what do I teach?

It’s hard to say what skills your kids need without knowing what they’ve been taught so far. Give them a basic math test to see where they’re at. Talk to last year’s teacher to find out from her/him what the kids had last year.

Do you have a textbook? They can be helpful in math. Does your school have a curriculum coordinator or a curriculum guide anywhere? Most schools have a textbook which all teachers are expected to use and that provides the guide of what skills were taught and will be taught next.

You can certainly follow the reg. ed text but… be prepared to supplement with anything you need to to get the point across. Kids with LD aren’t necessarily going to get it the first time in math. Kids with LD aren’t necessarily going to be successful with reams of homework either so consider getting homework done in class with you there for support.

I also found this helpful in the time when I taught math. When you give them tests, make sure the first problems on the test are easy ones. That bolsters them and gives them the needed confidence to do the rest of the test.

Also remember that word problems will be hard for some of your LD kids to read. The math terms - decimalization of fractions, etc. etc. are also potentially very confusing to kids with language LD issues. Remember that math isn’t just math. When it’s a word problem, it’s also asking kids to read and understand a very strange vocabulary.

Good luck.

Our curriculum guide for spec. ed. is the Steck Vaughn series of math workbooks. My kids do not like them!!!! I tried last year to have them work in them, but they want to learn what the “other” kids are learning. I think that teaching them pre-algebra will make them more frustrated. We do a lot of problem solving, real life math. I use the Remedia series of math. My kids really like it because we use calculators (which I think is a necessity) but I want to make sure I am not forgetting anything. I don’t want to shortchange them by not teaching them everything they should learn…. Thanks…

I suggest that you follow the school’s curriculum. Most schools have a set testbook and curriculum that teachers should follow. Talk to the other or past LD math teachers to find out what kind of modifications they used. Also, the text has a guide all of its own. Follow those concepts and outlines. And your mentor teacher should help you along the way.

I ask myself “what do I want them to be able to do when they leave?” and do whatever it takes to get them there. I”ve taught too many kids who’ve been yanked through a textbook each year for the past 6 or 7 years… going through all th ose skills and never really getting any of them down pat. I’m working with a bunch of college students in “developmental” classes, who feel like they are drowning because they know all the steps and can do them, or well sort of… but really have no idea when to do what because they learned them separately.

Many math teachers still don’t like the use of calculators, but especially in this situation they a great. Don’t forget to teach estimating (to be able to know if the answer they get is close enough to be right and not the inverse or something like that.) and along with that procedures and set-up. These are the real math not just computation. This is really what “understanding math” is all about. But if the problem is set up right and the student knows approximately what the right answer is, the only reason not to use a calculator is so you can make the computational mistakes that the calculator never will. Well, maybe we could include being stranded on a desert island without a calculator too, but all those are very unlikely events.