[blindkid] Elementary math question

Brandon and Sarah lanesims at gmail.com
Thu Oct 3 15:38:41 UTC 2013


Thanks to all of you for your replies on this issues. It is especially
helpful to have blind adults weigh in and unanimously support the tools
being used. My questioning of the number line and the hundreds chart
ultimately has more to do with the presentation of the material than with
the tool itself. Her gen ed teacher has no experience with nonvisual
teaching techniques and has 27 sighted kids in the room all going 100
miles/hour. Our daughter is not exactly a speed demon on a good day. This
has nothing to do with her blindness, for I remember being the same way as
a kid! In order to actually truly learn and retain any
information, she needs time to explore the tactile materials, learn the
formatting, be able to ask questions as they arise, do a problem, consider
it, maybe do the same problem again with a different tool to cement the
concept, then repeat, repeat, repeat. This is what we do at home in
the evenings and it usually both fun and effective. However, school is a
different world.

My question about throwing out parts of the curriculum was also a bit broad
and would understandably open a big ugly can of worms. My real ongoing
question has more to do with which teaching *methods *are useful and which
ones should be thrown out. She obviously needs to learn all the material.

I made a home version of the MathView this week and we'll be adding that to
the toolbox.

We had a change of TVI for the our school district this year, which is
ultimately a very good development and I think she is good. Right now,
however, we are all reassessing needs and discovering that some the the
previously claimed measurements of acheivement and progress weren't exactly
accurate. It's unpleasant to think about, but is an important part of the
process of rebooting and catching up.
Brandon



More information about the BlindKid mailing list