Math Interventions

This page includes strategies you can use to support your student's ability to develop computational fluency for addition and subtraction facts. As you read the interventions below, consider which strategy is best aligned with your student's strengths and needs across whole-learner domains. 

Explicit Instruction

If you are intervening to support your student's ability to solve problems fluently, you should start by explicitly teaching the skill. This sounds like:

• Explain the Skill/Concept. Define fluency, and explain the activity. ("When we complete number facts, it's important that we can solve them automatically and accurately, so that we can devote our brain power to other parts of the problem. When we are able to complete facts automatically and accurately, this is called fluency." "Today, we will be learning strategies to become more fluent with our number facts." )
• Model Skill with Examples. Think aloud about how to solve a problem fluently.  ("Let's say I had the number fact 3 x 5. If I could solve this problem in less than a second, knowing that 3 x 5 is 15, that would show fluency, because I could solve it automatically, which means right away, and accurately, which means correctly.")
• Model Skill with Non-Examples. Think aloud about what happens when you can't solve a problem fluently. ("What if I had to draw circles or use cubes to solve this problem? That would end up taking a lot of time. Knowing this number fact automatically will help me do more difficult math problems.")
• Practice the Skill. Engage in one or more of the activities below to practice the skill with your student, providing feedback as necessary. ("Now you try. I'm going to show you...")

Activity A: Develop Understanding
If your student is struggling to solve single-digit multiplication and division facts, the first way you can intervene to support his understanding is by helping him develop his conceptual understanding of the big ideas behind the fact set (O'Connell & Sangiovanni, 2011). To do this, the teacher reads a piece of literature that reviews the big ideas of previously taught math facts and helps the student begin to explore the target fact set. For example, if a student was learning about x5 facts, the teacher would read Count on Pablo, a story about a boy and his grandmother selling vegetables at a market.

Develop Understanding In Action
Read the PDF below (O'Connell & SanGiovanni, 2011), which shows how a teacher would teach this intervention to a student who is learning to multiply and divide by 5. As you read, consider how this literature connection helps the student develop understanding of x5 facts. 

Literature Link - Multiply

O'Connell, S. & SanGiovanni, J. (2011). Mastering the basic math facts in multiplication and division: Strategies, activities, & interventions to move students beyond memorization. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Activity B: Explore the Class of Facts
Once your student has built understanding about the class of facts he is learning through reading literature, he is ready to practice using this fact set. In this intervention (O'Connell & Sangiovanni, 2011), a teacher engages the student with interactive activities that explore the class of facts he is learning. For example, if a student were learning about multiplying by 5, the teacher might use the following activities:

• Solve a story problem using pennies to help the student multiply by 5
• Make connectons between x5 facts and money concepts
• Make connections between x5 facts and telling time 

Explore the Class of Facts In Action
Read the PDF below (O'Connell & SanGiovanni, 2011), which shows how a teacher would teach this intervention to a student who is learning to multiply by 5. As you read, consider how this intervention might look if used to teach the other number facts. 

Explore Facts - Multiply by 5

O'Connell, S. & SanGiovanni, J. (2011). Mastering the basic math facts in multiplication and division: Strategies, activities, & interventions to move students beyond memorization. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Activity C: Build Automaticity with Cover-Copy-Compare (Multiplication and Division)
Once your student has developed conceptual understanding about a class of facts, he can practice Build Automaticity with Cover-Copy-Compare (Powell, 2011). This intervention strategy builds fluency with a class of facts, for use once a student has learned a reasonably efficient strategy appropriate to that class. The Evidence Based Intervention Network at the University of Virginia created the following brief to explain this strategy in more detail. As you read, consider why this strategy supports fluency.

Cover-Copy-Compare

Powell, S. (2011). Intervention Name: Cover, Copy, and Compare. Columbia, Mo: The Evidence Based Intervention Network, The University of Missouri. Retrieved from http://ebi.missouri.edu/?page_id=805

Now, watch Ama Awotwi implement this strategy with her intervention student. 

Build Automaticity with Cover-Copy-and-Compare in Action