In school systems across the country, teachers are using handheld computers and a software solution from Wireless Generation, called mCLASS, to administer the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) to elementary-age students. The technique has helped boost students' reading scores dramatically. Now, the positive impact this approach has had on reading soon could be replicated in math.

Wireless Generation, along with the Teachers College at Columbia University and the University of Missouri-Columbia, recently received a four-year, $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences to develop a math-related version of mCLASS.

As with the company's reading solution, mCLASS Math would allow teachers to administer one-on-one assessments with K-3 students, while recording results and observations on a handheld computer. Teachers use the Palm-based software to guide themselves through the assessment process and record students' responses. Once an assessment is completed, teachers sync their handheld with their desktop or laptop computer to transfer the data to a secure web site, where they can examine the results almost instantly to inform their instruction.

The math version of mCLASS seeks to enable teachers not only to screen for math proficiency and monitor students' progress, but also to learn about their students' thought processes.

The system works by giving students a math problem and instructing them to solve the problem any way they want. During the assessment, students are asked how they came up with their answer.

Although Wireless Generation is not the first company to develop a handheld-based solution for math assessment, the company might be the first to target the K-3 level.

To understand how children learn math, it's worth examining their thinking processes as early as kindergarten, explained Herbert Ginsburg, a professor at Columbia University Teachers College and co-developer of mCLASS Math.

"We find that little kids, starting in kindergarten and going through third grade, have very interesting ways of thinking about math, and teachers need to learn about that," Ginsburg said.

Young learners, Ginsburg said, might have certain systemic ways of using strategies that can result in mistakes. "What teachers need to learn is that if a child gets a wrong answer, there may be a reason why, or a strategy behind it," he said.

Ginsburg's beliefs led him to connect with Wireless Generation. Starting out with a grant from the National Science Foundation, Ginsburg and Larry Berger, Wireless Generation's co-founder and CEO, began working on ways to use handheld computers to help teachers interview students about their knowledge of math concepts.

Berger said Wireless Generation's customers were asking if the company offered an early math assessment similar to its widely successful early reading assessment.