Technology for 'Ritin' 'Rithmatic

Parents and educators frequently ask me to suggest technological solutions for writing out math for students with cerebral palsy and others who cannot write with pencil and paper. I know their dilemma first hand. When I was young, I dictated math to my paraprofessional or my father. I could easily figure problems involving one or two digits in my head, but beyond that, it got a bit tricky.

Furthermore, dictating all the steps involved a great effort because of my speech impairment. I was fortunate that I had the ability to dictate at all. For many students, dictation is not even an option, unless they use an augmentative communication device.

Many students need a means to do math problems on the computer independently. Not only does doing one's own work foster self-confidence and improve acquisition of the targeted skills, but it also eliminates the question of whether the student is actually the one performing the computations.

Two programs on the market today give students an opportunity to work through addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems on the computer screen. Both programs help students with the physical tasks that make writing math so difficult--borrowing and carrying, showing remainders, and working with decimals. I wish Access to Math or MathPad had been available when I was young!

Access to Math by Don Johnston $79 Macintosh only

With Access to Math, teachers or parents create worksheets in two ways, by imputing problems of their own or by letting the program create problem sets. The style of equation (horizontal or vertical), display of regrouping, number of decimal places, and range of problem types can be specified. The program also has different background and foreground color combinations, so that the problems can be as easy as possible to read.

Access to Math includes one sample sheet each for addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division, plus 14 additional worksheets that test additional math standards, such as finding area, fractions, and data collection.

Once the problems are created, students can work them directly on screen and print them out. As the student enters answers, borrows, and carries numbers, the cursor automatically moves to the position the student needs it. For example, in the problem 95 - 37, if the student changed a 9 to an 8, the program would move back to the 5, so that it can be turned into 15.

Students can have the problem and/or the answer read aloud using Macintosh's built-in speech. Access to Math will also check student's answers, marking correct answers "OK" and outlining incorrect answers are in red. The student can also use text-to-speech to have the program indicate that the answer is correct or that the student has made an error.