Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
When Gadge Lum was in fourth grade, he struggled with math operations such as division.
Now, the seventh-grader at Gillette Road Middle School is one of only three students nationwide to win the 2016 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt MATH 180 award.
Gadge’s “quantile” scores have increased by 580 points since he joined Erika Gilbert’s math intervention class in October — a gain of 207 percent.
“I’m super proud of so many of my kids, and to be able to say that one of them won a national award makes me super proud of them,” said Gilbert, who nominated Gadge for the MATH 180 award.
MATH 180 is an intervention program that combines teacher-led instruction with independent, computer-based lessons and games. Gilbert said she has been using the MATH 180 program with her students for three years.
“The teacher-led portion goes at my pace; the computer-led portion goes at their pace,” she said.
As Gadge’s quantile scores have climbed throughout the school year, so has his confidence.
“I have learned a lot in MATH 180,” Gadge said in a press release from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “When I was in fourth grade, I still didn’t know how to divide, but now that I am in MATH 180, my math skills have improved a lot and I feel confident about myself.”
“He started like most of my kids do: intimidated and not confident about math,” Gilbert said. “You can see [his confidence] in his face: He smiles when he comes in and is excited to come to class. When a kid is actually excited to come to class, that’s when I know it’s working.”
Gilbert had to submit a written nomination for Gadge to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Once he was accepted as a finalist, Gadge himself had to write a personal essay and Gilbert wrote a longer statement about his progress in the MATH 180 program. Last year, one of Gilbert’s students was a finalist for the MATH 180 award, but Gadge is the first Gillette Road student to win the award.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has awarded Gadge $1,000 to further his education and also will award the North Syracuse Central School District $1,000 worth of educational materials.
“It was very exciting and unexpected,” Gilbert said. “It just shows that all of our students are capable of so much and are able to learn regardless of their abilities, and that’s a very powerful message.”
