This paper examines a range of instructional strategies and interventions designed to improve mathematics performance in students with learning disabilities. Drawing on multiple peer-reviewed studies, it surveys approaches including strategy instruction (such as the minimum addend strategy and RIDE), self-regulation and metacognitive techniques, the Touch Math program, self-monitoring methods, and schema-based instruction (SBI). The paper evaluates the evidence base for each approach, comparing outcomes for students with and without learning disabilities and across different grade levels. Collectively, the reviewed studies indicate that targeted strategy instruction consistently outperforms drill-and-practice methods and can substantially close the performance gap experienced by students with mathematics-related learning disabilities.
Students with learning disabilities face several academic challenges. More often than not, these students advance approximately one academic year for every two years they attend school. Strategies employed by teachers can have a major impact on enhancing performance across all levels of schooling. Without comprehensive strategies and interventions, students with mathematics disabilities end up considerably lagging behind their peers. Statistics indicate that approximately 25% to 35% of students experience difficulty with math knowledge and application skills. Moreover, 5% to 8% of all school students have such considerable deficits that these affect their capability to solve computation problems (Sayeski and Paulsen, 2010).
According to Hott et al. (2014), strategy training has been beneficial to students with learning disabilities when learning math concepts and practices. One such strategy is RIDE, established by Mercer et al. (2011), which is used to help students answer word problems. Students with learning disabilities who face difficulties with abstract reasoning, memory, and attention skills may largely benefit from this strategy.
Teaching a variety of strategies to children with disabilities helps them learn and retain not only higher-order concepts and problems, but also simple mathematical facts. In particular, automaticity — the capability to undertake tasks without occupying the mind with low-level details — is considered significant for further development and understanding in mathematics for children with learning disabilities. According to Tournaki (2003), automaticity in math is taught either through drill and practice or through the direct teaching of a strategy.
Tournaki's (2003) study showed that it was useful and constructive to teach basic facts to students with learning disabilities via drill and practice. The author further posits that when students with disabilities are taught strategies, they are provided with routine and practical knowledge that can be applied to solving problems. Specifically, the study employed the minimum addend strategy, which involves students counting up from the higher addend by the number of units indicated by the lower addend. This strategy was taught to both students with and without learning disabilities, and comparisons were subsequently made with students in both groups who had been taught through drill and practice.
The outcomes of Tournaki's (2003) study established that students with learning disabilities improved significantly only in the strategy condition, compared to both the control and the drill-and-practice conditions. Furthermore, only students in the strategy condition became significantly more accurate on transfer tasks, for students with and without learning disabilities alike (Tournaki, 2003).
Montague (2007) argued that students with learning disabilities exhibit significant difficulties with memory, attention, and self-regulation, which adversely affects their performance in both math and reading. According to Montague (2007), self-regulation is considered a metacognitive function that is fundamental to academic success. Students with learning disabilities are generally poor at self-regulation and therefore need to be taught explicitly how to monitor and control their cognitive activities as they engage in academic tasks, such as solving math problems. The author demonstrates that self-regulation strategies can be used to improve the mathematics performance of students with learning disabilities at the elementary, middle, and secondary school levels (Montague, 2007).
Wisniewski and Smith (2002) present the Touch Math program — a series that emphasizes the use of manipulatives — and examine its efficacy. The authors explain that many students with disabilities encounter difficulties when using manipulatives, because they forget the amount already counted by the time they are ready to transfer their solutions to a worksheet. With the Touch Math program, however, students did not need to leave their question worksheets in order to record their answers. Students with disabilities were taught that each integer from 1 to 9 has a touch point that represents the value of that integer.
Wisniewski and Smith (2002) outline that this program employed three distinct modalities: auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. When math teachers use approaches that address all learning styles, students with disabilities are able to learn through their preferred modality while simultaneously reinforcing the others. The outcomes of the study indicated that all students using Touch Math substantially improved their performance in both accuracy and speed, based on tests administered before and after the program (Wisniewski and Smith, 2002).
Maag et al. (1993) studied the impact of self-monitoring on task behavior, academic efficiency, and academic accuracy with six elementary students who had learning disabilities. In the study, students were taught how to write down specific self-monitoring objectives and were prompted by a tape-recorded signal to record the number of questions completed, the number answered correctly, and their task behavior. Maag et al. (1993) found that self-monitoring increased both the accuracy and the number of questions successfully completed by fourth-grade students.
"Touch Math program improves accuracy and speed"
"Self-monitoring boosts task completion and accuracy"
"Schema-based instruction outperforms general strategy instruction"
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