The Special Edge newsletter out of Sonoma State University interviewed Lynn Fuchs, PhD on her research on successful interventions in kids' performance in math. Dr. Fuchs is a professor at Vanderbilt University and has done many well-recognized studies on helping kids to perform at grade level or better in math and in reading. The Sonoma State interviewer asked, particularly about math, what research exists.

Dr. Fuchs told of a Vanderbilt project conducted at first-grade level. They worked with 564 first-graders, 127 of whom had been identified as having difficulty with math. The first-graders were randomly assigned to tutoring groups or control groups. After sixteen weeks, tutoring had significantly improved mathematics performance on concepts and applications skills. Follow-through a year later showed the improvement held. The study was published as "The Prevention, Identification, and Cognitive Determinants of Math Difficulty," in the Journal of Educational Psychology 2005, Vol.97, No.3, pp.493-513.

Another study done at Vanderbilt looked at math problem solving in third-graders; it was a large study, involving 60 classrooms over two years' time. It compared rates of responsiveness in the general third-grade classroom with those of children who had already been identified as having problems with math, using an intervention called Hot Math with all the children. Hot Math uses explicit instruction. Students are given step-by-step direction and receive immediate feedback. The amount of instruction fades as the student masters the material. See the winter 2002 CASL News for more information. Improvements here held also.

When she was asked about the range of skills of children on entering kindergarten, Dr. Fuchs replied, "By the time kids enter kindergarten, you already see wide variations in their math skills... You see children whose preschool/home experiences have made them already pretty knowledgeable about math, and you see children who can't count and have no concept of numbers. I think much can be done in pre-schools and at home to create number sense and give kids early math skills...so that kids coming to kindergarten are prepared to profit from math instruction." Let's hope she's right...