How do I conduct the One-Minute Daily Test?

After the practice time, the One-Minute Daily Test should be conducted, either immediately or after a delay. If there is a delay it will be harder for students to pass, but they will know their facts better when they do pass. It is also possible to do two practice sessions at different times during the day, but still do only one test per day. Each student should enter their goal at the bottom of their practice sheet before beginning the timing.

Have students hold their pencils up in the air when they are ready to start. Wait until all the pencils are in the air before you say to begin. If your clock has a second hand visible to all the children, you can tell them they may begin when the second hand reaches the 12—that way all eyes are on the clock rather than on their paper. You time while students write. At the end, collect the folders (along with the test papers) of only those children who claimed to have passed. You will have to check the tests for accuracy—but only the papers of the students who claim to have passed. If they know they did not pass (because they didn’t complete enough problems to have passed…after all, they know their goal) then you don’t have to check their paper until they do. (Yipppeee!!!)

Typically teachers hand back the folders the next day with the next set of pages to practice on, unless the student did not actually pass.

All students will need a new practice sheet for the following day. Students who passed their timings get the next set of facts in alphabetic sequence and students who did not pass get a clean copy of the same letter as before.

There are various ways to handle the distribution of sheets. At a minimum, you will need to create a set of lettered file folders so that the appropriate sheets can be organized and accessed. Remember the crate? Children can learn to get the next sheet on their own some time during the day. Often we see teachers have kids get the appropriate sheet on their way into the room in the morning. This becomes part of the morning routine. For students in Middle or High School, students can retrieve the appropriate sheet on their way into math class. Cooperative groups could send a representative up to collect sheets for the group. If you have some adult help, that person could put the appropriate sheets in each child’s folder. You might also have a student monitor do that.

Because most students will take a few tries before completing sheets you might reduce the traffic going to the files by having students collect 4, 5 or 6 copies of the page the first time. You could have 4-6 copies of the same set stapled together. Then if a student does not pass the one-minute timing they would not have to go to the crate to get a sheet. They would just turn to the next, clean copy. If students don’t use all of them, the clean sheets are still usable by another student. Remove the staple and recycle! You can do the same thing if you must fill the folders.