The Effects of a Brief Fifth-Grade Math Intervention in a Special Education Classroom
Additional Funding Sources
The project described was supported by Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Grant Nos. P20GM103408 and P20GM109095, and National Science Foundation S-STEM Gateway Scholarships in Biological Sciences under Grant Award No. DUE-1644233. We also acknowledge support from the Biomolecular Research Center at Boise State with funding from the National Science Foundation, Grant Nos. 0619793 and 0923535, the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust and the Idaho State Board of Education.
Abstract
Students need to have a proficient understanding of foundational mathematics concepts in order to master more advanced skills as schooling becomes more complex at the middle school high school and college level. Archer and Hughes (2011) established connections between high academic achievement group collaboration and explicit instruction. Research conducted in special education for students with learning disabilities suggests that explicit instruction that provides students with opportunities to engage with critical content active teacher monitoring and fosters positive learning environments increase progress towards academic goals. To further explore the connection between explicit instruction and achievement I conducted a study to investigate the effect of explicit instruction in computation and word problems on student achievement. This study involved two students in the Boise School District receiving special education services in mathematics. The participants received four weeks of intervention in math computation word problems and order of operations. The intervention was delivered twice per week for 30-minutes each session. Before during and after the intervention students were given a fifth-grade mathematics progress monitoring test to measure the effect of the intervention. The results of the study reflect student growth during the intervention as a result of additional support in mathematics.
The Effects of a Brief Fifth-Grade Math Intervention in a Special Education Classroom
Students need to have a proficient understanding of foundational mathematics concepts in order to master more advanced skills as schooling becomes more complex at the middle school high school and college level. Archer and Hughes (2011) established connections between high academic achievement group collaboration and explicit instruction. Research conducted in special education for students with learning disabilities suggests that explicit instruction that provides students with opportunities to engage with critical content active teacher monitoring and fosters positive learning environments increase progress towards academic goals. To further explore the connection between explicit instruction and achievement I conducted a study to investigate the effect of explicit instruction in computation and word problems on student achievement. This study involved two students in the Boise School District receiving special education services in mathematics. The participants received four weeks of intervention in math computation word problems and order of operations. The intervention was delivered twice per week for 30-minutes each session. Before during and after the intervention students were given a fifth-grade mathematics progress monitoring test to measure the effect of the intervention. The results of the study reflect student growth during the intervention as a result of additional support in mathematics.