What is the Student Readiness Check and how does it work?

Teachers know that sometimes lessons don't go as expected, and it can impact tomorrow's plans. The Student Readiness Check is a short set of guiding questions attached to each day of a multi-day lesson plan. It helps you quickly reflect on whether your students have the prior knowledge and skills needed for that day’s instruction.

These questions are designed to support your instructional decision-making before you begin teaching a lesson. By answering them, you can decide whether to move forward as planned or make adjustments to better meet your students where they are.

After each day, we recommend taking a moment to reflect on each day and complete the short survey. You can then use the guidance below to decide to adapt your following day's plans or leave them as is.

The Student Readiness Check can be found within a Day tab (Day 1, Day 2, etc.) of your lesson plan and will open in the HMH Assist window. Each day has its own readiness check aligned to that day’s learning goals and activities.

If you’re returning to a lesson on a later day, go to My History to locate the lesson and access the readiness check for that day.

Once you click on "Take Day [x] Quiz", it will open up in the HMH Assist panel on the left.

For each day of the lesson, you’ll see a small set of questions related to the background knowledge or skills students need. For example, you may be asked whether most students can:

You’ll respond by selecting options such as Yes, Some, or No. Completing the readiness check before teaching that day’s lesson helps the Lesson Plan Generator update instructional recommendations, allowing the lesson plan to evolve over time based on how students are progressing through the material.

As the lesson plan updates, you may see adjustments such as:

You can choose to revise the plan based on these recommendations or skip the update and continue with the original lesson plan.