Basic math skills improving at all Lincoln County schools

STANFORD — Lincoln County elementary students are showing huge improvements in quick and basic math skills, which could be good news down the road when they're preparing to take the ACT.

That was the takeaway last week when District Curriculum Coordinator Jim Ward showed Board of Education members how well students had performed on recent "automaticity" tests, which gauge students' ability to immediately perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems.

Districtwide, students have improved their mathematical accuracy by 16.6 percent during this school year, Ward said.

Students got 65 percent of the math problems presented to them correct when they were tested in the fall. When they were tested again in the winter, they got 81 percent of the problems correct.

The data, which were gathered by teachers and assembled by Ward show students at every elementary school in the district have improved by anywhere from 17 to 23.9 percent.

Waynesburg Elementary showed the largest improvement. Students there got 57 percent of their math problems correct in the fall and 81 percent correct in the winter.

While students at McGuffey Sixth-Grade Center, Lincoln County Middle School, Lincoln County High School and Fort Logan High School didn't show as large a gain, they still improved overall on scores that were already above 80 percent, Ward said.

Lincoln County High School Principal Tim Godbey said he expects to see automaticity tests be "a major factor" in improving ACT scores once students who are currently in the second and third grades reach the high school level.

Automaticity tests help students get used to performing under time constraints, which is a major component of the ACT, he said.

It's possible improving students' basic math skills will make more advanced mathematics easier to comprehend, too, Godbey said.

"What we hope is that the better they get with automaticity, the less they will struggle with the algebra content," he said.

Lincoln automaticity test results

• Crab Orchard Elementary students got 60 percent of their math problems correct in the fall. They got 78 percent correct in the winter.
• Highland Elementary students got 59 percent correct in the fall. They got 76 percent correct in the winter.
• Hustonville Elementary students got 60 percent correct in the fall. They got 81 percent correct in the winter.
• McKinney Elementary students got 61 percent correct in the fall. They got 79 percent correct in the winter.
• Stanford Elementary students got 58 percent correct in the fall. They got 78 percent correct in the winter.
• Waynesburg Elementary students got 57 percent correct in the fall. They got 81 percent correct in the winter.
• McGuffey Sixth-Grade Center students got 83 percent correct in the fall. They got 89 percent correct in the winter.
• Lincoln County Middle School students got 90 percent correct in the fall. They got 93 percent correct in the winter.
• Lincoln County High School students got 88 percent correct in the fall. They improved incrementally but still scored at the 88-percent level in the winter.
• Fort Logan High School students got 83 percent correct in the fall. They got 86 percent correct in the winter.