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and third in line, and who
is standing between whom."31 Many New Zealand teachers,
however, find this approach is tied far too closely with Piaget's developmental
"timetable", and that much better results can be achieved by a variety of
even earlier hands-on projects, including variations of the Montessori program.
Computerized catch-ups
Other intermediate schools have found great success by
using the international Technic Lego program. Others are also using some of the
excellent computer math programs that are now readily available. Among the best are those
pioneered by the Computer Curriculum Corporation, based on years of research at Stanford
University in California, not just for math but for a wide variety of subjects.
And in China, Clever Software Company has developed CD-ROM Computer
Tutor programs to guarantee school examination success.
The SEED mathematics program
In the United States, the best non-computer catch-up
mathematics program we have seen is called SEED: Special Elementary Education for the
Disadvantaged.32
In Dallas, Texas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and
Oakland, California, teachers using the SEED method have been successfully teaching
advanced high school mathematics to ten-year-old African-American children, from
low-income families, who only a few months before were up to two years behind in math.
Three other
"medical-educational" programs
This is not a book on medical problems, but no survey of effective catchup methods would be complete without reviewing three
programs with strong "medical-educational" links.
Program one
is the method developed by Glenn Doman and his team in Philadelphia at The
Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential to assist children with severe brain
damage. Following on from the pioneering work of Professor Temple Fay, Doman's team
has effectively taught many blind children to see, deaf children to hear, and handicapped
children to perform at "normal" levels: by physically "repatterning"
other parts of the brain to take over from damaged cells and sections. His breakthrough
book, What To Do About Your Brain-Injured Child, is as
Contents Page Preface
Introduction
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