In Taylor’s first-grade class of 16 or 17, a couple of students started 2025–26 on pre-K work. The school chose Happy Numbers, Taylor says, because it adapts to each student and gives the teacher instant feedback on what a student is struggling with.

Every K–5 student logs in to the same program, which the school uses for intervention and enrichment. “The good thing about it is the kids don’t know who’s doing what,” Taylor says. Who struggles changes with the lesson, she says, and can include the strongest students. When a first grader gets stuck on second-grade work, classmates see only that someone is getting help. “I see it boost confidence in the struggler kids.”

“It's not as quick as ‘I need help, I can't do this.’” Taylor says of her students. “It's more, ‘I've tried, I've watched it, and it's showing me this way — now can you help me?” She tells them not to come to her for help until they have listened to the program. Many turn their headphones off and then don’t know what the question asks; once they turn them back on and listen with her, they often figure it out on their own.

Immediate feedback in Happy Numbers: after a wrong answer, the program breaks the problem down, with a voiced prompt for each step.

The school’s first-grade curriculum doesn’t get to two-digit addition with regrouping until about May, but some students reach it earlier in Happy Numbers. Taylor says that if the program hands them a skill she hasn’t taught yet, they’ll get it wrong. So once four or five of her students get there, she teaches it to the whole class: “I stop and we have a whole lesson on the Smartboard.” Afterward she works one-on-one or in a small group with the students who’ve already reached the skill. When the rest get to it in the program, they’ve seen it once already.

“I'm a data person, so I look at the online dashboard, and if I see a kid has been working on the same task for 45 minutes, I go help them, and then they say, "I finally passed it!’” Taylor says. “And we make a big deal out of it.”

Each month, every K–5 classroom gives certificates for the highest average and the most tasks completed. Winners hear their names over the intercom and get to come up to the front office. “They get their picture made. It’s a big ordeal,” Taylor says. “They love just getting their name called out, especially when their 12th-grade cousin can hear their name got called out for doing something great on Happy Numbers.”

The school used to give the awards weekly, but the same students kept winning. A monthly award, Taylor says, gives others a whole month to win it, especially those who don’t get recognized much.

On Honors Day, every first through fourth grader working above grade level in Happy Numbers gets a certificate on stage. Many of them might not get an award otherwise, Taylor says, because the honor roll is straight-A only and elementary students have no school sports.

Fifth graders who complete the whole program get a special award. In 2025–26, the school added a certificate and an intercom announcement for kindergartners who finish the kindergarten program. “We make a big to-do about it,” Taylor says.

The school began using Happy Numbers during COVID and later bought it; 2025–26 was its fifth or sixth year. That year, Taylor says, students typically practiced about 15 minutes a day. According to Happy Numbers data, the share of the school’s 169 regular K–5 users meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations rose from 40 percent on the placement test to 92 percent on the end-of-year test.

The share of K–5 students meeting or exceeding grade-level expectations moved from 40% to 92% by the end of the year. 

By the end of the year, Taylor says, the first graders who started on pre-K work were excited to reach “the beginning of a first-grade level.”

Raising math scores was one of the school’s improvement goals, Taylor says. On the NWEA MAP test at the end of the year, “we were all at or above the national average.” 

Taylor would tell a principal considering Happy Numbers to get it. “If your first year is not successful, give it a year or two. Get the kids to buy into it, your teachers buy into it. By that third year, you should start seeing success and growth.”