Second Grade Case Study Math—Money

Student Characteristics Female African American Free/Reduced Lunch Single mother who works long and sporadic hours (student sometimes has to stay with friends) One older sister, one younger brother Reads on a fourth grade reading level No special education (IEP or 504 plan)

Obstacles (Observations done from 3/16 to 4/30) Student would not attempt math problem written on the board in the beginning of class—she would write down the names in the problem and then write down random numbers that she could not explain to me. Student ignored the proper way to write money ($0.00) even when it was written on the paper in front of her. Student constantly said, “I want you to stand here while I do the problem.”

Intervention I Initially spent more time with this student than with any other student and tried to walk her through each step. While I was with her she had no trouble counting coins and adding amounts. She responded well to praise (“Wonderful job figuring out this problem on your own! See how smart you are?!”) However, the student craved attention so much that even though she could do the problems on her own, she wouldn’t do them unless I was there with her.

Intervention II Praise gave the student confidence but it did not foster independence. I began saying, “I’m proud that you figured this out, I knew you could do it! Now I know that you can do it on your own, show me!” and then I walked away instead of staying with her. When she knew I wasn’t going to stay there she worked on her own.

Results After two weeks of my new intervention, the student attempted and usually correctly solved the “beginning of class” problems. She scored 56% and 67% on the two quizzes I gave. Although this seems low it was a drastic improvement from the 0% she scored on the first worksheet. On the math test she scored a 53%. This was surprising and disappointing because she had been doing much better in class.