5 Tips for Fast Math

1. Make sure your child understands the concept

• Use Manipulatives ( beans, blocks, pennies) to help build the problems
• Use manipulative to solve the problems
• Solve the problem without manipulative

2. Do a pretest and see what your child already knows.

3. Practice the facts:

• Create flashcards 
• http://www.aplusmath.com/flashcards/Flashcard_Creator.html
• Play games with dice: 
• Use a timer and 2 die, roll the dice and answer out loud. See how many problems can be solved in 1 minute or 2 minutes. Keep a chart and track progress.
• http://www.enasco.com/math/Math+Manipulatives/Dice/
• Play computer games
• Computer math practice:
• http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/Mathmagician/cathymath.html

4. Create worksheets

• Math Worksheet creator:
• http://www.math-worksheets-generator.com/
• http://www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/math/

• Practice writing the answer
• Review errors, demonstrate patterns

5. Practice times facts with pencil and paper

• Horizontal
• Vertical

 

Visual Skill Affect Learning

Many parents ask me what they can do at home to help their child with reading skills. Schools have been stressing phonic skills (rightly so), but little is done to strengthen visual processing skills.


Reading, writing and math all require strong visual processing skills. To read fluently a child must be able to quick discriminate between letters (b/d, p/q, m/w, s/z), they must also be able to scan across a line of text without skipping up or down a line. Lastly, fluid reader have a strong visual memory for words, so once they have mastered sounding out words they build a sight vocabulary.

Spelling and letter formation require visual memory skills. Visual-spatial skills are needed for math.

All around visual skills are very important to develop. A child with weak visual skills will have to work much harder in school. The web sites below provide an assortment of visual skills. I this helps!

Here are some web sites that can provide vision activities for children that have visual issues.

Provided a variety of types of exercises:
http://www.eyecanlearn.com/#Memory

Visual memory games:
http://www.ababasoft.com/flash_games/memory_visual.html


Games for NLD kids, includes visual
http://www.nldontheweb.org/Games.htm

Rapid naming games
http://www.brainconnection.com/teasers/?main=bc/rn

Game to buy for less than $20
http://visual-memory.qarchive.org/

Games to play at home
http://www2.halton.gov.uk/pdfs/educationandlearning/sen/guidelinesdevvismemory


Hidden pictures: printable
http://www.highlightskids.com/GamesandGiggles/HiddenPics/HiddenPicsPrintable/h8hiddenArchive.asp
http://familyfun.go.com/printables/games/printable/connect-dots-sailboat/