Teaching K–3 Multi-Digit Arithmetic Computation to Students with Slow Language Processing

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to present three related studies that build on each other to demonstrate first the need and then the efficacy of the Blended Arithmetic Curriculum (BAC) to help students overcome both slow language processing and the environmental effects of being a student in an urban school district. The author’s underlying theory is that K–3 students with slow language processing may be good at complex reasoning, but still struggle with retrieving basic computational facts. Nonetheless, if they did not learn their facts, these students would struggle with K–3 multi-digit arithmetic computation, and ultimately struggle with their hypothesized strength: seeing numeric patterns as would be needed in university level computation. To teach arithmetic facts conceptually, the author developed a paper and pencil curriculum that first teaches complex multi-digit addition with regrouping using a limited number of facts such as 5 + 5, 9 + 1, 1 + 9; 7 + 7, 7 + 8, 8 + 7, and 8 + 8 in problems such as 197 + 108 = 305 so that fact retrieval and computation are fast and accurate. At the end of 2nd grade, urban students with learning disabilities solved 42 two-digit by two-digit problems with 92 percent accuracy in an average of 7 min. The results matched those of suburban students and were significantly faster and more accurate than general education students in the same urban school.

Keywords

• elementary computation
• cognitive processing
• special education
• visual processing
• speech and language processing
• learning differences