One of my (and my students’) favorite math centers and activities is definitely the Find the Error math activity that requires the students to analyze example work to find and explain the error made by the “student”. On this post, I will share how you can get multi-step error analysis math tasks for free!
Why Use Error Analysis in Math?
Error analysis is when students analyze an example of student work looking specifically for the error made by the student. As you can imagine, error analysis is a higher level thinking activity because it requires a deeper understanding of the skill or concept to be able to identify (and correct) errors.
I love using error analysis for a few reasons:
- Students love practicing math in a variety of ways and error analysis math tasks are definitely a favorite. They love pretending to be the “teacher” as they analyze completed work.
- Students need quite a bit of practice with math concepts and error analysis tasks provide an additional (and novel) way to offer that practice to your students (without burning them out).
- Finding errors made by others promotes higher level thinking skills.
- Using error analysis tasks gets the students eager to discuss and talk about the math as they find and explain errors.
About the Free Error Analysis Math Printables
When I received feedback on my error analysis math tasks from a teacher wanting to see more multi-step word problems included, I knew this was a definite need and would be very helpful.
My students often struggle with multi-step word problems. Allowing them to analyze and discuss work that shows the same errors they make when solving multi-step word problems would help them see these problems through another lens.
When creating error analysis tasks, I always try and include a variety of errors that I see my students make. The math errors in this free set include:
- Computation Errors
- Wrong Operation Errors
- Missing a Step Errors
This free resource includes 16 “Find the Error” math tasks for multi-step word problems available in two levels.
Level 1 – In this level, there are 10 error analysis math tasks that involve all four operations (basic math facts only). These are ideal for mid to end of 3rd grade, beginning of 4th grade, or remediation for 4th and 5th grade students.
Level 2 – In this level, there are 6 error analysis math tasks that involve all four operations (requiring multi-digit multiplication and division). These are ideal for mid to end of 4th grade or 5th grade students.
Each task includes a word problem and a sample student work (shown in a few different formats throughout the tasks) that incorrectly solves the problem. The incorrect student work is in a box to help the students quickly find it each time. The student is asked to determine the error and explain why he or she thinks the student made that error. Then the student has to solve the problem correctly.
Get the Free Error Analysis Math Tasks Here
To get these error analysis math tasks sent straight to your email, simply click on the image below and enter your email in the box. If you are already a subscriber, this freebie is separate from the exclusive freebie library, so make sure you enter your email again for these.
More Error Analysis Math Printables
If you want even more error analysis math tasks that are specific to the grade you teach, click your grade level shown in the collage below.
Help–
I am trying to figure out how to get these awesome error analysis freebies sent to my email. In your post it says to enter email in the box below. I do not see anywhere to enter my email unless I am signing up for the whole library or facts games.
Where is this resource? I signed up and used the code to go to the free library but I did not get anything in my email about this resource.
To access the freebies, find the section titled: Get the Free Error Analysis Math Tasks Here and then follow the directions in that section. Hope this helps!
I was hoping to get the 4th grade Error Analysis freebie. Is it still available?
https://jenniferfindley.com/free-error-analysis-math-printables-for-multi-step-word-probems/
I entered several email addresses to get these awesome freebies. Each time it said “There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.” Is this a tricky way to get email addresses without sending any content?
Hi Mary, I just tested it with my email and it worked for me. Definitely not a trick to get email addresses. If you can send me an email to jen @ jenniferfindley.com (no spaces) with the subject error analysis freebies, we will get those sent to you. Or you can try again since the form is working and it may have been a glitch.