[senco-forum] help for a pupil recognising numbers

Now THIS is why I belong to the forum! 
  Good, practical advice,  and a bit of inspiration thrown in!
  thanks Mary!
  Kate

Mary Kelly <mary.kelly4 at ntlworld.com> wrote:
  Hi Janice,

This is the advice that Philippa offered when I asked a similar question a
while back:
"Techniques used for writing letters should work just as well with writing
numerals:

use wooden letters from John Lawrence so that the orientation is learned
kinaesthetically

The pupil lays out numbers 1-10. You can see which ones they
reverse/invert. 

Find a wooden numeral in a cloth bag and id it without looking at it.

Get them to write the numbers in a salt tray (one of those water catching
trays from an oblong plant pot does the trick and is cheap).

Make numerals out of playdoh sausages. Check against wooden numerals or a
printed flashcard or a printed number line.

write over yours.

sky write (write an imaginary numeral n the air)

write on someone's hand/back etc 

trace with tracing paper

write in different mediums: vertical chalkboard gives best sensory feedback
according to an OT

use the foldover technique - you write a number and say it. Then fold the
paper down and the pupil does the same in the space underneath. S/he then
opens the paper up to check if the number is formed correctly. and refolds
and rewrites in space underneath - etc etc. 

Pace it to the pupil's learning speed.

Be aware of blocks to learning:

I read about a teenage student who just had not been able to write his
letters correctly, no matter how hard his teachers had tried to help him.
In the end someone said please swim them in the pool. He did and came back
and wrote them correctly. 

which comes back to sensory integration and the references I posted in my
previous mail. Here's another case history:

I had a student who was diagnosed as fitting the criteria for dyslexia. His
verbal IQ was at the 60th percentile. his performance was at the 10th. His
statement/ep assessment from the USA recommended, amongst other things: 

Speech and language therapy
occupational therapy
literacy support (he could not read or write at all - he was entering our
Year 2).

The parents signed him up for SALT, OT and dyslexia teaching at our request.
We also had a shadow with him all the time as his processing speed was so
slow that when the teacher said "Girls please go the toilet." he stood up to
go too. SALT, OT, class teacher, shadow and us in the dyslexia unit
liaised. The shadow sat in on all my lessons. He became, slowly, oh so
slowly but steadily and surely a reader and a writer. By Y4 he had come on
miles from his previous assessment, but was still trailing his peers. He
left us to go to a specialist dyslexia school in Key Stage 2 and on a visit
back to me read our children's stories off our display board to me with
fluency. He was bright in my lessons if it did not involve reading and
writing - for example, we were looking at i for igloo. We looked igloos up
on the web as he did not know what they were. Once he had the concept
however he wanted to know how people kept warm, how they made fires and if
they lived in all that ice and snow how did they START the fire. The latter
question had never occurred to me! 

He could not visualise shapes at all when we started. He could not cross
the midline. His OT covered bilateral integration and sensory integration
and we got a boy from that who we could teach. The SALT advised to only do
one letter a week - sound, shape etc. so we did each letter intensively,
one letter per week. He tried to use some avoidance strategies in our
lessons but with heaps of positive reinforcement he survived his
underachievement and is now a wonderful young man who can. 

Hope that helps."

I hope so too,
Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk
[mailto:senco-forum-bounces at lists.becta.org.uk] On Behalf Of WrayJanice Wray
Sent: 15 February 2008 21:17
To: senco forum
Subject: [senco-forum] help for a pupil recognising numbers - not
dyscalculic

This boy isn't dyscalculic - maths average for his age - but he has trouble
recognising numbers - constantly checking that he has written the right ones
down from a book or schedule, any ideas how I can help ?????
Janice

Janice Wray

Secondary SENCO, Herts

_________________________________________________________________
Telly addicts unite!
http://www.searchgamesbox.com/tvtown.shtml=