Drill and Practice Software

Are drill and practice strategies dead? Absolutely not. Drill and practice software is an excellent tool used for reinforcing skills. Drill and practice promotes the acquisition of knowledge of skills through repetitive practice. Drill and practice allows learners to master competencies at their own pace without the added pressure of being forced to move on to another strategy when they are not ready. It also allows the teacher to move other students forward who have mastered particular strategies, without the hesitency of feeling like everyone in the class should stay together and always be working on the same skills or competencies.

As a classroom math and science teacher the use of drill and practice strategies has proven to be one of my most successful strategies especially with my students in math. From talking to my peers on their feelings about drill and practice they agree that drill and practice is a refreshing change from the "old paper based reinforcement of skills mastery to a student friendly and interesting computer based way to reinforce skill mastery.

Most classroom have at least 23 students in them. We (teachers) have limited or little time to devote to individualized teaching; at best we group our students. Drill and practice allows students to practice skills and provides teachers and students with instant assessments and feedback of their work and it allows the teacher ample time to work with both groups of students. Drill and practice software is also beneficial in that it can provide extensions to both groups of students the gifted student looking to master new skills or work ahead on a competencies or the struggler that is bascially attempting to master skills already taught.