[blindkid] 4th Grade Math and introduction of technology

[Brandy with Discovery Toys]

Hi, As others have said it is important that a blind child do math in 
Braille. I did my math on the Braille writer through high school. I did 
learn the abacus and used it for some of my math but when other kids had to 
show their work so did I. This made a huge difference for me in college. I 
was able to understand what professors were doing on the board with out 
seeing it. I really think this is because I always did my math in nemith on 
the Braille Writer. I think the math window may help especially for learning 
concepts. I also didn't get a calculator till my peers did some time in 7 or 
8th grade.Good luck. Bran


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Some take us forward, they're called dreams."
Jeremy Irons

Brandy Wojcik
Discovery Toys Group Manager and Educational Consultant

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tene Gibson" <g_tene305 at yahoo.com>
To: "BVI-parents" <bvi-parents at yahoogroups.com>; "(for parents of blind 
children) NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 2:36 PM
Subject: [blindkid] 4th Grade Math and introduction of technology


Thanks to NCLB, I am finding that my 9yo is getting caught up in the crunch 
to meet certain benchmarks with his sighted peers. Although I believe my 
child is an exceptionally bright child, I am sensing that he is stressed out 
by long division and multiplication (lining up problems on the Perkins being 
the main culprit). He is a type A personality so perfection is his goal and 
he gets caught up in the nuances of the problem set up instead of getting 
the answer. From a sighted perspective, I can understand his angst when 
having to go up, down, left, right, and sideways on a Perkins just for one 
problem alone and sometimes having to start all over if not lined up 
correctly. All we do with Math is erase with a pencil eraser.

My question I guess is when is the right to introduce technology into the 
classroom curriculum. He is one and half years shy of being in middle 
school. I have the Duxbury software, the screen reader, the notetaker, and 
the embosser. When can we put Perkins down for limited use.

Tene



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