The Path to Math for Children with LD
Regina Richards received a frantic call at her education therapy clinic. It was Sammy's mother. Sammy was one of her clients who usually worked on reading. "I just picked Sammy up from school," the mother exclaimed. "And he's pretty hysterical. It seems he doesn't understand the words his teacher is using in math. He says he's going to flunk the class because of these words."
This story starts a practical article for parents and teachers on helping children with learning disabilities such as dyslexia and dyscalculia with math. It is a newly updated article, exclusive to LD OnLine, titled Strategies to Facilitate Math Concepts and Homework.
Here are some of the strategies to facilitate math concepts and homework recommended in the article:
- Be sure that the child is relaxed so that he can "take in" new information.
- Hook new vocabulary words to something that is familiar to the child. For example, Regina Richards taught Sammy the word "circumference" by reading a story about a table made from a tree. The bark around the tree represented the circumference.
- Teach children the morphology or word parts. For example, "multi" means many and "equi" means equal.
- Use rhymes to help them remember. For example, the rhyme, "A meter measures 3 ft. 3. It's longer than a yard, you see."
- Color code the "ones" column and the "tens" column to help them line up the two columns when they add. This is particularly important when they learn to carry numbers.
- Teach patterns that make things easier, such as writing the digit twice if you multiply by 11.
The article teaches you how students can learn to use their fingers to multiply and make their own artsy flash cards to learn challenging facts.
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Tips for Choosing a Summer Camp for Your LD Child
It's the time of year when parents look for summer programs for their children. Some just want their kids to have a good time. Most parents of children with learning disabilities want a program where their children will continue their academic growth and improve their skills.
But how do you find a camp that will best nurture your child? Ann Cathcart, founder of The Learning Camp and the mother of a child with a learning disability, wrote Tips for Choosing a Summer Camp for Your Child. She suggests that you take the time to talk with the camp director at length, ask for references, and talk to other parents who have sent their children there. Factors to consider include:
- The type of program your child needs
- Size of the camp
- Balance of time between education and recreation
- Location of the camp
- Type of setting
- Staff qualifications
Teachers: Want Money for a Project to Help Your Students?
Each year, educators apply for ING Unsung Heroes grants by describing projects that use new techniques to improve learning. One hundred people are selected to receive grants of at least $2,000 and one person wins $25,000. Last year, Jeanne C. Crowley, from Public School 188X, Bronx, NY, won a grant to develop a "digital science lab" on the Web to enable 100 students in grade 4-8 with emotional and learning disabilities to use digital camcorders to record science experiments and demonstrations. When finished, this website will provide student-directed videos on science, which can then be used by other students. Crowley says the vocabulary and explanations used by students of a similar age will reach their peer groups more effectively than typical instructional science videos.
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Want a Job Where You Direct Four Great Websites?
WETA public broadcasting's Learning Media department — which produces LD OnLine — has a job opening for its Director of Education Websites. You would work in Shirlington, Virginia (right outside of Washington, D.C.) and lead a team of managers running a portfolio of award-winning national education websites. These websites include AdLit.org, ReadingRockets.org, LDOnLine.org, the bilingual ColorinColorado.org — plus our online store, LearningStore.org.read more >>
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