Course Discussion: Module 3, Five is Prime

Core Curriculum The Abacus: A Million Manipulatives in Your Pocket
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Five is Prime

  1. What strategies will you use with current students when they are reading braille or large print worksheets? Do you have additional suggestions of strategies?

  2. Create an addition and subtraction problem for the purpose of teaching the complements of five. Be sure to include at least five single digits.

  3. A student completes the problem 4 + 15 + 9 + 21 and writes the answer 44 on the paper. Explain which common error the student made and how you would address this in your next lesson.

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  1. When using the abacus with braille, I have one student who likes to use the abacus on the right side and the math page on her left side. She does best when I help by rereading the questions out loud.

  2. 5 – 1 – 2 + 4 – 3 =

  3. The student forgot to set a 5 bead or possibly made a reading error. A good way to address this error is to give a verbal prompt about reading all the bead that are set. If it is an error in setting a bead, it would be good to go back and review that for a couple of problems at the beginning of the next lesson.

1 Like
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Hi Lynda,
I have found many students increase their proficiency when problems are oral instead of having to return to the braille or print page. Your problem is a great way to practice quite a few complements of five.

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  1. In the beginning I would like to know if they are “reading” the math equation accurately by having them say out loud what they are reading. Worksheets might have few math computations and then expand once the student has had success and feels comfortable.

2 6 - 3 + 4 - 5 + 6 =

3.The student might have read(felt) the lower beads and did not check the for beads in the upper part of the abacus. At this lesson it would be helpful to have this brought to the students attention and have them re-check the Abacus placement of the beads. If the student had already cleared the Abacus.Having them redo that one problem could be helpful at that time. The next lesson would focus on repetition of having math equations/answers with both upper and lower bead placements. Asking student prior to the lesson, what is important to remember from the last lesson.

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Your problem is a great way to practice quite a few complements of five.

I like your suggestion about having fewer math computations and then expanding.

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  1. With a low vision student I will use a video magnifier so the student can better watch their hands and placement as they work. I will also have the student hold a pen and write down their questions and answers as they go. For a braille reader, I will have the student use a brailler and braille handout. They will ideally put their handout on the left, their brailler in front, and their abacus behind their brailler. I like the idea of using a swivel chair for students who need more defined workspaces.
  2. 8+3+4-5+3 = 13
  3. Likely they forgot to look in the upper part of their abacus where they would have seen that there is a 5 bead set in the ones column. Next lesson I would emphasize that when reading your answer, always make sure to check the top and bottom of each column.
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Hi @appleton.thea
I found the swivel chair useful for several students - can be hard to convince the general education teacher at times because they are often thought of as ‘teacher chairs.’
Great problem to introduce a complement of 5 while also practicing the complements of 10.

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  1. I would allow them to:
    a. take their time reading the problem correctly and reorient to the beginning of the problem
    b. affix a marker (tactile/visual/) to indicate which problem the student is working on - if the student is using large print, I may provide the option to, instead, put a line guide or occluding sheet on the page to help with tracking
    c. place the large print page under a CCTV to allow for more comfortable viewing (which can also have the benefit of providing occlusion/a highlight line for tracking
    d. for braille use, emphasize maintaining one hand on the abacus and using the other hand for the worksheet
    e. work on building the skills of moving from the worksheet to the abacus to the paper/brailler in a setting that allows for trial and error to determine which setup works best for the student; once in the classroom, the student should be afforded the workspace to be able to work independently and efficiently
  2. 7 - 4 + 2 - 1 - 4 = 0
  3. The student missed the 5 bead in the one’s column; I would work on a few problems that have a 5 bead a part of the answer in both the ten’s and one’s columns and watch to see if the student’s hand is positioned too low to be able to reliably detect the 5 bead. It may be a fix as simple as moving the hand up half an inch to detect a 5 bead above the reckoning bar. After verbalizing and working on hand positioning, we would work on a few more problems to see if the mistake has been reliably corrected.
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Oops…I hit send before I answered 2 and 3. I tried to delete it, but cannot get it to work…
I love this idea of teaching the complements of 5. Interesting enough, the current 2nd grade math curriculum spends quite a bit of time on the 10 complements. It is called 10 partners. My student is now learning the addition facts of 5 and I have started using the abacus so he can use the beads to count to find the complement. This has been working well.
2. An addition and subtraction problem: 2 + 5 -3 + 6 -5=
3. He forget to include the 5 bead for the ones column. In the next lesson, I would create random numbers between 5-100 on the abacus using the 5 bead in just the ones, just the tens and then both until he is comfortable with reading those numbers.