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DataDoxy · 11-16-2014, 07:11 PM

Falling behind in math is problematic as it impacts students’ ability to learn and perform in mathematics as they progress through school. According to research, early math skills also impacts students’ overall academic ability. For example, a large scale study found that early mathematical skills are a greatest predictor of future math, future reading, AND over-all future academic skills. In fact, early math skills were even more predictive than students’ socioemotional skills, attention issues, and early reading skills (Duncan, Dowsett, Claessens, Magnuson, Huston, Klebanov, Pagani, Feinstein, Engel, Brooks-Gunn, Sexton, Duckworth, & Japel, 2006).

Since early math (pre-school) skills are predictors of fractional knowledge at age ten, and fractional knowledge is the predictor of over-all math performance at age 16, early math skills are critical for learning future math. As such, I do not recommend that student progress through mathematics before they have a solid understanding of what they need to know. If they do, they are at risk of developing a shallow understanding of foundational mathematics concepts which will lead to future gaps in their learning.

My recommendation is that when student start struggling in math, they seek help preferably by a qualified mathematics educator. If they do not get help, research tells us that for most of students, the gaps they have will get bigger and will become more significant as they progress through school. This has been my experience when I was a math teacher, and is my current experience as a mathematics educator who works to remediate gaps in students that struggle. For example, I find that many junior high students that still struggle with multiplication or with fraction concepts have developmental skill gaps that trace back to composition/decomposition, or for some students even trace back to misconceptions or gaps with understanding base ten concepts. I know that early intervention could have remediated these gaps and thus, lack of fractional knowledge and/or weak number sense would not play a factor in these students’ performance in algebra for example. It is important to know that later intervention is still effective but it is much more difficult as students not only need to learn what they do not know, they need to “unlearn” their misconceptions.

Hope this helps.

11-16-2014, 07:11 PM	#26
DataDoxy Bingo's Better Half Join Date: Jul 2014 Exp:	Falling behind in math is problematic as it impacts students’ ability to learn and perform in mathematics as they progress through school. According to research, early math skills also impacts students’ overall academic ability. For example, a large scale study found that early mathematical skills are a greatest predictor of future math, future reading, AND over-all future academic skills. In fact, early math skills were even more predictive than students’ socioemotional skills, attention issues, and early reading skills (Duncan, Dowsett, Claessens, Magnuson, Huston, Klebanov, Pagani, Feinstein, Engel, Brooks-Gunn, Sexton, Duckworth, & Japel, 2006). Since early math (pre-school) skills are predictors of fractional knowledge at age ten, and fractional knowledge is the predictor of over-all math performance at age 16, early math skills are critical for learning future math. As such, I do not recommend that student progress through mathematics before they have a solid understanding of what they need to know. If they do, they are at risk of developing a shallow understanding of foundational mathematics concepts which will lead to future gaps in their learning. My recommendation is that when student start struggling in math, they seek help preferably by a qualified mathematics educator. If they do not get help, research tells us that for most of students, the gaps they have will get bigger and will become more significant as they progress through school. This has been my experience when I was a math teacher, and is my current experience as a mathematics educator who works to remediate gaps in students that struggle. For example, I find that many junior high students that still struggle with multiplication or with fraction concepts have developmental skill gaps that trace back to composition/decomposition, or for some students even trace back to misconceptions or gaps with understanding base ten concepts. I know that early intervention could have remediated these gaps and thus, lack of fractional knowledge and/or weak number sense would not play a factor in these students’ performance in algebra for example. It is important to know that later intervention is still effective but it is much more difficult as students not only need to learn what they do not know, they need to “unlearn” their misconceptions. Hope this helps.