1and 2. Group work provides peer support in grappling with new problems. This aides kids with dyscalculia who have high anxiety about approaching math problems. Access to talking calculators helps dyscalculic kids (and others) who stuggle with computation and fact recall to not be stressed out by this difficulty. It also allows all students to stay focused on the challenge set forth in the lesson: figure out what operation to use in this story problem. Story solving kits include art supplies and counters so that kids can model the problem in a way that feels comfrotable to them.
3. The whole class decides together how to classify each problem so that the teacher can monitor the students progess (what do they need more of?, are they getting it? who is off base and needs an individual work session?) and so that the whole class is exposed to multiple examples. Because dyscalculic children often have difficulty recognizing patterns when numbers are involved, the more examples they see , the better. The problems are placed on bulletin boards so that they become a permanent support for students.
4. Students hunt for words in pairs to draw on peer support.
5. The whole class shares and classifies findings together so that the teacher can monitor progress and difficulties and so the students bennefit from seeing multiple examples.
The short lesson from the teacher serves as a modeling session. Though the process of translating a linguistic sentence into a mathematical one will be highly intuitive for some it may be extremely strategic for those who are dyscalculic. In order to support the kids who need to take a strategic approach, modeling from an "expert" is essential.
The name of the game in these centers is multiple representations. After having been in all three, students will have practiced solving
story problems via visual, tactile and kinesthetic processes. This opportunity for varied practice will be particularly useful for kids with dyscaclulia who need a lot of support developing their strategic approach to translating linguistic sentences to number sentences.
The Storyboard Center will be particularly helpful for serving kids with varied needs. The settings will allow students to change the level of challenge, thereby accomodating dyscalculic kids who may be struggling, gifted kids who need a challenge and everyone inbetween. Its text to speech feature will help dyscalculic (and dyslex ) kids to make sure they both heard the problem correctly and wrote down what they meant to write down. The embedded supports for correcting errors allow students to work productively on their own.
Mathematics Theater will offer students the chance to make the linguistic sentence come alive, thereby highlighting the important information to transfer into the number sentence. Additionally, acting out the stories should make the correct operation explicit for those dyscalculics who have trouble recognizing the pattern.
Modeling with Manipulatives will allow the teacher a chance to monitor each child's progress, working individually with him as and where he needs. Using the manipulatives will provide a tactile model for translate to a numeber sentence, rounding out the student's bag of strategic tricks!
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