Measure student progress and enhance progress monitoring with TeachTown Benchmark Assessments! Available to all enCORE licensed organizations, TeachTown Benchmark Assessments are live in enCORE Elementary and available as downloadable PDFs.
TeachTown Benchmark Assessments include 190+ assessments (average 10-15 items each) across ELA, Math, & Early Learning skills. They have been designed to help you monitor your students’ progress on an individual skill over time and show growth. We recommend teachers administer benchmark assessments 3 times per school year: beginning, middle, and end of year.
Benchmark assessments are available in 3 convenient formats:
Each individual assessment includes 3 different forms (A, B, C) to ensure test validity as students retest on a skill over time.
TeachTown Benchmark Assessments include reports for teachers that provide the raw score, percentage, and item analysis and direct you to the units in enCORE that will drive progress on students’ skill levels. Admin have access to a report that shows progress at the campus or district level.
You now have even more tools to provide data-driven, personalized instruction, develop strong IEP goals, and maintain compliance!
→ Log into your TeachTown account.
→ Navigate to enCORE Elementary.
→ Select the individual student for whom you wish to assign Benchmark Assessments.
→ Select Benchmark Assessments from the drop down menu.
→ Select a Domain or Bundle from the left side of the page to quickly filter assessments and see the assignment status, Assigned or Unassigned.
→ You have the option to click Bulk Assign to select the Form, Delivery Format, and whether you’re assigning Individual Assessments or Bundles.
→ Use the Manage tab on the right side of the page (shown below) to preview assessments, edit assigned ones, and review the history of completed assessments.
→ Select the View All Students to easily oversee assessments and track student progress with a clear, at-a-glance view of assigned, unassigned, and completed assessments.
We recommend administering the assessments 3 times per school year:
→ Beginning of year (within 1 month of the start of school)
→ Middle of year (within a few weeks of the end of fall semester or start of spring semester)
→ End of year (during the last month of school)
No, benchmark assessments should be selected individually for students. While students may have similar benchmark assessments assigned to them, benchmark assessments are meant to assess skills that the student can show progress on. Students will also likely master benchmark assessments at different times, requiring that certain students move on to the next appropriate benchmark assessment before other students advance.
We recommend teachers choose the specific benchmark assessments that align with their students’ IEP goals. (This is why not all students will take the same assessments at the same time – every student has unique IEP goals.) Teachers may also wish to administer assessments that address their district’s literacy or math initiatives and/or align with the content from the unit they are teaching.
Yes! Teachers and instructional assistants who have read the TeachTown Benchmark Assessment Implementation Guidelines and understand the specific instructions for the individual assessment(s) may administer assessment to students.
Use the format that works best for your students. We recommend using paper-based benchmark assessments for students for whom technology is distracting and would not reflect true performance levels. Teacher-led technology should be used with students for whom technology is motivating but cannot work independently on a computer. Student-led technology can be assigned to students who can work independently on a computer.
If you are starting at the beginning of the school year, you should administer Form A. Any time a student takes a specific benchmark assessment for the first time, you should administer Form A, regardless of the time of year.
Administer the benchmark assessment(s) in a quiet, distraction-free location and implement the same testing accommodations that are identified in the student’s IEP (such as having a 1:1 instructor-to-student ratio, for example). Use the format (paper-based or technology-based) that is most appropriate for your student. Ensure the student will have ample time to complete the assessment.
Yes! Benchmark assessments are designed to measure progress on a single skill over time. It is appropriate to administer a benchmark assessment to measure progress on an IEP goal.
This depends on the individual needs of your students. We recommend giving ELA and Math benchmark assessments from different subdomains. For example, a teacher may administer Sight Words 1 (Fluency), Lowercase Letter ID (Phonics), and Rhyme Matching (Phonological & Phonemic Awareness) during the same testing window. These 3 assessments cover different ELA subdomains. However, some students may be able to tolerate more testing than others, and could be assessed on more benchmarks assessments during a testing window.
TeachTown Benchmark Assessment Student Summary Report
The TeachTown Benchmark Assessment Summary Student Report presents a detailed breakdown by domain, including the administration date of each benchmark session, the assessment form (A, B, or C) indicating the time of year it was given (beginning, middle, or end), the delivery format (Teacher-Led, Student-Led, or Paper-Based), and the student’s score. This report helps educators track student progress over time, identify learning trends, and tailor instruction to meet individual student needs.
TeachTown Benchmark Assessment Progress Report for Administrators and Facilitators
The newly launched TeachTown Benchmark Assessment Progress Report provides administrators with district-level insights into student progress across multiple campuses, while also equipping facilitators with classroom-level reporting for a detailed view of student performance within their class. With this data-driven tool, administrators and facilitators can identify trends, track performance, and make strategic decisions to enhance instructional support. For administrators, the report identifies both successful schools and classrooms while also highlighting areas that may require additional coaching or intervention. For facilitators, it showcases classroom successes and pinpoints specific areas where students may need additional support. By leveraging this holistic insight, administrators and facilitators can allocate resources effectively, foster best practices, and ensure consistent student growth.
Middle & high school teachers who have an enCORE K-12 license have access to all benchmark assessments. They may choose to use them if their students have IEPs goals covering K-5 skills. If this is the case, the teacher would use the enCORE Middle School or enCORE High School curriculum to cover the appropriate grade-level standards and the Skills Review units to address IEP goals. The benchmark assessments could be used to show progress on those IEP goals.
Yes! Test validity is measured in a number of ways. TeachTown Benchmark Assessments underwent a rigorous test construction process with strict design specifications to ensure forms are equivalent and the questions measure what they are stated to measure. In the 2023-2024 academic year, the TeachTown Research Team partnered with subject matter experts across content areas to conduct a validity study of the assessments. TeachTown Benchmark Assessments are valid across Early Learning, ELA, and Math.
This in-depth validity study confirmed that TeachTown Benchmark Assessments accurately and consistently measure the skills that they are intended to measure. Teachers can be confident the data they get from Benchmark Assessments is tied to the specific skill associated with the assessments.
We love hearing from our teachers! Share your experiences with TeachTown Benchmark Assessments with productfeedback@teachtown.com.