We have been using this wonderful program for several years now. In the last three years that we have used mathscore school wide, we have seen a 20% gain in percentile rank for grades 3-7 on our NWEA tests. The classes that used it the most are the classes that showed the greatest gains. Our 6th and 7th grade teachers who had the largest gains this year are convinced that the reason their students showed the most growth is because of mathscore.
At my school the biggest problem we have seen in the past is that students start having problems with counting in kindergarten and then when this is not resolved addition and subtraction become problematic which leads to teachers complaining that far too many students are not able to operations involving multiplication and division (operations with fractions, decimals, and integers just build on this weak foundation until many students give up on math).These problems continue into algebra where I see students who have failed algebra and advanced algebra trig. at the high school level. The students in these classes are unable to do things our 6th and 7th grade students can do and we owe that to mathscore. If those students had used a program like mathscore in grade school, I'm sure that many of them would not have been retaking the class with me.
It is a long road to get an entire staff to buy into a computerized school wide math program (teachers were not taught this way and it requires a bit of a leap of faith to buy in) but when the staff starts to see the results they get from this program they really get excited and this excitement is passed on to their students,. Once students start seeing their own improvement they get excited and now you see a completely different math student in your class. Students are now able to follow your math lessons (with many students having learned the concepts being taught on mathscore). Homework takes less time and test scores rise. Students who used to lack confidence and would quit on problems now persevere and find ways to solve problems that only a few of our top students were able to solve before we started using mathscore.
As a result of getting new computers this year (many coming in the second half of the year) we have been able to double the amount of mathscore time students receive in class. As a result our school percentile ranking average gain this year more than doubled last year's gain (with our top mathscore classes outscoring the other classes in our school by a wide margin). At the end of our school year we finally had all of our classes running close to each other. I am excited to see what a full year at this pace will produce when we take our tests next spring.
I would also like to thank Steven Yang for always being there to help us with any issues we have encountered with service that is second to none.
Steve Sremac, Lead Teacher, Goethe Elementary School, Chicago