I was wonering if anyone had used the Stevenson and/or Semple math program. after seeing the PBS program last night about LD, I wanted to let people know about this approach. Both use mnemonics to get learners to develop visual cues, something that they can use and remember. Unfortunately, as teacher I have had only limited opportunities to use the Semple program but really see how both programs could benefit all learners to develop.
Re: programs for student w/learning disabilities
I’m only slightly familiar with those programs. Depending on the individual (always does!!) mnemonics have a built-in disadvantage in that they’re arbitrary. If you have trouble memorizing things it’s one more thing to memorize. The closer to analogous to the concepts they represent, the better the mnemonics are; I try to use concrete analogies whenever I can.
I think a structured, concrete-to-pictures-to-symbols with lots of practice building that bridge is the way to go — mnemonics could help.
Re: programs for student w/learning disabilities
This was one of the problems for my son!! He has memory weaknesses and for him it was just one more layer to memorize.
Beth
Reading Programs?
Just found these posts on Stevenson. This is the program used by our district. What would be a good program to use at home in conjunction with this. My son seems to be making a little progress, but not alot. Resource teacher says give the program time to work. Wonder how long that is???? I still am not seeing “mastery” on the report I receive with his report card. He is in Resource 45 min/d.
We used both. I didn’t like either. My son hated Stevenson. The Stevenson program teaches long vowels first which makes it difficult to read other things. Most of the reading is nonsense and for a concrete kid like mine that was very problematic. It is also very problematic for a kid who is mainstreamed for all other classes—they can’t read normal stuff. It also teaches to look to the vowels first–and for a kid with with tracking problems that is not good advice.
Semple was good in some ways. My son learned to add numbers to 10 for example very reliably. I hated the way they taught place value–kid, teenager ect.
I thought it was confusing and made the kids learn two ways of thinking about place value since noone else talks that way.
Beth