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About & guide ACE & SOLO
Science · SST Preparation · Grades 3–5

ACE the SST

Quick formative checks that help students articulate science ideas, connect evidence and concepts, and extend their thinking — while making SOLO progress visible. Pick a grade and strand, run an entry ticket before the lesson and an exit ticket after, then teach from the level students actually show you.

  • Matter and Energy
  • Force, Motion, and Energy
  • Earth and Space
  • Organisms and Environments
Open the ticket bank → How ACE and SOLO work
  • 28
    Paired tickets
  • 3–5
    Grades
  • 4
    SST strands
  • 25
    TEKS codes
No login. No student data is collected or transmitted. Responses stay in this browser tab.
ACE the SST: Deeper Thinking in Elementary Science. Four elementary students observe a bowl of warm water with a thermometer and record observations, beside a chain of circles labeled A Articulate, C Connect, E Extend.
When
View
Entry ticket

Science situation
How confident are you right now?
Ticket bank

The framework

Use ACE during instruction, score the thinking with SOLO

A fifth-grade student can identify evaporation in a diagram. Then the question changes one condition and asks what happens next — and the memorized definition is not enough. Beginning in 2027–2028, the Student Success Tool replaces STAAR with beginning-, middle-, and end-of-year assessments, and TEA’s draft elementary science blueprints organize questions around four strands with multiple choice, multiselect, multipart, and inline choice formats.

A

Articulate

What happened? Explain it in your own words.

C

Connect

How does the evidence connect to the science concept?

E

Extend

What would happen if one condition changed?

ACE takes less than a minute to explain, but it quickly reveals whether students understand the science or simply recognize familiar vocabulary. Score what you hear with SOLO, then pick the next move.

ScoreEvidence of learningNext move
1 · Pre-structuralResponse is missing or unrelatedActivate prior knowledge
2 · Uni-structuralIdentifies one relevant factAsk the student to Articulate
3 · Multi-structuralLists several facts without linking themPrompt the student to Connect
4 · RelationalExplains how evidence and ideas fit togetherAsk for a prediction
5 · Extended abstractApplies the concept to a new situationChallenge the student to Extend

Consider an Earth and Space question about how sunlight heats land and water. A student at level two might identify the Sun as the energy source. At level three, the student lists sunlight, land, water, and temperature. A level-four response explains why land and water warm at different rates. At level five, the student predicts how that difference could affect local weather.

ACE the SST reference chart. Left column: use ACE during science instruction, with A Articulate, C Connect, and E Extend. Right column: score the thinking with SOLO, levels one through five from pre-structural to extended abstract with a next move for each. Bottom band: the four elementary science SST strands.
Print this chart for a planning binder or a team meeting. Beginning 2027–2028.

Want the longer version? About ACE the SST works through why a memorized definition stops working, what the SST changes for elementary science, what each ACE move sounds like in a lesson, a worked example across all five SOLO levels, and where the tickets fit in a week.

SST preparation should not become a fresh stack of test-prep packets. Use ACE exit tickets, science notebooks, lab discussions, and short stimulus questions throughout the year. TEA’s SST resources describe the assessment design in full.