Since many of their students haven’t been in any kind of Pre K program, Kindergarten teachers are left wondering about the background of their students in the areas of reading and math, specifically numeracy development.
What happens if students can’t even visualize the word, let alone spell it inside out? We live in a “plugged in” culture, where students spend extended periods of time consuming visual images. This severely limits their visual memory or their ability to access and recall images and real-life situations that happened to them.
Ask kids what they had for dinner yesterday – they probably can’t remember! The ever-increasing amount of screen-time definitely has an adverse impact on students’ lives and it is quite damaging to their development of visual memory. Because visual memory has a profound effect on student development, we want it to be strong as we start to look at spelling.
An abacus can actually help students learn and practice many mathematical concepts in a very developmentally appropriate way for students in elementary school. Students can practice subitizing, conservation to a number, addition, subtraction, place value, multiplication, division, fractions, and even decimals!
The residents of Mathville help 1-5 grade students build a solid foundation of problem solving strategies.