California State University, Long Beach

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Effectiveness of Touch Math for Teaching Addition
to Kindergarten Students

• California State University, Long Beach
• Vanessa Velasco, M.A.
• Kristin Powers, Ph.D., NCSP

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Acknowledgments

• Bradly Snyder
• Bridgette Molina
• Gerianne Alaghehband
• Lydia Velasco
• Norma Salazar
• Tamara Cornette
• Lindsay Tartre, Ph. D.
• Shuhua An, Ph.D.
• The Kindergarten class who participated

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Introduction

• The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
  (2000) claims that fluency, accuracy, and
  automaticity with math facts are precursors to
  learning more advanced math.
• Current teaching practices include drill and
  practice techniques, memorization, manipulatives,
  and worksheets
• Teachers incorporate supplemental material into
  lesson plans to reach a diverse group of students

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What is Touch Math?

• A multi-sensory, supplemental curriculum that
  attempts to bridge the gap between manipulation
  and memorization of math facts (Bullock, 2000
  Grattino, 2004)
• Follows the sequential learning strategies
  endorsed by Bruner, Piaget, and Vygotsky in their
  developmental theories
• Students point to, touch, and count dots
  representing the quantity of a number

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Statement of the Problem

• Presently there is limited research on the
  effectiveness of Touch Math and none on general
  education setting with kindergarten students
• There is even less information available from
  studies that included treatment and comparison
  groups through an experimental design

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Purpose of the Study

• Question
• Is Touch Math an effective supplemental math
  program for teaching addition to kindergarten
  students?
• Hypothesis
• Kindergarten students in the Touch Math group
  will demonstrate larger gains on the math-post
  test than students in the comparison and control
  groups.

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Why is This Study Important

• There is little research available
• The effects of teaching Touch Math to
  kindergarten students is unknown
• Very few comparison studies have been conducted,
  and none have employed experimental designs

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What Does the Literature Say?

• A growing awareness in early childhood
  mathematics has expanded the knowledge base about
  learning, teaching, and research-based curriculum
  and instruction (NAEYC NCTM, 2000).
• High-quality, challenging, and accessible
  mathematics education for 3-6 year old children
  is a vital foundation for future mathematics
  learning

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Literature continued

• The developmental theorists suggest that children
  transition from the concrete to the pictorial
  stages of development and end at the symbolic
  stage, which is a later stage where memorization
  and higher levels of cognition are developed.
• The emphasis on evidence-based interventions in
  No Child Left Behind and Individuals with
  Disabilities Improvement Acts warrants a more
  careful analysis of the effects of Touch Math on
  student outcomes.

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Literature continued

• Supplemental instruction is part of a larger
  concept known as Response to Intervention (RTI),
  which is a proactive approach to providing
  students with specialized instruction prior to
  failing in an academic area (Murawski Hughes,
  2009)
• Touch Math is a supplemental program that could
  be used at all levels of instruction

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Quasi-Experimental Studies

• A study conducted by Dev, Doyle, and Valente
  (n.d.) included eleven participants who were
  referred by their teachers for evaluation during
  their kindergarten year.
• Taught TM in 1st grade and reviewed as necessary
  in 2nd grade.
• Pre- post-test results indicated that 75 of
  students scored higher than grade level in math

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Quasi-Experimental Studies

• Dulgarian (n.d.) employed a quasi-experimental
  group design with twenty 4th and 5th grade
  students in special education at a Title I school
  for 45 minutes, 3 days a week, for 10 weeks
• Group I instructed in TM
• Group II instructed in Math Steps
• TM group scored 68 correct on pre-test and 82
  correct on post-test
• Math Steps group scored 71 correct and 78
  correct on the pre- and post-tests, respectively

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Single Subject Studies

• A study by Wisniewski and Smith (2002)
• 4 students in 3rd and 4th grade special education
• Received instruction in mathematics for 45
  minutes daily (20 minutes were dedicated to TM)
  for 14 weeks.
• Student 1 Pre-test 85 in 5 minutes. Post-test
  100 in 5 minutes
• Student 2 Pre-test 98 in10 minutes. Post-test
  95 in 4 minutes
• Student 3 Pre-test 100 in7 minutes. Post-test
  100 in 4 minutes
• Student 4 Pre-test 23 in 8 minutes . Post-test
  93 in 4 minutes

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Single Subject Studies

• A very brief Touch Math intervention was
  conducted by Rudolph (2008) with her third grade
  students at a suburban school in North Carolina
• After one week of instruction for 30 minutes
  daily, all students (N 17) except for one
  improved in the number of problems completed
  correctly.

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Satisfaction Surveys

• The developers of Touch Math, Innovative Learning
  Concepts, Inc., conducted a survey (Grattino,
  2004) to understand how educators use Touch Math,
  how it has helped them in their classrooms, and
  to gain a better understanding of the impact
  Touch Math has had on teachers and students.
• Approximately 99.8 of respondents indicated that
  Touch Math was an effective supplemental math
  program.

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Methodology

• Subjects
• 26 Kindergarteners from a low-income parochial
  school in Santa Ana, CA.
• 58 female, 42 male
• 54 5 years old, 42 6 years old
• 92 Hispanic
• 27 English Language Learner
• 69 Bilingual
• Chi square analyses found no significant
  difference between the four groups in terms of
  gender, race, disability status or bilingual
  language skills.

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Methodology

• Instruments Used (Pre-Post Test Measures)
• DIBELS Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) probe
  (Good Kaminski, 2001)
• Curriculum Based Measure-Addition (CBM-A)
  worksheet (20 single digit addition problems
  using numbers 0 6)

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Assessment Integrity Checks

• PSF Assessment Integrity 42 of the PSF
  administrations were observed and 97 of
  behaviors on the PSF integrity worksheet were
  observed. The most common mistake was that
  directions were not read verbatim.
• Math Assessment Integrity 20 of the worksheets
  were scored twice, the inter-rater agreement was
  100.

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Intervention Integrity Checks

• 20 of the intervention sessions were observed.
• The interventionists were observed leading each
  of the 3 groups.
• A 10 item intervention plan implementation
  checklist was developed.
• Touch Math 98 accurate
• Phonemic Awareness Math group 98 accurate
• California Math group 85 accurate (one
  interventionist replaced after first week)
• Most common mistake was not consistently
  providing positive reinforcement.

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Methodology

• Procedure
• Students randomly assigned to 4 groups
• Three interventionists rotated to a new group
  every two weeks (all volunteers)
• Pre-tests administered to all students
  (counter-balanced)
• 45 minutes of daily instruction for a total 18
  days.
• Post-tests administered to all students
• Extended math post-test administered to all
  students six weeks later (math Time 2).

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Results

• The data from the pre- and post-test were
  analyzed by Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) with
  the pre-test serving as the covariate.
• Follow-up pairwise t-tests were conducted on
  significant ANCOVA results.

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Results

• Math Post-Test 1 The means were not
  statistically different.
• F (3, 22) 2.94, p .33
• CA Math 17.00
• TM 13.17
• PA 6.20
• Control 8.43
• PSF Post-Test The means were statistically
  different.
• F (3, 25) 15.60, p lt .001 Pairwise post test
  indicate PA group performed significantly better
  than the other groups.
• CA Math 17.17
• TM8.50
• PA 39.50
• Control 9.00

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Results

• Math Extended Post-Test 3 Most means were
  statistically different. F (3, 25) 9.68, p lt
  .05
• CA Math 19.79
• TM 20.00
• PA 10.58
• Control 8.96
• Pairwise follow-up comparisons found both math
  groups to significantly outperform PA (plt.05) and
  Control (plt.01) groups.

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Effect Sizes (Cohens d)
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Conclusion

• Both math programs improved students mastery of
  single digit addition 6 weeks after the
  intervention. Neither was more effective than the
  other.
• It is important to compare similar academic
  interventions
• Small group instruction in phonemic awareness
  produced the largest effects.
• May be a result of stronger connection between
  curriculum and assessment.

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Conclusion

• Limitations
• Small sample size
• Study took place in a parochial school, results
  may not generalize to public school settings
• Student Behavior
• Training and experience of volunteer
  interventionists
• Length and duration of interventions
• Teacher advised students to use their fingers on
  1st post-test

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Conclusion

• Implications
• Although students learn new techniques they may
  require further instruction on when to use the
  newly acquired skills (generalization)
• Touch Math is a systematic, sequenced, and
  structured program that shows promise for
  teaching a diverse group of students how to add.