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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Quiz and Swap - 2nd Grade End-of-Year Review
Prepare your students for their end of grade assessments with an End-of-Year Quiz and Swap Review Game.
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Quiz and Swap - 3rd Grade End-of-Year Test Prep Game
Get your students up, moving, and practicing third grade test prep skills with an End-of-Year Quiz and Swap Review Game.
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Exit Ticket – Editable Google Slide
Assess your students’ understanding of concepts just covered with this editable exit ticket template.
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Assessment Rubric – Biographical Texts
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess students’ biography writing.
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Action, Helping, and Linking Verbs Exit Ticket
Quickly assess your students' understanding of action, helping, and linking verbs with this exit ticket template.
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Assessment Rubric - Opinion Writing
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess students' opinion writing.
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Assessment Rubric - Poetry
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess student's poetry.
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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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Reading Fluency Assessment Tool - Rainforests
A user-friendly tool for teachers to assess their students' reading fluency and accuracy, with texts based on a rainforest theme.
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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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Genius Hour Project Assessment Rubric (Grades 5 and 6)
An assessment rubric for the teacher to assess each student's Genius Hour project.
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Genius Hour Project Assessment Rubric (Grades 3 and 4)
An assessment rubric for the teacher to assess each student's Genius Hour project.
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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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Phonics Assessment - Uppercase and Lowercase Letters
Test your students' knowledge of the uppercase and lowercase letters in the alphabet with this assessment kit.
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5-Digit Place Value - Assessment
Assess your students' knowledge of place value to the ten thousands place with this open-ended worksheet.
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Interactive Multiple Choice PowerPoint Template - Mathematics
Create an interactive math warm-up, review or assessment activity with this 11-slide PowerPoint template.
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Interactive Multiple Choice PowerPoint Template - Literacy
Create an interactive literacy warm-up, review or assessment activity with this 11-slide PowerPoint template.
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Interactive Multiple Choice PowerPoint Template - Generic
Create an interactive warm-up, review, or assessment activity for any subject area with this 11-slide PowerPoint template.
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Clock Reading & Elapsed Time Quiz
Assess your students' knowledge of telling time to the minute and working with elapsed time with this Clock Reading, Conversions, and Elapsed Time test.
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Assessment Rubric - Historical Recounts
An assessment rubric designed to help teachers to assess students' historical recounts.
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Numeracy Assessment Tool - Grade 5
A set of 6 numeracy assessment tools suited to Grade 5 students
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Decimals and Percentages Assessment
Assess students' knowledge of various decimals and percentages concepts with this four-page worksheet.
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6 Types of Assessment in Education + How to Use Them in Your Classroom
Learn about the different types of assessment in education and how to improve your student progress monitoring.
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18 Formative Assessment Examples Elementary Students Love as Much as Teachers Do
Get fun formative assessment examples and ideas that are perfect for elementary school teachers. Each has been teacher-tested and approved.
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9 Wrap Up Activities for Lesson Closure That Work Like a Charm
Here are some great ways to close out a lesson in the classroom. Closing a lesson well helps students retain information and helps you assess where they are at!
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7 Clever Exit Ticket Ideas to Make This Assessment Tool Truly Effective
Are exit tickets effective? Try these fresh exit ticket ideas for the classroom to make this formative assessment idea work for your students!