Sharon Wells Math Curriculum

[Guest guest]

My son is 9 years old with high-functioning autism and sensory processing disorder. He is currently mainstreamed in a third grade class. The school uses the Sharon Wells Math Curriculum. My son has failed math for the second six weeks with a 60 percent. He has had consistent problems with this curriculum since the beginning of school, especially with the UPSE portion of the curriculum having to do with word problems. An aquaintance of mine has an autistic son, also in the third grade at the same school, but in a different class. He is also having difficulty with this curriculum. A lot of steps are involved to solve one problem. My son either skips steps, or puts numbers in the steps that aren't in the problem. He says it's too much work. I tend to agree. He usually comes up with the wrong answer.We have reduced the number of steps from 13 to seven. He is still lost.Currently, Wells has contracts with 180 school districts in Texas. No textbook is available.

Teachers are sent to classes to learn the curriculum. Then the curriculum is taught using an Elmo or a more advanced overhead projector. I'd like to converse with parents of other autistic students who are having the same difficulties with this curriculum to see what modifications or strategies have worked for you.Let me tell you, I'm 36, and this isn't like what we were taught in school. Every problem that goes up on the overhead in class is straight from the TAKS test. Hope to hear from you all soon.

[Guest guest]

I am not sure if my son's school uses this curriculum or not, but they use this "window pane" method of solving word problems that is just crazy. I started as a math major in college and I really struggled with this method! It is basically: 1) what is the question asking, 2) what are the variables, 3) something to do with the values of the variables AGAIN, 4) the answer - showing all work. Steps 2 and 3 seemed very redundant to me and I can't imagine having 7 or 13 steps!

They started this in 2nd or maybe even 1st grade. My son, like yours, is in mainstream 3rd grade currently. He failed miserably at this method but he did usually get the answer correct. His earlier math teachers said it was okay to modify the tests so that he would not have to do this window pane method as long as he showed his work in equation form. He still struggles with what the question is actually asking but has really improved on whether he is supposed to add, subtract, etc. One thing that helped was one sheet of paper with key words and what they translated into. For example, ADDITION is: and, in all, together, earned, received; SUBTRACTION is take away, gave away, ate, spent, compare. It is still quite a struggle and we spend at least an hour each night doing homework. Just remember that they can modify the TAKS by giving him more time, having someone read the questions to him, and

probably some other things I don't know about yet.

Good luck!

Subject: Sharon Wells Math CurriculumTo: Texas-Autism-Advocacy Date: Monday, November 24, 2008, 2:12 PM

My son is 9 years old with high-functioning autism and sensory processing disorder. He is currently mainstreamed in a third grade class. The school uses the Sharon Wells Math Curriculum. My son has failed math for the second six weeks with a 60 percent. He has had consistent problems with this curriculum since the beginning of school, especially with the UPSE portion of the curriculum having to do with word problems. An aquaintance of mine has an autistic son, also in the third grade at the same school, but in a different class. He is also having difficulty with this curriculum. A lot of steps are involved to solve one problem. My son either skips steps, or puts numbers in the steps that aren't in the problem. He says it's too much work. I tend to agree. He usually comes up with the wrong answer.We have reduced the number of steps from 13 to seven. He is still lost.Currently, Wells has contracts with 180 school districts in Texas. No

textbook is available. Teachers are sent to classes to learn the curriculum. Then the curriculum is taught using an Elmo or a more advanced overhead projector. I'd like to converse with parents of other autistic students who are having the same difficulties with this curriculum to see what modifications or strategies have worked for you.Let me tell you, I'm 36, and this isn't like what we were taught in school. Every problem that goes up on the overhead in class is straight from the TAKS test. Hope to hear from you all soon.