New
research published in the journal EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION AND POLICY ANALYSIS June 25, 2014 (http://epa.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/20/0162373714536608.full.pdf+html?ijkey=J2BxFXoAWRPSo&keytype=ref&siteid=spepa) investigated the use of mathematics
instructional practices by first-grade teachers in the United States. The researchers identified four
types of instructional activities (i.e., teacher-directed, student-centered,
manipulatives/calculators, movement/music) and eight types of specific skills
taught (e.g., adding two-digit numbers). First-grade students were then
classified into five groups on the basis of their fall and/or spring of
kindergarten mathematics achievement—three groups with mathematics difficulties
(MD)
Overall, the researchers found no evidence of a relation
between the percent of MD students in a first-grade teacher’s class and the frequency
with which teacher-directed activities were used or skills taught. However,
they did observe that first-grade teachers in classrooms with higher
percentages of students with MD were more likely to use practices not
associated with greater mathematics achievement by these students.
Controlling
for many potential confounds, they also found that only more frequent use of
teacher directed instructional practices was consistently and significantly
associated with residualized (value added) gains in the mathematics achievement
of first-grade students with prior histories of MD.
For
students without MD, more frequent use of either teacher-directed or
student-centered instructional practices was associated with achievement gains.
In contrast, more frequent use of manipulatives/calculator or movement/ music
activities was not associated with significant gains for any of the groups.
For
the wide range of eight sets of skills taught, the researchers found little
consistent relation between the frequency with which particular skills were
taught and the mathematics achievement of first-grade students.
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