As an Orton-Gillingham trained reading specialist, I stay affiliated w/ the IDA (formerly named after Orton) so I’ve gotten their conference program. They know how to do stuff… it’s a Big Hotel Conference that doesn’t reek of corporations. The ads are mostly schools which have helped so many people become successful that yea, they have endowments…
THere’s a half-day symposium on “Mathematical Literacy.” It’s got six speakers: first a general “specific symptoms of dyslexia that impact learning and the acquisition of skills.” Then a session about a grades 1-6 school for kids w/ dyslexia & doing multisensory math, and then another similar school…
Then Jen McAleer is going to talk about (yay!) that awful tendency to take folks struggling with math and break things down into little capsules of procedures and remove the problem-solving. At Carroll School, they have software. (These sessions don’t have the “disclosure” statement that others do when it might kinda be a “product” session.) It’s “symphony math” — two-man team who’ve gotten big ol’ grants to develop interactives. Their guides are online so a person can see a lot about the program and yes, yes, it *does* have good visuals 🙂 It also focuses on “Big IDeas” and… oh, it doesn’t look ridiculously childish. Oh, and BIG TIME Multiple representations, on purpose. No idea how popular it is… or its price, or whether it’s used as instructional or supplemental material.
Of course… it’s “designed for Younger STudents. ” However, I’m thinking that might be mainly for marketing since it does seem to go pretty far in those concepts…and addresses them as concepts, not multiple guess skills.
Finally, Chris Woodin talks about math at Landmark — specifically middle school.
So big idea for me: okay, in this category people don’t seem to have to be super-published folks with a history of speaking at conferences… that like my attempt at OER intro… demand exceeds supply. I suspect math for older students who are totally behind just doesn’t have a supply and maybe this is where we need to go for people who’ll back our explorations.
Categorizing this “Possible” — and now, getting back to ‘necessary…’
Resource Room Dot Net Blog 
Posted on August 17, 2017
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