Mathematics

          Math is the first subject I teach each day. This has been my practice for many years, since many of my young students' minds are tired after lunch. Manipulatives are readily available for students, especially students with special needs. I use manipulatives to introduce and reinforce math skills. My students love when we play math games, such as "Go Fish Money" or "I Have Who Has". Cooperative learning has been effective in my classroom. Often, I overhear students helping or trying to "teach" their peers the concepts. I also pair a high achieving student with a low performing peer for five minutes of flash cards of basic addition and subtraction facts. Students enjoy this time together and they are very supportive of one another. In addition, with every concept I try to address different learning styles with a variety of instructional deliveries and practices.
        My school does not offer an instructional intervention for math. We put a huge focus on reading, while math does not seem to get the same attention. I would love to see a program to address ways to improve recall and retention of math facts, especially in the younger grades. I have not taught my students to self-monitor in math. This is definitely an area that I need to improve. Many students struggle to solve word problems. My modeling and teaching is not always enough for some students.
      I would love to have a support system for a math intervention program at our school. Sharing my concerns with the administrative team may put this into action. I must educate myself on effective ways to teach students to self-monitor strategies. The book offers some good suggestions and one I plan to revise for my autistic student to help him self-monitor his self control issues. I LOVE the SRSD five-step process for solving one-step addition and subtraction word problems (p. 214). This would have to be something that I would need to teach, model, and practice regularly for students to gain the confidence to use it independently. Some students would benefit from having the steps posted on their desk during math instruction.