The U.S. Department of Education’s Math Now: Advancing Math Education in Elementary and Middle School initiative points out that U.S. students are performing below their international peers in mathematics and science.

• 15-year-olds in the United States performed below the international average in mathematics literacy and problem solving on the most recent Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)
• 7 percent of U.S. students in fourth and eighth grade achieved an advanced level on the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS), compared with 38 percent of Singaporean fourth grade students and 44 percent of Singaporean eighth grade students

The design of Transitional Mathematics (TransMath) is based on one of the key TIMSS findings: that students should explore fewer topics in greater depth.

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A lot has changed in the nearly 30 years since Sopris West began. The company’s first product was STAMM (Systematic Teaching and Measuring of Mathematics), a math curriculum by Larry Bradsby that was designated a U.S. Department of Education exemplary program.

Overseeing Sopris West's growing math product line today is product manager and consultant Lynda McKelvey, whose first experience with the development of a Sopris West program was while she was teaching sixth and eighth grade mathematics.

McKelvey started her 14-year teaching career in language arts, but, after agreeing to teach a math class for students who were struggling to pass the subject before entering junior high, she “fell in love with math.”

“Knowing I could actually integrate some of the language arts into the mathematics classroom by doing some writing with math, I felt like I had the best of both worlds,” McKelvey says. “Writing in and of itself is one of the best venues for communicating your ideas and thought processes, no matter what the content area.”

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“I have great results to report! We exceeded our AYP goals for the ISAT [Idaho Standards Achievement Test] for the 2005–2006 school year. I believe this is due to LANGUAGE! Our goal for reading was 72 percent reaching AYP, and we had 74.6 percent reach AYP. For language, the goal was 72 percent at AYP, and we had 83.33 percent.”

—Lorena Hendricks
Ashton Elementary School
Ashton, Idaho

For detailed results from other 2005–2006 LANGUAGE! implementations, watch for the new technical reports coming soon.

Do you have a success story involving your school or district and Sopris West products or professional services? If so, we’d love to share it with other customers. It’s testimonials like these that inspire us all! Please send your stories, comments, or ideas to e-newsletter@sopriswest.com.

National Head Start Association (NHSA)
Annual Training Conference
April 17–19, 2007
San Antonio, Texas
Visit Sopris West at booth #514

Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
Annual Convention and Expo
April 18–21, 2007
Louisville, Kentucky
Visit Sopris West at booth #624

International Reading Association (IRA)
Annual Convention
“Literacy Without Boundaries”
May 13–17, 2007
Toronto, Canada
Visit Sopris West at booth #549