Hi,
I read Lori’s Visualization and Math post this am. It was very helpful to me because my d’s p/t conference last night focused alot on math. She has always shown good math sense, but place value and fractions in second grade are starting to throw her. I suspect I am fortunate in that her teacher encourages lots of manipulatives, likes to see a messy worksheet showing how work was done, encourages different roads to the answer. So far so good with respect to teacher’s philosophy. But my d needs more practice with manipulatives, and I am supposed to encourage her to draw quadrants on the page and section the problem into different quadrants? Ok, I can see my way to that. Also, we are beginning simple vision therapy exercises at home because the opthamologist found very jerky saccades. Teacher thinks the vision thing is contributing to math issues.
I read reviews here of Math U See and checked it out and ordered Alpha. D still uses fingers to count at times. But here’s my query. What is VV program? I think visualizing would really hit home with her. I am also a verbalizer visualizer like Victoria and ancient greek was really easy in college. I think that I have made a mistake and I just assumed my D was visualizing math because that’s what I do. But the types of mistakes her teacher showed me last night make me think my d wasn’t visualizing. I would like to help her in this regard. Can you clear up this VV program and tell me how to order it?
Thanks, thanks, Holly
P.S. I come from a publishing background and this BB is so good, that I feel like you have a book or at least substantial magazine article in here somewhere. I just don’t know how you’d get it out. This really is the underground guide to really make sure your kid is learning what they need to thrive later in life. It seems to me that lots of kids hit stumbling blocks, large or small, at some point. As much as Mel Levine or Sally Shaywitz, you are the ones on the front lines, fixing the kids up.
Re: Visualization and Math II
I really like Math U See and feel it deals with the visualization very well. You might like reading the On Cloud Nine manual as it has some additional ideas/concepts. It is in no way a full math program. However, it has some very neat concepts that can be worked in.
—des
writing about special needs
Holly,
I am a special ed. teacher with a journalism background. I haven’t written in a while and am interested in starting again. I have a number of story ideas for articles that I think parents of children with special needs would like. Do you have any recommendations as to whom I should approach with a query? I’ve been thinking of sending query letters to family magazines like Parenting. Do you think this is a good place to start? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks : )
Re: Visualization and Math II
Holly — for one of my clients I needed some academic-type backup for the recommendations I’m making so she can get funding. So I did a pretty extensive search of the LD In Depth page. Wow, lots of good stuff there. Go and read as many of the articles on math teaching as you can take. Save them down and refer to the ideas later. The hows and whys of how kids learn, what methods are appropriate and wahta are dead ends, all sorts of good stuff. Come back and ask me any time for nitty-gritty what to do next kind of advice.
Re: Visualization and Math II
Thank you Beth, Des, and Victoria.
RFuller- What an interesting background. Yes, the parenting magazines are a good start. Send out queries, but I’d stick with the top tier. You want to establish yourself as the voice in this media, if you have the background. I’d send a couple of sample articles and include a list of future articles you are interested in writing. Maybe with tie ins to books and articles currently out. For example, most parents buy S. Shaywitz’s book AFTER their kids are having problems reading. You can identify early warning signs for reading problems to come and refer the reader to shaywitz’s book. Also, if you are pursuing this path in multiple media, your success may be more assured, i.e., a book and a radio show where you answer questions. Think Vicki Iovine: book, syndicated radio, and magazines. Vicki is very witty and has established herself as a voice in her niche — “desperate parent needs advice and a good laugh along with it” Vicki is actually even funnier in person as I dealt with her when I was at Simon & Schuster. As for a book, write a table of contents, Intro and sample chapter and send to editors and agents dealing with this field. But you want trade publishing, I would think, not scholarly, as you want to reach a mainstream audience, not grad students only. Go to your public library and get Literary Marketplace, reference, not for check out, and get names of editors and agents in this field. Their specializations are often noted.
Good luck, and feel free to ask more questions. I have private messaging here if you prefer. I had actually created a much longer post reply to you this am, because I have several ideas about how this subject is becoming more mainstream and timely, but lost the WHOLE thing because I forgot to log in beforehand and the post turned into an invalid session.
Holly
Thanks!
Holly,
Thanks so much for the great advice! I’ve taken a while to get back to you because I’ve been especially busy at work these days. My vacation starts tomorrow so I will definitely private message you to discuss more about writing for parents. Looking forward to talking to you. : )
VV is visualizing and verbalizing. It is a Lindamood Bell program. You can find their website by searching. They sell books and have workshops. They also run tutoring centers. They also have a program call On Cloud Nine that is specifically for visualization and math but you need to do some VV first. OCN is easy to follow for an untrained parent, I think.
There is also a program called Mindprime which is a more scripted (and thus more expensive) version of VV. Some parents prefer it to VV for that reason. I don’t have either so can’t comment.
I would also use lots of manipulatives. She may make the transition to visualizing with just lots of practice at her age. Second grade is pretty young for fractions (we’re struggling in fourth right now!!).
Beth