HELP Math Content

HELP Math is the first digital, supplemental curriculum in the U.S. to address the specific issues of teaching mathematics to English language learners (ELLs) and students with special needs. The program comprehensively covers all math domains grades 3-8 and provides strong foundations in algebra and geometry for high school students.

HELP Math is also the first instructional program to successfully incorporate sheltered instruction practices into a comprehensive academic curriculum using technology. The sheltered instruction is designed to improve the learner's understanding of the content, while simultaneously developing their English language proficiency by:

  • Increasing comprehensibility by scaffolding the learning, e.g. breaking down concepts into small, comprehensible “learning chunks”; synchronizing visuals, audio and interactivity to create a visual connection between words, symbols, and meaning.
  • Building background knowledge and prerequisite skills.
  • Targeting vocabulary development by emphasizing math content language as well as academic English; available to students as hyperlinked words within the instruction, and within an online dictionary of mathematical terms, including audio.
  • Providing bilingual support for custom curriculum and assessment. Teacher has the option of switching on/off.
  • Explicitly teaching problem-solving and test-taking skills, providing multiple opportunities for student responses and immediate corrective feedback when errors are made.

This award-winning program engages students through interactive multimedia lessons that deliver key math terms and math concepts as small, focused learning objects so that students can easily understand and retain the math content. It also includes diagnostic assessment questions that are aligned to state standardized assessments.

Key Features:

  • Evidence-based: Gold Standard experimental research by the University of Colorado involving more than 1,000 students nationally showed significant increases in ELL student achievement.
  • Proven Effective: showing gains of more than 70%: for 6th and 7th grade ELL students on standards-aligned tests (NCTM) in independent research funded by the Colorado Department of Education.
  • Builds background knowledge and prerequisite mathematics skills.
  • Student-centered: enables students to engage with material at their own pace. On the computer, students can move faster or slower through a lesson depending on their ability.
  • Scaffolds learning by breaking concepts into small learning chunks with clear modeling of solution and directions, followed by interactive student practice.
  • HELP support tools may be accessed anytime and phased out when they are no longer needed. Tools include: Key Terms Dictionary & Hyperlinks (pictures and audio in English and Spanish); Bilingual Support (content and assessments); Need More Help Buttons (descriptive, immediate feedback); Virtual Manipulatives & Interactivities (protractor, number lines, base-10 blocks).
  • Highly interactive, colorful and musical: triggers multiple modalities, incorporating voice, music, visuals, text, and interactivity.
  • Aligns directly to math standards: Common Core State Standards, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and to ELL state content standards and assessment frameworks for mathematics (grades 3-8).

  • Teaches problem-solving and test-taking skills: how to read, comprehend and answer look-alike questions from state standardized math tests.
  • Uses visual representation to make content comprehensible without simplification.
  • Provides interactive feedback: constructive suggestions for improvement.

 

 

 

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