[blindkid] math for blind kids

[Joy Orton]

Dear Brandon,

I think you raise a great question. Math is taught visually because most of
us who do math are visual. That does not mean that the concepts are visual.
I hope some blind adults can respond as well.

I teach math to sighted seventh and eleventh graders, and have taught math
to my daughter who is blind.

I have used the number line concept with my seventh grader, who is blind
from birth. She and I sometimes make her nose the zero, and then her left
hand reaches to the negative numbers, and her right hand reaches to the
positive numbers. I think it is a helpful tool.

I think the hundreds chart, too, has some value in braille, as long as it
is big enough for distinguishing the things the teacher wants to teach. If
the print chart is ten by ten, and the brailled chart is only seven numbers
wide, then that would be a problem.

One thing I think is not well-translated is a raised-line drawing of a
three-dimensional shape. I prefer to use actual three-dimensional shapes
for working with concepts related to them.

Hope this helps.
Joy Orton


On Wed, Oct 2, 2013 at 7:00 AM, <blindkid-request at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Send blindkid mailing list submissions to
>         blindkid at nfbnet.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>         http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>         blindkid-request at nfbnet.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>         blindkid-owner at nfbnet.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of blindkid digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. Elementary math question (b&s)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2013 05:27:57 -0600
> From: b&s <lanesims at gmail.com>
> To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
> Subject: [blindkid] Elementary math question
> Message-ID: <CFE73F59-3EA6-4359-ABF7-E09B268CB57A at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=windows-1252
>
> Emilia is now in 4th grade. I have been going in occasionally to
> help/observe during gen ed math time. I have always understood that the
> teaching of math (and all subjects for that matter) is vision centric. This
> is just a fact of life and I've been under the impression that teaching a
> blind kid is just a matter of tweaking the same information that is taught
> to the sighted kids. However, What struck me yesterday was the possibility
> that entire portions of the math curriculum may be fundamentally dependent
> on a visual approach, so that the issue becomes one, not of transcribing,
> but of truly translating the concepts to an entirely different
> language?.and possibly even throwing out portions of the curriculum. This
> came up while thinking about number lines. Number lines figure heavily in
> the teaching and testing at this level. Emilia has a brailled number line
> at school that does a reasonable job of transcribing the visual
> information. She can read the number line and mimic what other kids are
> doing with some effort. My question is whether a brailled number line is
> really useful to a congenitally blind student to help with understanding
> the underlying concepts??.or does it just make us sighted folk feel good
> about seeing the blind kid do the same thing the sighted kids are doing? Is
> she really learning the material?
>
> Unless I'm missing something, the abacus seems to cover the same territory
> and more as the number line. I don't even know how to approach the notion
> of the hundreds chart, which again, is available in braille, but is it
> really useful? If the answer is no, then there is the question of how to
> approach the issue of class participation, when everyone else is using
> these tools and concepts.
>
> I plan to talk to a couple of congenitally blind adult friends to get
> their perspective on this stuff. Any enlightenment from parents and others
> here would be great also.
>
> Thanks, Brandon
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> _______________________________________________
> blindkid mailing list
> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of blindkid Digest, Vol 114, Issue 2
> ****************************************
>