I am a contracted district substitute teacher for grades K-8. My teacher education courses did not include anything about "touch math," a system used by some of the teachers for whom I sub. Is there a book available that I could acquire to teach this system to myself, and have as a reference?

Melinda

Hi Melinda,
There was a similar question sent to the Teacher Talk list at Math Central a few months ago. What follows is a reply from one of the Teacher Talk subscribers.

Go to http://www.touchmath.com for all the information you'll ever want on Touch Math. It's by a company called Innovative Learning Concepts, Inc. All I have is some photocopied stuff that our Title I teacher got years ago, but I found that URL by doing a net search. I would definitely only recommend it for remedial use. Unfortunately our school teaches it to ALL first graders. I teach 5th and 6th grade math and some of them come in still counting dots. Drives me crazy! But it definitely has its benefits for kids who are unable to add and subtract any other way. There is even a method for multiplication and division, but I'd say if you're bright enough to be able to use that, it would almost be easier to learn the math facts. The multiplication and division requires being able to count by 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's, etc.

Cheers
Harley