I first heard about the Texas Formative Assessment Resource (TFAR) around the end of the fall semester in 2022. Our high school principal had been at a meeting where the STAAR redesign was discussed, after which he shared that we needed to look into TFAR as an option for preparing our students for the new interactive question types. Our district testing coordinator then contacted me, and I began training to learn about TFAR and started to share it with our ECHS teachers and students. Here’s a walkthrough of how I got started:
About TFAR
TFAR was released by TEA in August 2020 in response to HB 3906 which stated that all state assessments would have to be administered online by the 2022-2023 school year. It provides access to the testing platform and was designed to be used for formative assessments throughout the school year. Provided question banks are filled with past STAAR questions, interactive question types from sample packs, and the ability to create your own questions to help students prepare for and get accustomed to these style of questions.
Getting Started
During the spring of 2023, I met with all of our high school students who were taking EOCs that spring. I went into individual classrooms and pulled multiple classes into our large lecture hall, before leading students through the login process, adjusting their test settings, and a leading a practice mini assessment (10 questions or less) where we talked about all the test features and how to navigate the new interactive question types.
These sessions were focused more on online testing tips and understanding the test platform than being related to the academic content. These sessions were very beneficial, as they allowed students to access to the real testing platform so they could become more comfortable with it, giving time to students to click all the buttons (and we did click ALL of them to make sure they understood how and why they’d use them). They also allowed students to hear another voice talk through how to answer these new questions, helping them understand why reading all the directions could be incredibly important. In essence, we gave them time to play in the test platform and ask questions that they previously hadn’t been able to ask, or might not have even known to ask.
Adjusting TFAR for Students Requiring Accommodations
After I led these sessions with students, our lead English teacher asked me to lead a session with our students who received testing accommodations. She wanted those kids to have time to play and ask questions, too. So, we pulled all English 1 and English 2 students who would test that spring into a classroom and I went through all of the testing accommodations with them, as well. We practiced adjusting the text-to-speech voice and talked about the benefits of adjusting it to meet your needs. We practiced typing in the boxes, and turning spell check on and off. We even discussed how to utilize the online dictionary.
After these sessions, many of our tested subject teachers created short quizzes in TFAR and utilized them in their own classrooms for additional practice leading up to their assigned testing dates. When scores came in, we saw amazing growth in our pass rates.
TFAR in the Elementary Classroom
I’ve led TFAR sessions each year with students at our high school, since the 2022-2023 school year. In that time, some of our teachers (specifically our ELA teachers) have made TFAR a more regular practice in their classrooms, and our English 2 pass rate scores have jumped 17 percentage points. This led us to start using TFAR with some of our elementary students, in hopes of allowing students to practice earlier in their school careers.
In January 2025, I visited all of our 3rd, 4th, and 5th dyslexia intervention classes, and our 4th and 5th grade basic reading and math classes, where I worked with the campus instructional coach and the campus testing coordinator to ensure that all testing accommodations were turned on and ready for use with the TFAR system. Then, I led these students through a session where we talked through how to use all their testing accommodations on their STAAR tests and they got to practice with me over a few days.
They were able to practice using content language supports, text-to-speech, word prediction, spelling assistance, and speech-to-text tools. We let them play with the color backgrounds and showed them how to adjust the text-to-speech voice after they started their test, and how to use their headset microphones to better utilize the speech-to-text function. At the end of these sessions, we asked them to share which accommodations they were most excited to use on the day of their tests now that they knew how to use them and knew that they would help.
Our 4th and 5th grade general ed classroom teachers continued to use TFAR in their classrooms with all students and these students were able to continue to practice with accommodations that looked identical to their tests. And, when scores came in, we saw growth not only in our overall pass rates, but also in our special education population.
Integrating TFAR: The Results
Since we started using TFAR in our district, I’ve witnessed more students utilizing all their testing tools and features during their tests. They appear less stressed and more calm on their test days, and are more confident, often approaching their tests with a different level of seriousness and effort than I saw when I was a classroom teacher in this same district.
Can we attribute all of this success to our use of TFAR? No, but I do think that we’ve found a way to bring it into our classrooms in a meaningful way that is contributing to our overall success.
I’m very excited to share more of our journey with TFAR at the 2026 TCEA Convention and Exposition this Jan. 31 through Feb. 4 in San Antonio, TX. I’ll be sharing a few more details about our process and also how we have started training more of our teachers on TFAR so it can be used more widely across our district. I hope to see you there!
Click here to register for TCEA 2026 to see Brittanie Payne’s presentation, as well as hundreds of others from amazing educators across the TCEA network!