Special Education-Research and Innovation to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities- NCSER-CASL G3 Evaluating the Efficacy of Enhanced Anchored Instruction for Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities in Math

The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy of Enhanced Anchored Instruction (EAI). Based on studies funded by the Cognition and Student Learning Goal 2 Research Program, EAI now includes instructional strategies and learning materials that are embedded in the problem-solving anchors for improving the computational skills (e.g., adding, subtracting fractions) of students with learning disabilities in math (MLD). Answering the question of how best to integrate instruction of higher and lower order math skills is important because many teachers of students with MLD are reluctant to teach challenging problems before their students have mastered basic skills. These teaching practices can often lead students to dislike math and may drastically reduce their motivation to learn it.