EFFECTS OF MATHEMATICAL WORD PROBLEM-SOLVING BY STUDENTS AT RISK OR WITH MILD DISABILITIES

The differential effects of 2 instructional strategies, an explicit sc hema-based strategy and a traditional basal strategy, on the acquisiti on, maintenance, and generalization of mathematical word problem solvi ng were examined. Thirty-four elementary-aged students with mild disab ilities or at risk for mathematics failure were randomly assigned to e ach of the 2 treatment conditions (schema and traditional), Results in dicated that both groups' performance increased from the pretest to th e posttest. All students were able to maintain their use of word probl em-solving skills and generalized the strategy effects to novel word p roblems. However, the differences between groups on the posttest, dela yed posttest, and generalization test were statistically significant, favoring the schema group. In addition, scores on the immediate postte st (77% correct) and delayed posttest (81% correct) for the schema gro up approached those of a normative sample of 3rd graders (M = 82% corr ect).