80 



Indiana University Studies 



It was decided to try a systematic drill in addition. Each 

 pupil was given his scores in all of the fundamental operations and 

 under his teacher's direction compared his individual scores with 

 those of his section, his grade, and the Courtis Standard for his 

 grade. All this was done to reveal to him his own condition and 

 to get him into the proper attitude to help himself. 



The plan of drill decided on was as follows: 



1. Time. — The first 5 minutes of each recitation period. 

 The drill period covered the last 6 weeks of the semester. 



2. Stimulus. — Accuracy. 



Each day the children were started off on the drill with the 

 instruction, "Get as many right answers as possible today. ^' 

 Teachers and pupils kept daily records of scores made. The 

 teachers frequently advised those who seemed not to be making 

 proper progress. They suggested to different pupils what they 

 felt those pupils needed in order to improve. These suggestions 

 were based on observation of the child's procedure during the 

 drill and on the daily records kept. The children themselves 

 were often able to locate their own peculiar difficulties and were 

 anxious to remedy them. 



3. Examples. — Mimeographed examples in addition beginning 

 with 5-figure columns were used at first. The number of columns 

 remained 3 thruout the drill, but the number of figures per column 

 was increased one per week up to 9 figures. The number of ex- 

 amples for each drill exercise was 5. 



As a further incentive pupils who 3 days out of 5 had 100 per 

 cent accuracy were to come to the assembly room on Friday for 

 a contest with all others who had attained similar scores. This 

 requirement was raised to 4 out of 5 and of the last two weeks 5 

 out of 5 correctly solved. 



This drill continued for 6 weeks or until the close of the year, 

 when the Courtis Test, Series B, was again given. Table II shows 

 the results. The 423 children in Table I who took the February 

 test and the 6 weeks' drill are the 423 in Table II. Only those 

 who were in for both tests and the drill are included in any of the 

 tables. 



