Tracy Ashbridge
Mathtastic is an off the shelf intervention for teaching number sense. A book for Learning Support Teachers as an intervention at Tier 2 and 3 for students requiring additional support learning number sense skills. The book has an explicit teaching section plus lots of games and activities to practice the skills to fluency. Mathtastic Level 1 focuses on teaching numbers 1-610i. The concepts of addition and subtraction are taught and practiced through both and worded problems and number-based. Foundation Level precedes this book and Levels 2 & 3 follow on from this and are also available for purchase.Each module can be used as a lesson or can be split over several lessons depending on the time you have available and the speed the student works through the number sense strategies. Lesson components:Thinking problems - these are designed to be open ended and challenge the student to think mathematically. Subitizing - this is the skills of recognising a set of objects without counting and is a key skill which is not always established in students with difficulties in maths.Counting patterns and objects - students need to develop a sense of the number line. Number sense - each session there is a different focus working through the 8 areas of number sense. These are explained and modelled before applying the number sense concept to problems. Games - many students with math difficulties can get anxious about maths and practicing the skills through games is a less threatening way to gain the repetition they need. The games have been chosen to specifically practice the skill in focus and also allow for reasoning skills. Word problems - students need to apply their knowledge in problems. In the Foundation Level only addition: part part whole and joining are taught. For subtraction only separate result unknown is taught, Number problems - each session there are number problems related to the focus area and spaced retrieval of focus areas is included.
