A study of the effectiveness of a direct instruction program in mathematics

The purpose of this project was to determine if participation in a year long mathematics direct instructional program would accelerate the rate of mathematical achievement in a group of learning disabled children. The subjects of this study were comprised of five eleven-year-old fifth grade students who were classified as Learning Disabled. Outcome measures utilized included teacher assigned report card grades, a basic skills test, a two-step word problem assessment and the Key Math Diagnostic Arithmetic Test-Revised as a functional measure. The results of this study indicate that, when utilizing formal and functional measures, students make greater progress acquiring facts and problem solving skills in a direct instruction program as implemented in Connecting Math Concepts than in a traditional basal mathematics curriculum