For more information on using Quantile measures to differentiate instruction, click here.
• For more information on Quantile professional development, click here.
• For more resources for educators, click here.
• For more information on extending learning beyond the classroom, click here.

Click here to learn how Lexile^® measures support the Common Core Standards’ goal of preparing students for the text demands of college and careers.