Is Your MTSS Tier 2 Maths Intervention Working? How Mathseeds Helps Schools Know

Is your MTSS maths data proving your interventions work, or just that they happened?

That's the question facing school principals, who have a bird's-eye view of dashboards, aggregate scores and trend lines, but can struggle to get to the individual student level and find out whether the intervention is working and the student is responding to the targeted support they're getting.

Being unable to answer it carries real weight, as education systems increasingly expect interventions to be evidence-based, and many now call for structured maths screening, intervention timelines and progress reporting. A Tier 2 maths record is something a school may be asked to produce for an audit, a review or a governing body.

Rather than waiting for a student to fall behind before stepping in, a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) is designed to catch struggling learners early enough to close most gaps before they compound. The framework runs on a three-tier model, and Tier 2 is where the real decisions happen. It's where intervention groups form, where data starts to drive next steps, and where a school finds out whether a student is ready to step back to Tier 1 or needs to move up to Tier 3.

This article looks at how ABC Mathseeds, an evidence-based early maths program built for K–3 classrooms, supports that kind of decision-making at every tier, with a particular focus on Tier 2. For schools weighing where Mathseeds fits into their evidence requirements, it's worth noting that The Thriving Study (November 2025) found that students using the program for 20+ minutes a week achieved 93% of expected annual growth in three terms. An 86% quiz accuracy rate also pointed to strong skill consolidation.

The three tiers of MTSS and how Mathseeds supports each one

TIER 1: Universal instruction

Tier 1 is universal, supporting all learners, in a way that every student receives the same high-quality, explicit core instruction, and for roughly 80–90% of a class, that's enough on its own. This is prevention, not remediation; this is catching gaps before they form through universal screening rather than closing them after the fact.

Mathseeds works as a supplemental program at this level.

Its 200 sequential lessons use systematic, explicit instruction to build number sense, operations, geometry, measurement and problem-solving skills, with a curriculum-aligned crosswalk showing how Mathseeds maps to your local curriculum, wherever you teach.

A placement test starts every student at their own instructional level rather than a fixed year-level entry point, so instruction stays personalised even at the whole-class stage.

Captivating animations, step-by-step models, and built-in rewards keep students motivated, while real-time reporting gives teachers a running view of how the whole class is progressing, not just whether lessons are being completed.

Tier 2: Targeted support

Tier 2 is where the answer to 'is this working' gets tested.

Tier 2 is where a school finds out whether an intervention program is worth the classroom time it takes. It's small-group, targeted support for students who need extra help, layered on top of core instruction a few times a week, and a student's response here typically determines whether they're ready to exit intervention or need to move to Tier 3.

Principal Susan Lozada saw exactly how that decision-making plays out with Mathseeds. It helps identify which students need to consolidate specific foundational skills, while those who've already mastered the same content move on to extend their number sense and problem-solving, all without a teacher having to build each pathway by hand. As Lozada put it,

"Mathseeds provides data that allows us to pinpoint what the gap skills are, so we can make decisions for students to accelerate their growth."

Her experience highlights what's needed for Tier 2 support to work: teachers need to know exactly where students are struggling and whether they're making progress. Knowing that a gap exists isn't enough; they need to know what the gap is and what support to provide next.

That's where the specific features of Mathseeds come in:

• Pinpoints the exact gap, not the label ‘behind’. From individual student lesson performance to whole-school end-of-map quiz results, Mathseeds features a range of reporting types that highlight specific student struggles and inform next steps.

• For Tier 2 support, the Skills Mastered report is particularly useful. It shows which students passed each skill on their first, second or third attempt – and which students haven’t yet passed. That makes it easy to see exactly where a student is struggling, whether that’s number sense, division or 2D shapes. A small-group session starts with a clear target instead of a vague sense that ‘maths needs work’. A teacher can group three students around the same missing concept instead of guessing who belongs together.

• Reteaches foundational skills with the same rigour as first teaching. Guided, step-by-step instruction walks students back through a concept systematically, with more repetition and scaffolding than a single classroom pass usually allows. A student who hasn't locked in place value typically struggles with everything built on top of it, so Mathseeds goes back to that foundation rather than pushing forward around it.

• Builds understanding concretely before it tests it abstractly. Interactive activities let students explore a concept visually and hands-on first. That scaffolding makes it possible to tell the difference between a student who's genuinely understood a concept and one who's only memorised a procedure.

• Reinforces what the teacher just taught, in the same lesson. A teacher can explicitly teach a concept to a small group, then send students straight to Mathseeds for guided or independent practice on that exact skill while working with another group. The practice reinforces the teaching instead of introducing something new.

• Builds fluency alongside the reteaching.

  Short, sequenced Mental Minute sessions build fact fluency across addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in the background, freeing up cognitive space for the more complex reasoning a Tier 2 group is usually working through.

• Flags gaps early, at the group level and the individual level.

  Comprehensive, real-time reporting shows a teacher exactly where a student, or a whole intervention group, is struggling, so a corrective plan gets built around actual data rather than instinct, and can be adjusted mid-cycle rather than at the next formal assessment.

• Keeps students motivated to keep showing up.

  Built-in rewards and age-appropriate, engaging activities keep Tier 2 students, including those who've lost confidence in maths, willing to put in the extra practice, which matters when the whole point of Tier 2 is consistent, sustained effort over weeks, not a single good session.

Using data to drive decisions and engagement to keep students showing up for the extra work – that’s what targeted support can look like with Mathseeds.

Tier 3: Intensive support

Tier 3 is the most intensive layer: individualised, often daily, and usually through close collaboration with a maths specialist or learning support teacher rather than in place of one. Only a small number of students, generally under 5%, need this level of support.

While Mathseeds doesn't replace that specialist relationship, it helps extend it through:

• Highly structured, sequential lessons that target specific mathematical gaps. Teachers can assign customised learning paths so a student works on prerequisite skills instead of year-level content, with transparent feedback that lets them evaluate a wrong answer and try again without stigma.

• Granular, real-time progress data lets a specialist monitor response to intensive intervention between sessions, rather than waiting for the next formal review. And because Mathseeds fits into intensive intervention blocks, one-to-one sessions, small groups, classroom rotations, or additional practice outside the regular maths period, it works with whatever scheduling a school already has in place.

At Tier 3, the same data trail that flagged a gap at Tier 2 carries through, so a specialist starts with a clear picture instead of a blank one.