So, early in the school year I found out that I would be meeting with two reading groups and would have to attend a 2 day Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) training. As I was sitting in the training there was a side of me that thought, “Why am I here? I’m a math coach.” I tried to squelch that voice with a positive outlook and look for cross content gems to glean. Sure enough, one of our district reading coaches said something to the effect of, “Running records allow us to get close to students’ reading behaviors.” while giving the rationale for running records being embedded in the LLI routine. I immediately began thinking about what allows teachers to get close to students’ math behaviors. I immediately thought of formative assessments consisting of tasks that are designed to reveal students thinking. How often do we carve out the time to simply sit down and listen to students talk us through their mathematical thinking associated with a task, similar to talking about what they are taking away from a text? How can we meet students where they are if we don’t take the time to do this? The reading research has advocated for making time to listen to student reading for years. Isn’t it time we do the same in mathematics?