Affiliation:
1. Georgia State University
Abstract
Schema instruction improves word-problem solving for students with mathematics difficulty (MD; e.g., Powell et al., 2015 ); however, prior research suggests that students need word-problem-specific language comprehension in addition to schema knowledge to build word-problem models ( Fuchs et al., 2015 , 2018 ). Students have general word knowledge (e.g., more, less) but require word-problem-specific word knowledge to solve word problems successfully (e.g., more than, less than; Kintsch & Greeno, 1985 ). Prior word-problem schema interventions have not provided explicit instruction in word-problem vocabulary to support students’ development of word-problem models. We aimed to determine if word-problem vocabulary instruction combined with schema instruction provided an advantage to word-problem solving for third-grade students with MD. We randomly assigned 75 third graders with MD to three conditions: Word-problem intervention with explicit vocabulary instruction (WP + V), word-problem intervention without explicit vocabulary instruction (WP-only), and business-as-usual intervention (BAU). Students in the treatment conditions received 22, 50-min lessons provided virtually in small groups. On a word-problem vocabulary measure, students in the WP + V condition significantly outperformed students in the WP-only (ES = 0.43) and BAU (ES = 0.83) conditions. On a word-problem measure, students in the WP + V condition outperformed students in the WP-only (ES = 0.08) and BAU conditions (ES = 0.43), although these were not statistically significant. These findings provide preliminary support for the benefits of incorporating explicit vocabulary instruction in a word-problem schema intervention; future research is needed to fully understand the effect of vocabulary instruction on word-problem outcomes.
Funder
The Cleon C. Arrington Research Initiation Grant Program and the Center for Research on the Challenges of Acquiring Language and Literacy at Georgia State University.
Subject
Developmental and Educational Psychology,Education
Cited by
8 articles.
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