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Improving Numeracy and Literacy Evaluation Report and Executive Summary
June 2015
Jack Worth, Juliet Sizmur, Rob Ager, Ben Styles
Summary
The Improving Numeracy and Literacy program randomly assigned schools into a control and treatment groups. One treatment group participated in a Mathematics and Reasoning program, aimed to improve second grade student mathematical skills. The second treatment group focused instead on spelling and reading. Both programs consisted of one hour per week of instruction for roughly three months. The results show that students who take part in the math program would be roughly three months ahead of students who did not after one year. Students in the spelling and reading group had no statistically significant benefit. Further, in the math program, an additional conclusion found that greater use of educational computer games produced an even stronger impact.
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Policy Implications
The results suggest that increased schooling programs in mathematics may be more effective than programs in language and reading. Further, they indicate that computer games involving math may be a very effective tool to aide in teaching.