Math to Mastery

Instructional Practice
Number Sense, Operations, Algebra
Tier III
K—5th
Time

10 mins, 3-5x per week for 3-8 weeks

Materials
  • individualized worksheets
  • goal charts/graphs
  • timer/stopwatch
Description

Math to Mastery is a teacher-directed instructional practice in which students are individually administering the intervention in an attempt to master particular skills/math problems.

How To

1. Determine the skill(s) used for the intervention according to CBA or computer adapted assessments.  The earliest unmastered pre-requisite skills in the sequence for the math operation should be targeted first.

2. Demonstrate how to complete each math problem on a worksheet whilst the student follows along on his/her copy.

3. Student practices the problems on the worksheet in one-minute trials until mastery (32 DCPM) is attained or ten one-minute trials are completed.

4. Follow along while student is working marking errors and giving immediate corrective feedback.

5. After each one-minute trial, compute the digits correct and errors; offer a great deal of specific praise for effort and performance.

6. Student charts his/her performance at the end of each 1-minute trial.

7. At the end of each session (or at least once weekly), student is administered a brief assessment (e.g., CBA), which is completed individually and scored to monitor progress on the target skill.

8. Once every other week (or monthly), a multiple skill CBM probe is administered to progress monitor for generalization.

Research

Doggett, R.A., Henington, C., & Johnson-Gros, K. N. (2006). Math to Mastery: A direct instruction remedial math intervention designed to increase student fluency with basic math facts. Unpublished manuscript, Mississippi State University.

Mong, M. D., Doggett, R. A., Mong, K. W., & Henington, C. (2012). An evaluation of the math to mastery intervention package with elementary school students in a school setting. Journal of Evidence-Based Practices for Schools, 13, 61-78.

Mong, M., & Mong, K. W. (2010). Efficacy of two math interventions for enhancing fluency with elementary students. Journal of Behavioral Education, 19, 273-288.

Mong, M.D., & Mong, K.W. (2012). The utility of brief experimental analysis and extended intervention analysis in selecting effective mathematics interventions. Journal of Behavioral Education21, 99-118.

Available Training

Utilizing the manual to administer the process (available in Doggett et al., 2006) would be useful.  Training may be needed on using CBA to determine the targeted skill(s) for the intervention.


Information on this entry was adapted from Codding, R.S., Volpe, R.J., & Poncy, B.C. (2017). Effective math interventions: A guide to improving whole-number knowledge. New York: The Guilford Press.

Sign Up For
Website Updates