aimsweb

Did you know about aimsweb? This is a new program that our school division has just purchased, that I am very excited about using in the future. aimsweb allows teachers to screen students and monitor their progress in math and reading. It can also assess early literacy, reading, early numeracy, mathematics, spelling and writing. The program can be fit to incorporate a variety of different curriculums, which allows it to be used throughout Canada. aimsweb allows teachers to gain a quick snapshot of student abilities, and can verify which students are above grade level, or below grade level- thereby indicating which students may need extra individualized assistance or RTI (response to intervention). This quick assessment can be completed individually (as required for some of the English assessments), whereas others can be completed as a group (such as the math assessment which takes approximately 8 minutes for a full class to complete). Having a resource like aimsweb is an invaluable resource for teachers, particularly at the beginning of the year when teachers are given a new group of students, or if a new student transfers to a school. This resource would allow teachers to have a baseline for starting and guiding their instruction. aimsweb can also be connected with Key Math (a great resource which provides very detailed reports of students’ understanding in mathematics from grades 1-9). Key Math offers detailed lesson plans and guided instruction which can be started from the results of the aimsweb testing. In addition to the universal screening capabilities of the software, it can also help schools create learning and achievement goals, as it can be administered numerous times throughout the year and can be used to track individual student progress and guide instruction/ interventions. For those teachers who struggle with new testing, aimsweb offers ample instructional webinars to help teachers accurately complete the testing and learn how to analyze the results to effectively lead their instruction. Upon asking more questions to my colleagues about the software, I have learned that the webinars can be very lengthy however, and the software must be purchased for a school (i.e. it is not free for everyone to access).