This assumes the child knows numbers one to 10.
I taught them to Anandita using actual objects .When she was a supine child with little movement, I used the abacus board where she would move the big beads along with my help as I recited the numbers.
She soon had a little box of her own with rajma seeds and other big sized lentils. I was always with her when she used them to prevent any mishap of her inhaling it in her nostril/mouth etc.
Her finger usage was limited so counting on fingers was not feasible and would result in errors. One simply has to incorporate maths concepts into daily living to teach a child who is challenged in some way. Once she was bunny hopping all over the home, I would ask Anandita to get me one potato or 2 onions. This would help me know that she had grasped the concepts of a single object and more than one object. Small baby steps which I never had to use so intensively for my older daughter but here I was using all my creativity to find solutions for her. The same with counting backwards where the microwave came in handy.
In the same way we went onto counting through objects while laying a table. She would count the spoons laid on the table and then the forks and then the knives. For a long time we continued with teaching with actual objects. However as she shifted grades in school, she had to move ahead of simple objects. One solution was drawing the objects but due to her poor fine motor coordination her drawing skills were weak.Anandita by then was aware of bigger than/lesser than (greater/smaller) for numbers from 1 to 10.
Simple single digit addition:
With the help of a special educator, I learnt new ways to teach her simple single digit addition in a notebook without using her fingers too much.
If she had to count, say
5 + 3...the only thing she had to remember was to take the bigger number and keep it in mind and then count in the rest. Keep 5 in your mind and count 3 more.
Suppose I gave her 2 + 8, the same would apply. Determine the larger number, keep it in your mind .So keep 8 in your mind and count 2 more.
I did not introduce the concept of subtraction to her yet. The addition concept had to be reinforced as much as possible. I didn’t use a number line either, atleast not in the initial stages.
To be prepared for class1 she was also required to learn number names from 1 to 20.
However hard I tried I could not explain to her why number 2 is spelt as TWO and not as To as she would write. Same with Five-as to why is there an ‘e’ there?
She had to learn to retain and retrieve the number names.
I made small paper cards with the number names written on them from one to ten and asked her to match the names to the numbers.
Matching the numbers (figures) to the names was also done.
Gradually I asked her to sort out the names of the numbers and arrange it in order.
I drew a big circle and wrote all the numbers and she had to circle the number when I called it out.
I also tried this-In a circle I wrote, two,twelve,twenty,twentyone etc and called out 12,she would have to circle the number name accordingly.
She would also pick out the number name written on a chit and read it. If possible write it as well.
Soon after the concept of subtraction (taking away) was introduced.
The “–" (dash sign) which she recognized as the subtraction symbol was also referred to as a sleeping line.
Suppose I told her lets subtract 8 – 2 =
The 1st step would be to see for the subtraction symbol which meant there was a sleeping sign. So let’s put the bigger number to sleep. And then let’s climb from the smaller number to the bigger number. So we put 8 to sleep as we see the sleeping sign. From 2 we climb to 8 and get our answer. The strategy was to teach her to count from the second number.
She caught onto the subtraction concept faster than the addition concept much to my surprise.
When you teach a child with a weak auditory working memory a new concept, one has to repeat the concept taught the next day as well to see if the child remembers the same. Frequent reinforcement/revision is essential.
Gradually I started with teaching her numbers with Jumps of two’s (2, 4, 6, 8, and 10)
For that I made a number grid with numbers from 1 to 20 and then up to 50 at a later stage.
Jumps of 5’s and Jumps of 10’s came in later using the same number grid.
Gradually the concept of a number line was introduced from 1 to 10 so that she could add and subtract jumping from number to number instead of using her fingers.
By the end of grade 1, I has made a laminated number grid of numbers 1 to 100.The numbers were large and in black.Whenever we studied Math’s we used this grid. She was allowed the use of the same at school as well which helped her a lot.
My creativity was challenged when I had to teach her ascending order and descending order of numbers. I tried everything in the book and then asked my husband fro help.We decided to give her a white board marker pen and gave her 5 numbers to arrange in ascending order. Say 72,59,62,91,87.So Diti would mark each number on the number grid and at the end of it understood that the number that came first was the smallest number and the number marked after it was the 2nd smallest and so on and so forth. It’s been 2 months since we taught her this concept and it has stuck on.
So many concepts were taught at school using concrete objects and I reinforced the same at home. For the concept of tens and ones I used straws and made bundles and sticks of the same to help her see visually and understand that 47 meant 4 bundles of ten straws (which made 40) and 7 straws which made the 7.
There is a long journey ahead for me as far as Math’s teaching is concerned. It was never my favorite subject but then I never learnt it the fun-creative way. At times I find myself envying the way Anandita is learning and being taught. Creative teaching techniques can make even the dullest or challenging subject fun.
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