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Overview1
Program Description2
Saxon Elementary School Math, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is a core curriculum for students in kindergarten through grade 5. A distinguishing feature of Saxon Elementary School Math is its use of a distributed approach, as opposed to a chapter-based approach, for instruction and assessment. The program is built on the premise that students learn best when instruction is incremental and explicit, previously learned concepts are continually reviewed, and assessment is frequent and cumulative. At each grade level, math concepts are introduced, reviewed, and practiced over time in order to move students from understanding to mastery to fluency. For grades K–3, the Saxon Elementary School Math curriculum emphasizes hands-on activities and teacher-directed math conversations that engage students in learning. The curriculum for grades 4–5 also uses math conversations to introduce new concepts, and shifts the focus to student-directed learning.
Research3
One study of Saxon Elementary School Math that falls within the scope of the Elementary School Math review protocol meets What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards, and two studies meet WWC evidence standards with reservations. The three studies included students in grades K–5 from 325 schools in 19 states.4
Based on these three studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for Saxon Elementary School Math on elementary school students to be medium to large for mathematics achievement.
Effectiveness
Saxon Elementary School Math was found to have mixed effects on mathematics achievement.
| Math achievement | |
|---|---|
| Rating of effectiveness | Mixed effects |
| Improvement index5 | Average: +5 percentile points Range: –1 to +12 percentile points |
1 This report has been updated to include reviews of 13 studies that have been released since 2005. Of the additional studies, 6 were not within the scope of the protocol and 5 were within the scope of the protocol but did not meet evidence standards. A complete list and disposition of all studies reviewed are provided in the references.
2 The descriptive information for this program was obtained from a publicly available source: the program’s website (http://saxonpublishers.hmhco.com/en/saxonpublishers.htm, downloaded June 2010). The WWC requests developers to review the program description sections for accuracy from their perspective. Further verification of the accuracy of the descriptive information for this program is beyond the scope of this review.
3 The studies in this report were reviewed using WWC Evidence Standards, Version 1.0 (see the WWC Standards), as described in protocol Version 1.0.
4 The evidence presented in this report is based on available research. Findings and conclusions may change as new research becomes available.
5 These numbers show the average and range of student-level improvement indices for findings across two of the three studies. It was not possible to calculate improvement indices for Resendez and Manley (2005) due to the lack of student-level data.