Accelerated Math Success - Accelerated Math

With Accelerated Math, classrooms, schools, and districts have transformed math learning.

Here are some current examples of that success:

Rural South Dakota school goes “all in” with
Accelerated Math for state test prep. Test scores, confidence in math on
the rise at St. Louis high school.

Differentiated instruction key to steep
math gains in CA classroom.

See more Success Stories and view our Extraordinary Educators Newsletter.

Rural South Dakota school goes “all in” with Accelerated Math for state test prep.

Castlewood Elementary, a small rural school in northeastern South Dakota, started using Accelerated Math seven years ago, and fourth-grade teacher Mark Iverson says there’s no feasible way they’d ever give it up.

“We have completely revamped our rooms and changed our way of thinking,” said Iverson. “I couldn’t imagine going back to a textbook and paper. Textbooks just can’t compete with what Accelerated Math can do.”

Used in grades kindergarten through six, the math program allows Iverson and other Castlewood teachers to print practices from the day’s lesson, customized for each individual. All students receive immediate results on their work as soon as they scan in their answers.

“The teacher, as well as the student, instantly knows if the material was understood,” Iverson said. “No waiting for the next day, correcting papers for hours, or lost papers associated with the pre-Accelerated Math days.”

This means that no valuable time is lost, either. Advanced students are further challenged, while struggling students get the on-the-spot attention and additional practice they need. This year, Iverson’s students can also generate and score assignments—even review their progress—right from their home computers using Renaissance Home Connect.

“My struggling students have enjoyed the fact that they can get the next practice at home so they can get caught up,” Iverson said.

To help ensure that students don’t slip through the cracks and fall behind, Castlewood tracks student growth with STAR Math. The data available through STAR Math and Accelerated Math also help pace classroom instruction, offer alternate methods of instruction for a particular objective, and indicate student progress with respect to state standards. Iverson said that students at Castlewood move seamlessly from daily math practice with Accelerated Math to South Dakota’s State Test of Educational Progress (STEP).

“Accelerated Math has questions that are formulated very similar to most standardized tests, so they don’t waste time and effort trying to figure out what the question is asking,” Iverson said. “The other contributing factor to their success is the program’s daily reviews on previously mastered objectives. We may be talking about fractions on the current objective, but their practice will also include multiplication word problems from 20 days ago.”

Castlewood’s success with Accelerated Math stems from jumping in with both feet from the beginning. Despite ongoing funding challenges typical of a small school, each classroom received a scanner, laser printer, and laptop. Students were given folders with library card pockets inside for their scan cards.

“Each classroom turned into a self-sufficient, intensive, and engaged math paradise!” Iverson said. “We knew that for the program to succeed, we needed to go all in. The nice thing about Accelerated Math is that each and every student will succeed because it’s so individualized.”

Differentiated instruction key to steep math gains in CA classroom.

Differentiation is the goal for classroom instruction, but admittedly not easy to do—unless you have Accelerated Math, says John Daffron who teaches second and third grade at Newport Heights Elementary School in Newport Beach, California.

“With Accelerated Math, you have a differentiated math program for every student—one so individualized that every strength and weakness is clearly defined and can be acted on immediately,” Daffron said. "The amount of feedback and the daily interaction with each child make it impossible for anyone to fall through the cracks."

Test scores, confidence in math on the rise at St. Louis high school.

Since implementing Accelerated Math, Clyde C. Miller Career Academy in St. Louis, Missouri has made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for two years in a row—a remarkable achievement in a district that lost its accreditation several years ago.

“We credit our success with two things: a collaborative work of the team of freshman teachers and the use of Accelerated Math,” said Clyde C. Miller math teacher Victoria Shearing.

In Clyde C. Miller’s first year of Accelerated Math use, state test scores quadrupled from 6% proficiency to 24%. The second year, scores again increased significantly to 36% proficiency. This year, Shearing says the academy will make AYP for the third year in a row and their test score expectation is 45% proficiency.

These advancements are no small feat at a high school where students arrive two to three years below grade level in mathematics. Clyde C. Miller Career Academy, a public school that offers qualifying students technical training and certification as well as high school diplomas, has a high-minority, high-poverty population with 78% of students on free and reduced lunch.

Most of our students come to us after many years of failure in math, not believing they can succeed anymore,” Shearing said. “They’ve never had individualized assignments, and they’ve never been individually recognized at the levels that Accelerated Math allows me to do it. With Accelerated Math, they know that it’s all about their unique goals and they’re not lost in the masses.”

Accelerated Math was initially tested on a limited scale at the school to see how it would help prepare students for the End of Course examinations in Algebra. It was so effective that the program is now used by all high schools and middle schools in the district.

The practice students get through Accelerated Math has benefited Clyde C. Miller students in many ways. Shearing says they have better opportunity to truly learn the concepts through repeated exposure to problems, and the individualized assignments allow them to learn qualitatively, not quantitatively or vicariously through other students.

“Students have to actually work for their results, and they own those results,” said Shearing, who uses the Status of the Class Report daily as a concrete way to hold students accountable for doing the work and scoring their assignments. “Individualized assignments lead to ownership of the knowledge, which in turn increases their confidence and their enthusiasm for schoolwork.”