Archive for June, 2015

Autism and Patterns?

Thursday, June 4th, 2015

Over these years, I’ve hears from countless mothers of children with ADHD who have shared their stories of their child’s success with my method. Recently, I have been hearing from mothers of children with autism.

Children with ADHD have an affinity for patterns. Patterns reveal the underlying structure and make the tables easy to learn. Autistic children also have an affinity for patterns and see connections that the rest of us might miss. Patterns make sense. Rote memorization, on the other hand, is boring and may seem nonsensical.

Growing up, I liked math and excelled in it. However, I chose to study literature. When my son balked at learning the tables through rote memorization, I knew there had to be a better way! Why not a new approach to the tables — one that would discover similarities and differences among the tables? I knew tables 2, 4, 6,and 8 would end in some combination of 2-4-6-8-0. Why not learn the tables for EVEN numbers first which are so easy to learn? Why not see the similarities between them? Tables for ODD numbers also have interesting patterns. Why not explore these and find similarities between them?

My goal in writing my workbook was not only multiplication mastery for all children but to instill in them a love of numbers and fascination with math. Discovering patterns is fun. Let me know how your child did with my method on the contact form of this blog.