Content area
Full Text
This study report uses standard group comparison paradigm in attempting to develop and standardize a 116-item graded math test through survey, covering a sample of 196 children identified with learning disabilities and having laggard math grade level performance between kindergarten and class four levels, and hailing from different streams of curriculum. Their chronological age ranges from seven to 18 years. The steps employed in the tool development process, procedure of administration, scoring and the interpretative norms are described. Results show that children with math competencies are characteristically located at three distinct tiers of grade levels ranging from pre-arithmetic to primary and post primary school levels. The derived norms across grade levels help identify, classify and categorize contemporary math levels in a given child or groups of children. The reliability-validity estimates and qualitative observations on item analysis are reported thereby staking claim as a useful diagnostic tool for planning or programming math related remediation activities in children having arithmetic delays or disabilities in our country.
Keywords: Grade Scores, Arithmetic Age, Academic Problems
Grade appropriate math performance is a major challenge for teachers and students. The foundation for math competency in children can be traced to their number sense. This includes number representation, relations, recitation, serialization, ordering, sequencing, counting, reading and recognition (Purusotham & Venkatesan, 2011 ; McLeish, 1991 ; Burge, 1986). Following acquisition of pre-arithmetic competency during kindergarten or preschool years through activities like classification and categorization, mastery of discriminants (moreless, on-under, big-small, before-after, forwardbackward, ascending-descending), the child progresses into the next phase or grades during primary school when they master basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division (Butterworth, 2005). Later, they move ahead in middle school to be exposed to application based statement problems, before they take on higher level functions like fractions, proportions and percentages (Bottage, Grant, Stephens & Rueda, 2010), or much more advanced math processes like square roots, cube roots, measurements, applied geometry, trigonometry, elementary banking and accountancy (Tipps, Johnson & Kennedy, 2011 ). In this sense, mathematics forms one of the most systematic, sequential and scientific subjects with a well-knit organization and pattern of abstract ideas and concepts.
While typical children progress through a relatively understandable sequence of math development pattern, there are unanswered questions on how it could...