AMHERST — A K-5 mathematics program in the Amherst and Pelham elementary schools, being used in classrooms since fall 2022, appears to be succeeding in getting more students to their grade level, including for children whose first language is not English.

With the objective of the iReady Classroom Math K-5 classroom to bring equity and access to math instruction and to reduce opportunity gaps, Mary Kiely, the district’s curriculum coordinator, told the Amherst School Committee at its Dec. 19 meeting that the initiative has already made a huge difference, bringing more students’ math skills to at or above their grade level.

Kiely said iReady has benefited all language learners, even as opportunity gaps remain. “But I can tell you that over the course of the year, in all groups, it did improve,” Kiely said.

Previously, using an outdated curriculum at the four schools, fewer than one in three students were at or above grade level with math. Of 890 students assessed at that time, 261 students, or just under 30%, were at or above grade level, with 435 students, or almost half, one grade level below, and the remaining 194, or 22% of students, two or more grade levels below.

After the first full year, with 899 elementary students assessed, there had been improvements, with 591 students, or 66%, at or above grade level, and down to just 73 students, or 8%, two or more years below grade level.

Kiely said iReady was pursued because, as someone who had taught at the high school, she observed different levels of ability and gaps in learning. “There was very little consistency across the district, and math is a sequential subject,” Kiely said.

That prompted the district to put together committee of 20 people to research options for a new curriculum. The Math Review Committee, a districtwide math leadership team, examined options and eventually winnowed out competing curricula, settling on the iReady curriculum.

Then, the district sought competitive funding, receiving an Accelerating Mathematics Instruction for Students Program grant from the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. About $300,000 has been received, with the money in the first year paying for materials and a digital license.

Kiely said iReady is an advanced curriculum, using computer adaptive testing, so that if a student answers correctly, the next question is harder, and if a student answers incorrectly, the next question is easier.

“It’s very comprehensive. Even though it only takes 60 to 90 minutes, it provides information about student progress in the four domains of math: algebra, geometry, data, and number sense and operations,” Kiely said.

IReady has also proven to be a powerful tool for teachers to use, she said, though it has been time consuming for teachers to move to so-called pre-teaching, better preparing students for the math concepts they will encounter.

“What it makes possible is pre-teaching, rather than just constant re-teaching, and that feels very, very different to students,” Kiely said. “So a teacher can look ahead and know that a lesson is coming up and see what kind of instruction students will need to be successful with these grade-level standards.”

A diagnostic assessment tool with iReady also creates a “prerequisites report” to identify the particular supports students need. “It takes a lot of the guesswork out of it,” Kiely said.

IReady is considered a curriculum that supports math learning in Spanish, important in a district where more than a quarter of students identify as Latino, and where the Caminantes dual language program continues at Fort River School. Outside of Spanish, though, iReady also has family support resources available in 15 languages.

The curriculum includes making cultural connections. Kiley showed examples, including a math problem narrative using a futon, a traditional Japanese mattress, and another math lesson that references the Junkanoo festival in the Bahamas, a celebration with origins in West Africa.

“There’s a recognition, I think, in this curriculum, that identity is intersectional,” Kiely said.

Professional development for teachers is offered through the iReady classroom, and math specialists in each building were redeployed as math coaches to help teachers with the curriculum. The district used federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief money to fill-in gaps, as intervention work with students still had to be done.

Kiely said the company behind iReady has told the district that it typically takes three years to see the full impact from the curriculum.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.