| Description |
The U.S. finishes in the bottom fifth of industrialized nations in math achievement, based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) classifies almost 10% of U.S. students as low achieving, and students with disabilities score particularly poorly on such assessments. Experts describe U.S. students as lacking conceptual understanding and requiring remedial instruction in math. When implemented across multiple grade and ability levels, math instruction incorporating a concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) sequence has increased math achievement. Writing To Learn Math (WTLM) is a strategy proven through research to improve students’ conceptual understanding through writing. CRA and WTLM have similar cognitive foundations, yet no studies have evaluated a combination of CRA and WTLM. Combining CRA and WTLM has the potential to address the challenges of adjusting to the national Common Core standards and assessments, which include improving conceptual understanding and writing across all content areas. This unique combination of interventions could offer promising results for effective curriculum development and remedial instruction. This study included three ninth-grade students from a suburban school who are below state proficiency levels in math, and employed a single-subject across-participants design to investigate the following research questions: (1) What is the effect of implementing a concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) instructional sequence incorporating writing to learn math strategies on students with disabilities’ proficiency in solving rate of change problems, and (2) Do students with disabilities find WTLM math and a CRA instructional sequence to be socially acceptable? Results indicated that the CRA + Writing intervention may be effective in improving students’ with disabilities understanding of rate of change. All 3 students improved their scores on the math items of the rate of change probes, and maintained these improvements on maintenance assessments administered between 1 and 7 weeks following the completion of the intervention. Two of the 3 students also displayed moderate improvements in their scores on the writing items of the rate of change probes. The findings of this study provide multiple implications for both research and practice, as well as several directions for future research. |
