[blindkid] 4th Grade Math and introduction of technology

[Mike Freeman]

Depends upon the child. However, I am of the opinion that all that 
Perkins brailler math time will stand him in good stead in the years to 
come. It has been my observation that the only blind kids and adults who 
truly grasp and are facile with arithmetic and, to some extent, with 
higher math such as algebra and, later on, the calculus, used the 
Perkins brailler to work the problems out in the same way they would 
were they sighted.

Yes, it's frustrating. But no one ever said blindness wasn't an infernal 
nuisance.

Mike Freeman

----- 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 12:36 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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