For many children and young adults with whom we work, it is summer. For our families in the Southern Hemisphere school has recently resumed, but there will be those rather long school breaks. Parents often question what to do with these “breaks” and vacation times so that they really feel like fun and are rejuvenating.

There are some very basic rules here. If you stop doing something and your child rapidly forgets what they have learned, then that isn’t a good idea. When you resume working with your child, you will find that you then have to waste a lot of time reteaching what they had already learned before the break. Whether it is mobility, vision, speech, cognition or academics, if you are going to lose ground, don’t skip the activity! This applies most obviously to math. Reading is also an area, with our beginner readers in particular, where if you don’t use it you lose it. Having to start all over again with math or reading is really discouraging.

If you just moved up in processing or knee walking, crawling or creeping don’t stop now! Mobility can be done anywhere as long as you have a few things that you might need, a yoga mat, a blanket, an incline or a beach, there are ways to adapt to get these critical activities done without just staying home.

The most portable activity of all time is auditory processing. This take-anywhere, do anytime activity can just be rolled in with whatever is going on as long as the child is awake and alert. Get your inspiration from your environment. Whether it is numbers and letters from car license plates or colors you see in the woods around you, objects they can see at your vacation spot, or ingredients in your special meals, processing is adaptable.

So how do we make this work so that the children don’t feel like they are missing all the fun, and we are gaining improvements and not sliding backwards? Actually, it is really easy. We input review information quickly. We ask for brief output and we keep moving. This works well with math and sight words. It is fast and fast is pretty fun.

With my granddaughter, I love to show her a word card just for a moment and take it away. It always makes her laugh and she almost always gets the word correct after thinking for a minute. There are many ways to turn these fast reviews into play. We’ve had parents who had the children bounce a ball on a word and say it or squirt a water gun at a word the parents asked them to find. Words are portable, so take them wherever you go.

Reading is a fantastic activity whether you are reading to your child or he or she is reading with or to you. If you are traveling, you can read about where you are going. If you are enjoying a holiday, you can read about that. Funny books are great for breaks, funny poetry books or joke books are great for breaks as well. Reading books that you, the parent, love will make the summer or holiday more special for you and your child. Nothing makes a trip better than books on audio so don’t forget those!

Many parents and children agree that math is definitely not fun. Fortunately, there are plenty of math fact games and math operation games that make output a bit more interesting. I have had several parents do a very high-intensity strategy with math facts and greater than or less than. Using some very valued food snacks, the child is presented with either a math fact or a greater than or less than question. If the child gets the wrong answer, the parent eats some of the snack, if the child is correct, he or she gets to eat the snack. That’s high intensity.

When there are program activities to be done that don’t lend themselves to fun, check with your coach for ideas and also look at getting much of the program done early in the day, leaving the rest of the day to feel more like leisure time. During those times look for opportunities to do things you don’t normally do or go places that you don’t typically go. Uniqueness and novelty are good for all of us. It engages our attention, stops rumination and opens up opportunities for wonder and discovery.

I often hear parents refer to program as work. In many ways it is work for us and for the children. I would like you, however, to present it as an opportunity rather than work. It is an opportunity to win, to do something better today than you have ever done it before now. It is an opportunity to have a reason to celebrate. It is an opportunity to reach a goal that you have set. If we want children and young adults to feel empowered, we help set very short-term goals that are reachable. Each time a goal is reached, it reinforces to the child and to you that this progress is something you can achieve.

Today I talked with a mom whose child followed a one-step verbal direction that she had never been given before and this was a huge triumph. This turning point with a child demonstrating an understanding of language and a verbal direction for the first time was achieved through months of effort and determination. It was a victory and opens the door to many other victories to come. The brain is able to change through, you know the line, frequency, intensity and duration of the right input. So, it is not about breaks but about input.

There is another key feature of vacations and holidays, they offer opportunities to show off to other people. Whether your child is showing that he can now creep to his cousins or showing his grandmother how he can pick picture cards, read sight words or name things in a book, this is a wonderful opportunity for your child to get some high intensity, positive feedback and encouragement. It will do you good too as it rewards you to show others the gains that your child is making.

Childhood and young adulthood are wonderful times and we all have great memories of our summers and our holidays. Let us help you adapt what needs to continue to be done to suit your situation. After all, your child and your family are unique, and we endeavor to adapt the program to that uniqueness. We also have decades and decades (in my case decades, decades, and decades) of experience making program activities efficient, effective and often quite fun.

We share your impatience for success and improvement. In order to achieve this, we need continuity of input for sure. This input can often be done quickly. This input is often portable, and this input can sometimes be done while doing other things. So do not feel that you must either abandon your program entirely because you are on a break or struggle through it the same way you have always done. We are really here to help, just an email away. We have not only our own ideas and suggestions, but also the many, many great ideas that parents have shared with us over the years.

Summer breaks and holiday breaks are wonderful times when we can spend more time together as a family doing fun and relaxing things. Working together, we can help you find ways to incorporate what needs to get done with the things you hope to do. I encourage you to share your summer and holidays with us by posting on our Facebook page about your progress, your fun times and your wonderful child. Please stay in touch with your coach so that we can help make this your best summer or break ever.

Reprinted by permission NACD Newsletter, June 2019 ©NACD

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Free with your NACD membership

NACD Math was designed not only to teach children how to do math, but also to help them learn that math is easy, that they are good at math, and to enjoy it.

NACD Math is now made available online for our NACD clients through the NACD Family Portal. The new updated NACD Math replaces Modular Math, as well as supplemental math books.

Lyn Waldeck and Sara Erling, along with John McCallum, have been working for the last two years to bring together the pieces of NACD Math. NACD Math is targeted for the special needs population, particularly for those children with Down syndrome, those on the autism spectrum, and children with learning disabilities who have historically had difficulty with math. The program has also been used with great success for typical children to establish initial math concepts and to teach them math processes from initial number and quantity concepts through sixth grade computation.

NACD Math has a long history of development and has been used with thousands of children internationally.

Math education for special needs children has been an issue, except for those who have been using Bob Doman’s Modular Math program. The reason our program has been so effective is that it is built around how children learn, whether they are on the spectrum, have Down syndrome, or simply are young. Historically math instruction requires a lot of words. A lot of words are not something any of these children process or understand well. Our math program is very visual and teaches the child just one step at a time; and it is designed to avoid the need for, or dependency on, prompts.

NACD Math has been designed so that virtually anyone can teach it. The program incorporates video step-by-step instruction, so the teacher, parent, or even a sibling can watch a short video and then replicate/teach the simple steps. Each math computational process builds on the previous processes, creating simple transitions from one process to the next.

NACD Math has permitted many hundreds of children with Down syndrome to start learning math even before their typical peers and often to stay ahead of them for many years. With the solid NACD Math foundation, children with DS have been able to move into algebra and higher math. To say that NACD Math has been helpful for this population is a gross understatement; it has been a game changer. NACD Math builds a math foundation and understanding that has permitted special needs children to advance into higher math and has established a foundation for typical children that gets them off to a running start and puts them way ahead of their peers.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 31 No. 10, 2018 ©NACD

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To Get Started with the NACD Program,
please visit our NACD Get Started page

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Three Sets of Concepts

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Video Instructions for the Parent or Instructor

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Handouts with Examples of Each Concept

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To Get Started with the NACD Program,
please visit our NACD Get Started page

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We love hearing from our past and present families. It’s always tough for us when we graduate a child, seeing them move on, full of expectation and hope, and hopefully armed with a solid foundation. We always appreciate hearing from the families and learning how they fared.

We just received this note from Charles Smith and Marilyng Perez Montero regarding their daughter Ilaria. I recall meeting Ilaria and her family for the first time. Ilaria was a very sweet, quiet, well-mannered 10-year-old who lacked confidence and who came to us with a combination of processing issues, academic problems, and physical strength and coordination challenges. She was very anxious to do what she needed to do to better herself, and her parents were obviously dedicated to doing all they could do to make it happen.

Ilaria’s family was very organized and hit her program running and started seeing changes almost immediately. The family kept in close contact with me through their coach, Marta Palmes, and worked not only hard, but smart. The plan from the beginning was to keep Ilaria home and do NACD homeschool, get her “pieces” put together, and then to have her go back to school. Ilaria was with us for less than 18 months, but we were delighted to see her transform into a confident and capable young lady in that relatively short period.

When Charles, Ilaria’s dad, asked me if I thought Ilaria was able to handle going back to school, I told him that I felt she was; but when he told me where he wanted her to go, I was a bit concerned. He wasn’t going to just send her to school, he wanted her to go to a very challenging, tough academic school. I should not have worried. I will let Dad’s words speak for how she has done.

Congratulations, Team Smith!

—Bob Doman

Dear Marta [at NACD],

I am writing to inform you of our daughter Ilaria’s achievement of a 4.0 GPS her first year in middle school and being recognized as a recipient of the President’s Education Awards Program—all this less than six months after graduating from the NACD program. It is a momentous achievement and I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you and Bob Doman for all the efforts you have contributed on behalf of Marilyng, myself and Ilaria.

Your support during the design and implementation of Ilaria’s NACD program has been nothing short of overwhelming. Needless to say, without your and Bob’s expertise, input and encouragement, Marilyn and I would never have been able to achieve success in carrying out the program with Ilaria.

As you may recall, we were introduced to Bob Doman and NACD in the Summer of 2016. I was doing some research online for organizations that could assist our 10-year-old daughter, Ilaria, whom had been officially diagnosed as having a “learning disorder”. Ilaria was falling behind in mathematics as well as English and was lacking in physical strength and coordination.

We had tried a number of different private companies and public resources but did not feel any were right for Ilaria’s circumstances. Some were very expensive, and others did not provide the personalized attention we felt was necessary. Fortunately, I came across Bob’s name along with NACD when I was reading reviews by a client of one of the private companies we were meeting with. That day changed our lives!

After watching the online videos of Bob explaining how a child’s brain develops and why it is important to use teaching methods that take into account, we made contact with NACD. My wife and I were very excited to work with Bob and create a personalized development program for Ilaria.

We started implementation of the program in July 2016 and found that your input and weekly support was invaluable. In addition to your encouragement and support you greatly assisted us with the practical implementation of the program. I can distinctly remember your suggestion of creating an excel spreadsheet to keep track of and monitor the daily activities and progress of the program. This helped us tremendously.

Ilaria made steady progress throughout the remainder of 2016 and through the first half of 2017. In august of 2017, she started 6^th grade at a new middle school considered to be one of the most academically challenging schools in Florida. By the end of the first semester in December, she had achieved the honor roll during both quarters and finished with a 3.6 GPA. It was at that time, during her December evaluation with Bob, that he informed her she had successfully graduated from the NACD program.

The NACD program along with the support from yourself and Bob changed our lives and gave Ilaria the confidence to believe in herself and achieve her goals of making the honor roll in her first year of middle school. Thank you very much!

NACD Newsletter, October 2018 ©NACD

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Teaching your child how to use estimation in math can significantly improve his learning curve. Estimation can increase the rate at which your child learns math facts, improve math conceptual development, and increase the overall intensity, and therefore impact, of math instruction. Estimation also provides a means for assessing his knowledge of math facts, as well as his understanding of math concepts. If your child is unable to make an estimation with a specific math function or operation, such as with fractions, then he probably does not understand the concept. Estimation is valuable for every child, whether learning single digit addition or calculus. Estimation is also a valuable tool for the development of visualization and conceptualization skills.

The process of teaching your child to estimate involves plenty of input and feedback. Before a child does a math problem, ask her, “What do you think the answer is going to be?” Have her estimate the answer and write that number above the problem. After she has completed the problem, discus how close she came with the estimation and how she might have approached it differently or better.

If your child is just beginning basic addition or subtraction, permit him to do whatever he likes, including using his fingers at first; but very quickly discourage the use of his fingers, and have him attempt to do the estimation mentally. After he has estimated the answer, have him calculate the problem in the normal way. After calculating the answer, then he should compare it to his estimation. If the answer is the same as the estimation, congratulate him or, if necessary, reward him with tokens or some other reinforcement. If he was close, give your child appropriate feedback, such as, “Well done, you were really close. I bet next time you can get it.” Feel free to cue him with such things as, “I think you know this one. Remember, two plus three is……” If it is a simple problem that he could know as a fact, encourage him to remember the fact. When you are comfortable that he has learned a fact, and his estimation is consistently correct, reward him by telling him that he got it correct and does not need to go through the process of calculating the answer. If his estimation is way off, encourage him to really think about the answer and not just guess. You can also teach your child to do such things as rounding. You do not want to provide this level of feedback and input on every problem. Be discerning and use it when you feel it is appropriate. But encourage him to use estimation on every problem, with the exception of very new processes that you are just introducing.

An important lesson often not learned well by students is that math makes sense; it is not just an unintelligible series of steps or procedures. The process of creating an estimation helps math make sense.

In order for your child mentally to go through the estimation process, he will either need merely to access a math fact (if he is doing basic arithmetic), or use visualization (thinking in pictures) or conceptualization (thinking in words). As your child develops estimation skills, he is learning when and how to apply the most effective and efficient tool for the situation, as well as how to move back and forth between visualization and conceptualization with ease. For instance let’s take an example that involves rounding. To add 298 and 403 in an efficient way using this process (certainly not the only way) you could think the following: 298 is almost 300 (conceptualization), and 403 is just a little more than 400 (conceptualization); so 300 plus 400 is 700 (visualization). 700 would be a good estimation, but if processing is high enough, you can take it another step: 298 is only two less than 300 (conceptualization), and 403 is three more than 400 (conceptualization). Three minus two is one (visualization or conceptualization), so the actual answer is 701. To help you understand these applications, go through the example and try visualizing when conceptualization was indicated and vice versa. It can certainly be done, but for most people it would be more difficult. Your personal strengths and weaknesses and sequential processing skills generally determine how you approach such problems. If you were unable to go through the process at all, please give our office a call, order Simply Smarter, and have someone get you on our evaluation schedule.

In terms of applying math to real-life situations, estimation becomes critical because you are often dealing with situations where you do not need actual answers nor have the means to get the actual answer. For example, if you are walking into a grocery store with $50 in your pocket and are buying groceries for a family of four, you had better be able to estimate or else face serious embarrassment when you get to the checkout with a full cart and insufficient funds.

As someone who is responsible for operating an organization, I am acutely aware of how easily a bookkeeper or accountant can miss-enter a number or put a decimal in the wrong place. When your child is working on higher-level math and using a calculator, he easily can make the same mistakes, and if he has not estimated the answer, he is going to miss unnecessary errors. Such errors can be significant if they were to occur during a major exam or on an SAT test. If I were unable to look at the big picture, get the concept, and estimate, many serious errors would go unnoticed.

Teaching your child to use estimation can make the difference between a bored poor math student and an excited superior math student. It can also help produce those rare anomalies: children who love math and by extension, love such amazing things as physics. But of even greater importance, estimation teaches your child not only how to think, but to think. We always need more people who can think.

Reprinted by permission of The NACD Foundation, Volume 22 No. 3, 2009 ©NACD

The post Estimation: How to Accelerate the Learning Process with Math and Build Visualization and Conceptual Skills Simultaneously appeared first on NACD International | The National Association for Child Development.