CTB/McGraw-Hill has announced the release of Fox Tracker, the latest addition to the First Performances system of developmentally appropriate assessments for pre-K through grade 3 students. With Fox Tracker, teachers will be able to conduct early reading and mathematics assessments more efficiently with individual students, using a handheld personal digital assistant (PDA), improving the accuracy of observational assessments, and providing immediate test results, the announcement states.
Fox Tracker will enable teachers to replace paper-and-pencil observation and scoring records by tapping in assessment data on a PDA, securing it online in a single step. Benefits to educators include the following:
* Shortens administration time with PDA-based assessment process that individually records student answers and automatically calculates scores, displaying a student’s skill levels
* Ensures consistency in assessing all children with scripted directions and instructions for teachers
* Enables online reports to monitor progress and promote data-driven instruction and curriculum development
* Provides summary data by individual student, class, school, district and grade
Fox Tracker, powered by Tango Rx software from Liberty Source, is a Palm software test administration system on a PDA with Web-based reporting capabilities.
First Performances is a system of observational assessments for children in the early grades. Three interconnected products contain developmentally appropriate, hands-on assessments that allow the measurement of critical early developmental milestones in literacy and mathematics. Assessments include:
* Fox Letters and Numbers Pre-K literacy and math assessments
* Fox in a Box K-3 literacy assessment