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HOW TO OVERCOME DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING NUMERALS TO CHILDREN

  • Sibel Debruyn Erulgen
  • Jun 29, 2018
  • 3 min read

Teaching Numerals

3D Numerals created from Sculpy

Teaching numerals to children might sound very ordinary and relatively straightforward, but there is a subset of children for whom this is extraordinarily difficult to learn, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear.

In my experience, these children are generally of typical intelligence, are eager to learn, try to cooperate with the teacher, and display patience in that process.

But still I found they had a hard time to master this skill, so I set about trying to understand why this is the case, and how I could develop a method to teach them. I believe that teaching is a two-way street, and as teachers, we need to learn from the children in our care, as much as the children learn from us.

The typical approach in this situation is to force children to trace numerals over and over again, but I have found this tends to meet with a lot of resistance, and ultimately leads children to dislike math, so I steered clear of this approach.

I challenged myself to find a better, more enjoyable way to teach children this particular skill, so I started searching the literature for any references, but I found very little of relevance on this matter. What I saw, however, is that the learning of the concept of numbers and numerals is of enormous complexity when you look at it from the perspective of brain function. We still don’t know where the abstract idea of numbers is located in the brain. The fusiform gyrus is the part of the brain that recognizes the visual appearance of numbers and letters (V.S. Ramachandran’s book ‘A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness’ helped me in this process of discovery).

I began to suspect dyslexia as the cause of this problem and found that dyslexic children can more easily recognize letters and numbers if they are represented in three-dimensional shapes. I decided to make these shapes out of Sculpey, together with one of the children with this particular challenge. I mentioned to the child the actual number while making it and then taught the child numerals using Montessori’s Three Period Lesson Method. I found this approach worked – the child learned how to recognize numbers from 1 to 9 in one month, while I had worked unsuccessfully for six months with that same child, using sandpaper letters (even though he couldn’t earlier recognize numerals, he was always able to count numbers from 1 to 10, and bring me a specific number of objects, say five pencils. He also managed to sort items such as rods by length, so he had no issue with grading).

I had added one element to the first period of the Three Period Lesson, by having the child close his eyes, and feel the numerals, having to guess what the number was. This turned out to be very enjoyable for him, so the negative association he had started to make with all our previously unsuccessful attempts dissipated as a result.

I also wanted him to write the numbers, but then there appeared another obstacle - he couldn’t. I decided to give him different-sized numerals to trace, but realized that he tended to do this using different patterns. I therefore created new numerals out of Sculpey, flat ones with a groove that featured a starting point from which to begin. That allowed him to follow the groove in the numeral in exactly the same way every time. After a while, after I became certain he had developed the muscle memory associated with the numbers, I gave him a piece of paper, and the child managed to repeat the same movements on his own.

Tracing grooved 3D Sculpy numerals.

This might be an unusual challenge that teachers might not come across on a regular basis during their teaching career, but these home-grown applications could be useful in a Montessori environment if the teacher welcomes a child who already completed the sensitive period associated with technical sensitivity. As we know, during one of the sensitive periods associated with tactile sensing they are easily able to trace sandpaper numerals and letters repetitively and create robust muscle memory. Once they grow out of this period, it becomes really hard for them to do the repetitive movements needed to develop the muscle memory. I, therefore, use this method now with children who have grown out of this sensitive period and who have not yet mastered this skill.

I wish that as teachers we could work more closely with neuroscientists who could help us improve our teaching methods.

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© 2017 by Sibel Debruyn Erulgen

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