[blindkid] math for blind students

melissa R green graduate56 at juno.com
Fri Sep 14 00:33:14 UTC 2012


thank you joy.
I completely support your view about math and blind children.
The reason why I am asking all of these questions.  I am taking a class on 
teaching children math.  The teacher has asked me about lesson plans and 
adaptation for blind students.
Like, we are doing lots and lots of geometry.  In this class.
So I figured I would ask the question on the list about lesson plans and 
adaptations.

Have a blessed day.
Many Blessings, Warmly,
Melissa and Pj
Twitter: melissa5674

I never change, I simply become more myself.



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JoyO" <ortonsmom at gmail.com>
To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2012 5:32 PM
Subject: Re: [blindkid] math for blind students



>

Dear Melissa,

I agree that math lesson plans are generally the same for blind students as 
sighted students, only using Braille and Nemeth.

In addition, blind students can learn to use a Cranmer abacus which is 
adapted for the blind.

The abacus is fast and elegant, and can allow blind students to work 
problems at a similar pace to their sighted classmates who are using pencil 
and paper. It is one way to help avoid the issue that blind students 
sometimes face: that is, they are assigned half as many problems as their 
classmates. Long division and long multiplication problems can involve lots 
of brailling and lots of rolling the paper back and forth, when worked on 
the Braille writer. With the abacus, the problem can be set about as fast as 
it can be copied with a pencil.

The Hadley school has an abacus course for families. It is free to families 
of blind kids. I really like my teacher for the correspondence course.

There is also information on the "print-compatible" abacus in the _Handbook 
for Itinerant and Resource Teachers of Blind and Visually Impaired 
Students_.

Fred Gissoni has a book on using the Cranmer abacus, and we have that book 
in braille for my daughter.

In addition to abacus and Nemeth, young blind students need to have 
manipulatives in their hands so that they can experience the concepts by 
touch. Using manipulatives is good practice for all young students.

Hope this helps!
Joy

_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
blindkid:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/graduate56%40juno.com





More information about the BlindKid mailing list