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Number Worlds Results
Number Worlds has been developed and refined since the mid-1980s and has been the only such program to show proven results through years of rigorous field testing. These tests show how students who began at a disadvantage surpassed the performance of students who began on-level with their peers, simply with the help of the Number Worlds program.
As the figure below shows, the magnet school group began kindergarten with substantially higher scores on the Number Knowledge test than those children in the Number Worlds and control groups. The gap indicated a developmental lag that exceeded one year, and for many children in the Number Worlds group,that lag was closer to two years. By the end of the kindergarten year, however, the Number Worlds children had narrowed this gap to a small fraction of its initial size.
By the end of second grade, the Number Worlds children actually outperformed the magnet school group. In contrast, the initial gap between
the control group and the magnet school group did not narrow over time. The control group children did make steady progress over the 3 years; however, they were never able to catch up.
 Longitudinal study showing mean developmental scores in
mathematical knowledge during Grades K–2
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Building Blocks™ Software Results
Building Blocks ™ software was built on research conducted in a well-defined, rigorous, and complete fashion. Results indicate strong positive effects with achievement gains near or exceeding those recorded for individual tutoring. The Building Blocks™ software, incorporated into the Number Worlds program, is the result of National Science Foundation-funded research. Building Blocks includes research-based computer tools with activities and a management system that guides children through research-based learning trajectories. Building Blocks™ development was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Research. Phases of the research included: • Drafting curriculum goals • Building an explicit model of the learning trajectories of children's knowledge and learning for each goal • Creating initial activities and software • Assessing prototypes and curriculum with one-on-one interviews with students and teachers • Conducting field tests in numerous classrooms.   PDF Downloads: Educational Research Number Worlds Advantages Research Selected Publications The program is designed to:
• Build upon young children’s experiences with mathematics with activities that integrate ways to explore and represent mathematics • Involve children in “doing mathematics” • Establish a solid foundation • Develop a strong conceptual framework • Emphasize children’s mathematical thinking and reasoning abilities • Encourage learning in line with state and national standards This study tested Building Blocks against a comparable preschool math program and a no-treatment control group. All classrooms were randomly assigned, the "gold standard" of scientific evaluation. Building Blocks children significantly outperformed both the control group and the comparison group. Again, effect sizes doubled those usually considered "strong" and matched those of individual tutoring. As a result of the positive results, Building Blocks, under a grant from the U.S Department of Education, is now being tested in a rigorous scale-up study with random assignment in more than a hundred classrooms.  |
