Mitheracy

In an effort to integrate math across classes, two School for the Blind teachers, Grace Gundel, elementary literacy, and Jerred Sonneborn, elementary math, have come up with creative ways to make the math class's graphing unit extend into literacy class. Every morning, Grace's students come into her literacy class expecting to partake in literacy experiences for 90 minutes. For the past month, they have been… but with a twist.

Grace created a daily question for which her students cast votes, with a tactile manipulative. The question changes daily and is incorporated into their morning independent work. This activity gives students the opportunity to practice reading as well as solidify their understanding of graphing information in various ways. There are two types of questions displayed each day. The questions either have a yes/no answer, or two actual answers.

As Jerred teaches the graphing basics and extends the students’ understanding of how to interpret and graph information, they come to Grace's class to reinforce this concept in a simpler way, most of the time without even realizing it! When working with students affected by visual impairments and blindness, graphing can be a very abstract concept for them to understand. By incorporating it across their day, Jerred and Grace have begun to make the idea of graphing less daunting. The students have loved the integration across the classes and have begun referring to it as, Mitheracy.