Browsing by Author "Peltomäki, Satu"

The teaching materials and the teaching around them is meant to benefit all the pupils equally. For this to be possible, the teaching ought to be studied in a versatile manner from several points of view. There is little research of teaching mathematics for primary pupils with mental retardation. The existing research for the most part emphasizes in teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication and division skills for children with mild mental retardation. There is also not very much finnish research about mental retardation. Mathematics is more difficult for children with mental retardation as opposed to children with normal cognitive abilities. Children with mental retardation need as much support as possible when it comes to core numerical skills to get by in our society, where mathematical problem solving is an everyday necessity. This research presents effective characteristics in the teaching of mathematics for primary school pupils with mental retardation and actualising the characteristics in practice. The research assignment is for studying how the characteristics are actualized and which characteristics emphasize in the partaking class. This research was carried out with the help of structured observation in a class for children with mental retardation. The participants of the research were as follows: a special education teacher, two teaching assistants and five boys from the fifth grade. The research material was gathered together by video recording eight math lessons by different lengths and filling out observation sheets. The observation sheets were made in accordance of theory in the field of this research. Six effective characteristics of the teaching of mathematics were formed by examining different studies. The characteristics were as follows: directions for understanding, teaching step by step, direct and detailed directions, skill level and readiness consideration, meaningful and interesting teaching and immediate feedback. In the observed lessons the most emphasized characteristics were (in order) direct and detailed directions, skill level and readiness consideration and teaching step by step. From all the effective characteristics of teaching, a variety of different application examples were found.