Preston Lewis
ABSTRACT
Math is a subject that most students in K-12 participate in every school day. This includes students with learning disabilities as they are equally accountable to meeting general math curriculum requirements. Project SMART provided digital versions of math textbooks modified to include MathML for use by eighth grade students with various learning disabilities. A goal of Project SMART was to determine whether these accessible digital textbooks improved student test performance as compared to control groups using the same texts in print format with a traditional oral accommodation. The study also examined the extent to which using accessible math impacted student perceptions about math abilities. Students and most teachers found the accessible digital textbooks preferable to the print versions. This was generally reflected in higher test scores as well as consistently positive responses from qualitative measures obtained from ongoing student and teacher surveys.
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Index Terms
- Using accessible math textbooks with students who have learning disabilities
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