I'm Awesome!

A fantastic morning with my daughter. We worked on adding 6 lots of numbers using Numicon (check out www.numicon.and worked out by fitting the 9-shape with other numbers you could clearly see that to fit in other numbers the gap in the 9 needed to be filled, so just meant that to add other numbers to 9 you just took off a unit - so 9+8=1 7 9+6= 1 5 9+9= 1 8 etc AND

then worked out that likewise the 11 shape has an extra 'bit' so that meant it added on an extra unit so..

11+8= 1 9 11+5= 16 11+7= 18 etc!

My daughter had never been able to do these sums before and always counted up on her fingers; a technique encouraged in School's but my pet hate (if we start relying on our fingers, we find it hard to trust our brains!). Within a short time she had mastered the technique & understood WHY it worked (important for a dyslexic brain as they ALWAYS need things proved & cannot really 'do' abstract). Before she had always counted up on her fingers which took time & she ineviteably counted too far on, got confused, tried again, got frustrated and just thought she was rubbish (yet again!)

This way, she got it, and she jumped around the room, opened the door & shouted to the neighbours,

'I'M AWESOME!'

Hell, yes!!!