I have been reading about the Concrete-Representational-Abstract Sequence of Instruction for some time now, especially since I began working with our most struggling math students at our school.

I’m hooked and am a firm believer in this approach!

I know you know that moment… where you find students looking at you with the deer in headlights look.  In my intervention groups, I see it several times in 30 minutes! I was desperately searching for more ways to make math meaningful for them when I discovered this approach. And, I will tell you, it works EVERY time. I mean, EVERY SINGLE TIME. There has not been one single concept that I haven’t been able to master with a child when I used this approach.

If you don’t have time to read the article, the approach is summed up quite simply in three steps:

1. When a student is introduced to a new concept or something unfamiliar, you allow the use of tools. (Concrete)
2. When the student can perform the task, they move on to representing the concept with drawings or pictures. (Representational)
3. When the student can master the task with a drawing or a picture they move to using only numbers and symbols. (Abstract)

   * Note it is important to keep all three of these ways visible to promote strong connections and deep conceptual understanding.

I realized that this could be even MORE powerful when students could self assess where they are in this approach. I made this poster with them and we refer to it constantly.

They are constantly checking “where their brains are at” when they are struggling through a problem.  When the numbers and symbols don’t make sense, they actually back themselves up to drawings. If that still doesn’t make sense they back up and use concrete tools.

It has been simply amazing, and you must try it!