Fraction Challenge

Fraction Challenge is a 12-week intervention designed to improve fourth-grade at-risk students' understanding of fractions through small-group tutoring (3 students per tutor). The intervention emphasizes conceptual understanding with a primary focus on the measurement interpretation of fractions using number lines, fraction tiles, and fraction circles, supplemented by part-whole interpretation and fair shares representations. Instruction includes 36 lessons taught 3 times per week for 30 minutes per session. The program teaches students to compare, order, and place fractions on a 0-to-1 number line, introduces fractions equivalent to 1/2, and develops chunking and segmenting strategies. Procedural instruction (addition and subtraction with like and unlike denominators) is introduced in Lesson 22 after establishing conceptual foundations. The intervention compensates for at-risk students' limitations in working memory, attentive behavior, processing speed, and listening comprehension through efficient strategies, automaticity building with marker fractions, simplified language, frequent comprehension checks, and a behavior management system using checkmarks and a classroom store. Denominators are limited to 12 and exclude 7, 9, and 11 to reduce computational demands.