A program designed by University at Buffalo researchers to increase mathematics achievement in pre-kindergarten students has proven successful in a large-scale study in Buffalo and Boston.
The program, based on an educational model called TRIAD and including the Building Blocks math curriculum, raised test scores by about 50 percent more than the "business-as-usual" approach.
The study addresses two urgent needs identified by President Bush's National Math Advisory Panel to improve the way American schools teach math. The first is to increase performance in early childhood mathematics, an area the national experts cited as one of the most pressing priorities in the country's mathematics education. The second is to develop a curriculum and an approach to implement it that can be "scaled-up," or shown effective for a large sample of students.
"A major recommendation of President Bush's National Math Advisory Panel (NMP) was to create and evaluate ways of scaling-up effective early childhood mathematics programs. This we have done," says Douglas H. Clements, a member of the NMP and a professor of learning and instruction in the Graduate School of Education. Clements designed the program with Julie A. Sarama, associate professor of learning and instruction.
A total of 662 students in Buffalo and 267 students in Boston were taught using the Building Blocks curriculum. Developed by Clements and Sarama, it stresses research-based instruction that helps teachers understand the way young children think about math and how that thought process develops. A second group of students began taking this curriculum a year later in Nashville, Tenn.; the results of this study are still pending.
The work was done under a $7.2 million grant from the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. It also was part of the Interagency Educational Research Initiative.
This math curriculum was taught under the TRIAD model, which stands for "technology-enhanced, research-based instruction, assessment and professional development." The TRIAD model features 10 educational principles -- including coaching and mentoring for teachers, the use of technology and enhanced institutional development -- that aim to help students achieve more and remember what they learn.
A group of 286 pre-kindergarten students in Buffalo and 94 students in Boston served as a control group. Teachers for the control students used another math curriculum other than Building Blocks that was not taught under the TRIAD model.
All students were tested in fall 2006 and retested in spring 2007 on a variety of math and problem-solving outcomes. Those in the control group increased their scores by about 100 points, an increase that Clements called a "large gain -- more than double what is often seen around the country."
But the increases were even higher for those pre-K students exposed to Building Blocks and TRIAD. The increases in their scores were significantly higher than the students in the control groups.
"They gained even more," says Clements. "They moved up 150 points. Those are very large gains."
The study produced some clear conclusions, according to the UB researchers.
The 100-point increase for students in the control group showed students can learn substantial mathematics in the early years if a school district commits to the importance of mathematics education.