“Prevention: Necessary But Insufficient? A 2-Year Follow-Up of an Effective First-Grade Mathematics Intervention”, Drew H. Bailey, Lynn S. Fuchs, Jennifer K. Gilbert, David C. Geary, Douglas Fuchs2018-10-25 (; similar)⁠:

We present first-grade, second-grade, and third-grade impacts for a first-grade intervention targeting the conceptual and procedural bases that support arithmetic. At-risk students (average age at pretest = 6.5) were randomly assigned to 3 conditions: a control group (n = 224) and two variants of the intervention (same conceptual instruction but different forms of practice: speeded [n = 211] vs. nonspeeded [n = 204]).

Impacts on all first-grade content outcomes were statistically-significant and positive, but no follow-up impacts were statistically-significant. Many intervention children achieved average mathematics achievement at the end of third grade, and prior math and reading assessment performance predicted which students will require sustained intervention.

Finally, projecting impacts 2 years later based on nonexperimental estimates of effects of first-grade math skills overestimates long-term intervention effects.