[blindkid] Math for Kindergarten

[Carol Castellano]

As Joe Cutter used to say, "It's too soon, it's too soon, it's too 
soon.  Until it's too late."
Carol

At 11:24 PM 1/3/2012, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>As a blind adult and lifelong Braille reader I absolutely and totally
>agree with all the above. She should be learning to read and write
>numbers at the same time her sighted classmates learn, or before they
>do, but definitely not after. There is no harm in teaching or exposing
>a child to something before she is ready to perform perfectly at it,
>but there can be a lot of harm in waiting until she has fallen behind.
>Given the difficulties in getting accessible materials, pull-outs etc.
>a blind child needs to be ahead of the game as much as is possible.
>My father has a math degree, and when I was young he liked to talk to
>me a lot about numbers and computations. I recall when I was about
>four, sitting on his lap and him trying to teach me about
>multiplication. I was still in preschool, was barely learning to read
>and definitely didn't understand what he was talking about. Yet when I
>got to elementary school and my class was learning about
>multiplication, the ideas seemed familiar and I caught on right away.
>Although I wasn't developmentally ready to multiply in my head when my
>dad first introduced me to the concept, the exposure primed me to
>grasp the ideas more easily when I was developmentally ready for them.
>He could have just said "I'll wait until she is older to teach her
>about this, she won't understand" but he went ahead and exposed me to
>the concepts anyway. As a result, I didn't struggle with math and in
>fact was able to succeed in advanced math classes, and I don't think
>this was an accident or the result of innate intelligence. I will
>never forget this experience because it shows that early exposure to
>intellectual challenges can be incredibly beneficial for later growth
>and success. And this is especially true for blind kids in
>mainstreamed classrooms who face access disadvantages.
>Unfortunately many TVI's seem to subscribe to the model of waiting
>until a student is clearly ready to master a concept before
>introducing it. This way of thinking is not unlike the tendency to
>wait to teach Braille until a child clearly has no other choice. But a
>good teacher needs to anticipate what comes ahead-and to have a little
>faith in their students.
>Also, while I am not a Braille teaching expert, I would think that a
>child could easily learn literary numbers and Nemeth code at the same
>time-much as an infant can learn to speak English and Spanish at the
>same time. Or, if your TVI is really worried that your daughter will
>get confused by writing in Nemeth, why not have her write the numbers
>in literary Braille first-but still have her write them down like the
>other students?
>Best,
>Arielle
>
>On 1/3/12, Wendy Molle <wmolle at schoharie.k12.ny.us> wrote:
> > Unless a child has developmental delays, they should absolutely be doing
> > Nemeth math when the peers are doing written math.  Sighted children learn
> > the many different ways that a letter can be formed (a versus a versus A,
> > for example) as well as cursive or script eventually.
> >
> > If they don't keep her up with her peers, exactly when do they 
> plan to catch
> > her up?  With all of the pullouts our blind kids have a school (TVI, OM,
> > etc.), there is hardly extra time to catch them up later.
> >
> > Make it a game at home.  Buy dominoes and put the Nemeth numbers on them.
> > Then play dominoes together.
> >
> > Good luck,
> > Wendy
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