Math games: High 5s program brings the ‘math out of play’

April 11, 2022
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In Michigan, large class sizes can make it challenging for teachers to meet each child’s individual math learning needs

CYNTHIA MESZAROS

PRINCIPAL

Clarence Randall Elementary School

When kindergarteners aren’t successful, then you have academic and behavioral struggles. University of Michigan education researchers have developed a game-based program called “High 5s Math” that is helping teachers better understand each student’s needs and instill a lifelong love of math

ESTALEE

STUDENT

Clarence Randall Elementary School

When I play math games with my teacher, they’re really, really fun and they help me learn.

COLTEN

STUDENT

Clarence Randall Elementary School

When I play math games, I feel nice.

ROBIN JACOB

FACULTY CO-DIRECTOR, YOUTH POLICY LAB

University of Michigan

There’s a lot that is fun about math. And it is often taught in a way that makes kids feel anxious and not inspired, and so we wanted to have their early first experiences with math be something that was really joyful and exciting.

LINDSEY BARNARD

FIRST GRADE TEACHER

Clarence Randall Elementary School

Children at this age love games. And so when they are learning, they don’t feel like they’re learning. We kind of get to sneak that in, and they have fun, they’re engaged.

KENDALL

STUDENT

Clarence Randall Elementary School

There was these cards, there was dots on them, and we were pretending that they were chocolate chips to feed to the monster.

EVERETT

STUDENT

Clarence Randall Elementary School

If you pick the even number, you hang it on the clothesline. And if you get the stinky socks, you take all of them off.

[class]

Stinky socks!

JACOB [no onscreen name]

Small group work is really, really powerful. It allows the teacher to really understand what children know and don’t know.

[classroom – Barnard]

Andrew, you came up with that answer so fast. How did you get it?

BARNARD [no onscreen name]

They like to explain their thinking now, they like to show me like, Hey, I did this and this is how I 1:37 lc both the “a” as shown

did it, and this is why I did it, and this is how I got to this answer.

So I think High Fives have really geared them to have that mathematical thinking and language.

BROOKLYN

STUDENT

Clarence Randall Elementary School

The string is actually kind of like a number line.

DEB HUBBARD

HIGH 5S PROJEDT COORDINATOR,

YOUTH POLICY LAB

University of Michigan

When a teacher asks a child to explain their mathematical thinking and to describe the strategy they used to solve a problem, that tells a child that their thinking is valued here in the math classroom, that their ideas matter.

MESZAROS [no onscreen name]

Through the High Fives program, I have seen our students show confidence in what they have learned.

JAELYNN

STUDENT

Clarence Randall Elementary School

I’m really good at math, and I like the hard kind of questions.

After implementing the High 5s math program, Randall Elementary’s kindergarten math scores improved by 15% over the previous year

MESZAROS [no onscreen name]

And the University of Michigan is providing an opportunity to strengthen teacher efficacy in meeting students where they are and, most importantly, giving students the opportunity to own their learning.

BARNARD [no onscreen name]

High Fives has definitely supported new thinking in the way that I teach math now. It’s definitely given me a different tool in my toolbox.

MESZAROS [no onscreen name]

This year, we have moved it into our first grade classes. So we’re gonna take that learning from the lower grades and continue to spread it up through so that it is building wide across the grades.

TAYLOR—While groups of first graders work in clusters at pods around the classroom, four children face their teacher at a U-shaped desk, backs straight and eyes alert as she deals cards to each of them.

They’re playing “Chocolate Chip Count,” a game that will teach them basic math skills almost without them knowing it. It’s the educational equivalent of hiding vegetables in the macaroni and cheese. And the kids at Randall Elementary School in Taylor love it.

The cards feature chocolate chips that the kids count and then write their sums on a blank card. One young girl reads out her cards “10 plus five equals 15.”

“How did you know that?” the teacher asks. After they answer, the teacher tells them to feed the card to the monster face attached to a plastic jar.

“I really love math. Playing the game really helps me find out more math problems and, it’s really fun,” said Kendall Goins, 7.

Another game the kids call stinky socks involves children hanging numbers on a clothesline in order from 1 to 20. If they pull a stinky sock card, all the cards come down and the game begins again.

“I’m really good at stinky socks,” said Colten McClure, 7. “When I play math games, I feel nice.”

Liz Biddle, a school improvement coordinator for the Taylor School District in Wayne County, was the first to suggest trying High 5s, a math enrichment program developed by the University of Michigan to help close the achievement gap. The hands-on, small-group program is being implemented for kindergartners and first graders at Randall and Myers schools in Taylor.

Biddle said that results from the 2017-18 school year indicated that 50% of Randall’s kindergarten students were scoring at grade level by the end of the year. One year later, 70% of the students were performing at grade level.

“So we had almost all kids on grade level before they left us, which was amazing,” she said.

The first five years of a child’s life are considered the most critical for development, but learning opportunities lag for many children, particularly those from low-income households, said Robin Jacob, research associate professor and founder of U-M’s Youth Policy Lab.

Robin Jacob, associate professor and founder of the Youth Policy Lab, and colleagues developed a math enrichment program called High 5s to help close the achievement gap. Image credit: Eric Bronson

Robin Jacob, research associate professor and founder of the Youth Policy Lab, and colleagues developed a math enrichment program called High 5s to help close the achievement gap. Image credit: Eric Bronson

A study found the program increased kindergartners’ math performance by 15%. As the name suggests, students are given plenty of positive reinforcement as they progress.

Programs such as High 5s are important to balance out the emphasis placed on literacy skills in the early grades, Jacob said.

“We wanted to make math learning fun. There’s a lot that is fun about math, and it is often taught in a way that makes kids feel anxious and not inspired,” she said. “And so we wanted to have their early first experiences with math be something that was really joyful and exciting so that they would have positive feelings toward math as they continue their education.”

Early math instruction is highly predictive of childhood success on a number of different outcomes. Early math predicts both later math and reading skills. It predicts the likelihood of graduating from high school and of attending college, Jacob said.

“We have seen with the early math work that we’ve done in New York City that participation in preschool and kindergarten math enrichment leads to improved outcomes in third grade,” she said. “We’ve seen a lot of success in Taylor, and we are hoping to engage with other school districts across the state so that we can share the program with more teachers and young students throughout Michigan.”

Jacob and fellow U-M researchers Anna Erickson and Kristi Hanby developed the High 5s program and associated training with MDRC co-collaborators Shira Mattera and Pamela Morris. It was first tested in 24 New York City schools and produced positive results for student math skills. The program was originally inspired by the Building Blocks preschool curriculum developed by Doug Clements and Julie Sarama.

Cynthia Meszaros, principal of Randall Elementary School, said she’s been pleased by the program and how it’s supported students in the kindergarten and first-grade classrooms.

“High 5s brought in all the pieces that helped children build on their success,” she said.

“When kindergartners aren’t successful, then you have academic and behavioral struggles.

First-grade teacher Lindsey Barnard said at first she was apprehensive about implementing a new curriculum in the classroom with everything else going on.

“But fitting High 5s into our math curriculum seemed pretty seamless,” she said. “We already do small groups every day. Usually, those small groups are intervention groups, and so the High 5s curriculum took out that extra planning that we needed to do for those intervention groups.”

She received training from the U-M team and a chance to provide feedback on how it was working.

“I can use this game to help reinforce addition or help reinforce shapes. So it’s definitely giving me a different tool in my toolbox,” Barnard said. “I was surprised at how well the program still allows you to be flexible in your teaching. I can use the games and still use my own teaching style to present it.”

Lindsey Barnard, a first-grade teacher at Randall Elementary in Taylor, says she was apprehensive about implementing a new curriculum in the classroom with everything else going on, but that "fitting High 5s into our math curriculum seemed pretty seamless." Image credit: Eric Bronson

Lindsey Barnard, a first-grade teacher at Randall Elementary in Taylor, says she was apprehensive about implementing a new curriculum in the classroom with everything else going on, but that “fitting High 5s into our math curriculum seemed pretty seamless.” Image credit: Eric Bronson

Part of the program also includes monitoring by U-M to find ways to fine-tune the program. Deb Hubbard, a research associate with the Youth Policy Lab, visits Taylor periodically to observe how students and teachers work with the High 5s curriculum.

The games are designed to “bring math out of the play,” she said. And because the teacher is interacting with the students while they play, they can talk to the students about their mathematical thinking and learn the strategies they use to come up with answers. And that gives teachers information about what each child understands and also lets the child know that their ideas are valued.

“And then they can really see their kids as individual learners and know what is the next best instructional move for that child,” Hubbard said. “What students learn is fundamentally connected with how they learn it. High 5s promotes new practices to build these teachers’ skills and confidence as exceptional math educators, which is vital to improving student achievement.”

While early literacy interventions are widespread, similar programs in math are just beginning. And that’s good news for some students.

“I like math more than reading when I play math games with my teacher,” said Estelee Chivelli, a first grader at Randall Elementary.

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